All of Berlin‘s district heating plants provide heat AND electricity. So the government owns a huge share of all electricity producers in this city now, too (about 60 % of the total production capacity).
Whether this constitutes a monopoly is beside the point. Berlin paid 1.4 billions is does not really have (after it sold it 20 years ago when it had even less money and could not sustain a profitable business operation) and which does not solve a problem we really have. And now it will need to invest even more money to future-proof this acquisition.
No, ads and toilets are separate in Berlin since 2019 [1]. Wall won the contract for the new Toilettenvertrag [2] by the city. The city says now what and where to build. Before that, toilets were only built where it was profitable for a billboard. Now the city can make the toilets even free [3] and the toilets are ad-free.
It is only purchasable if you install their software, can't just buy such a stamp on the website if I'm reading the page correctly?
I seem to remember Deutsche Post also had a thing you could just write on the letter, or maybe it was DHL's parcel service instead. Those were purchased simply online like any other product/service and, after paying, it told you what to write in the corner. Or maybe I misremember and they only have this system where you can take the pdf to a parcel shop and have them print your label.
There used to be a premium number you could send an SMS to. It was more expensive than a normal stamp to cover for the expensive billing.
"Handyporto" replaced this and that's probably also why you can't buy it on the website. Deutsche Post probably can't conceive of people who don't own a printer so they heavily advertise "Internetmarke" which requires one.
It used to be also a squared code consisting of 12 digits, you could receive via SMS to 22122, but this method is deprecated or already even terminated. Has anybody tested it recently?
More likely that the request for more information on this case from the EU commission to Apple triggered the walk back. At least the EU Commissioner for the internal market is happy about the reverse: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1766167580497117464
Yikes I hate that Thierry is using "#freefortnite". You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority. Epic is not some oppressed minority that needs saving.
> You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority.
The Digital Markets Act is all about profit-motivated businesses. It regulates markets, not charities. It's not anti-profit at all, just pro-competition, and Apple was attempting to stifle competition.
VisionOS is not consider a gatekeeper my the DMA, and despite the platform supporting it Valve has made no effort to expand their game store to Android. It is doubtful that they will work on an iOS game distribution platform.
"better"? You're giving Epic too much credit. Just see the Play Store competitors like Samsung or Huawei: Full of ads, and in general a terrible experience.
Isn't that the functional purpose of hashtags? So that people interested in a topic can find information about it? Wouldn't this tweet be highly relevant to people searching with that tag?
Every large company is, by nature, amoral. All the pro-social stances or whatever are generally just window dressing and PR. Individuals can be moral, but for-profit corporations past a certain size just are too abstract of an entity with too many people of competing interests to ascribe morality to. We shouldn't care about intentions, just whether they're doing something we agree with or not.
It's literally a Digital MARKETS Act. Markets are all about developing healthy profitable businesses. They certainly are not going to be bothered that Epic, a profitable business, wants a fair playing field to compete on.
It's not about Epic. It's about Apple wantonly violating EU laws. The target simply happened to be Epic.
That being said: it's probably a good thing it was Epic that Apple went after; Apple would probably have gotten away with going after a smaller company.
While the outcome as it stands might be okay, they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.
What's to prevent them from changing their mind and blocking Epic again? What if Tim Sweeney says something else to hurt Apple's feelings in the future? Apple has too much free rein over removing access to this market, and while it may be a market that Apple has made, the EU is clearly requiring Apple to open up the market for others with the only restrictions being those where the app store or the apps themselves are damaging to consumers in the marketplace.
> they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.
They almost certainly are, which is why the reasoning of EU’s predictable involvement was what triggered Apple’s reinstatement of Epic’s account seems dubious to me.
The news is a little bit short, but the objection to the first tests of their machines is, that in a case of emergency the current safety concept lacks measures to prevent the escaping of hydrogen fluoride (see the open letter in German by the Grüne Liga Brandenburg here: https://www.grueneliga-brandenburg.de/index.php?cat=2&pageID...). They claim that changes to this safety concept will require changes to the factory itself and this changes need to be implemented first, before Tesla can start with it's tests.
> 2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply to announcements made by the broadcaster in connection with its own programmes and ancillary products directly derived from those programmes, sponsorship announcements and product placements.
I don't know why you claim that smaller companies in the automotive sector in Germany don't have ununionzed workforces, but the IG Metall has a »Organisationsgrad« in this sector (how many of the workers are union members) above 90 percent (see https://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/gewerkschaften-die-u...).
That's a little bit complicated. Yes, the law behind German works councils (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz) only applies to workers employed in Germany (Territorial principle), but the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht) has ruled that international employees could also be govererned by the German works councils, if international employees are integrated into the German part of the company and are really depended on management in Germany (»„Ausstrahlung“ des Inlandsbetriebs« [1]). But it's a narrow definition.
But the law doesn't forbid applying agreements between the management and the works council (Betriebsvereinbarungen) to employees outside of Germany.
No, Berlin brought only the previously privatized district heating (Fernwärme) back (https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/05/berlin-fernwae...). Because that is a monopoly and Berliners got ripped off by a private company.