There doesn't appear to be much of a provision for technical delays. Six months is what it appears legislators believe is reasonable and fair, given the enormous resources at the disposal of these companies. Bear in mind that this legislation has been in deliberation since 15 December 2020. It would have been prudent for Gatekeepers to be making strategic product choices - and likely prototype builds - which comply with this outcome; at least for the EU.

Nonetheless, I anticipate teething problems, including some form of malicious compliance. The latter of which the EU tends to take a dim view.

Big companies like Apple are aware of these (proposed) laws long before they actually become law. Not having the foresight to not have something ready six months after it becomes law, is stupidly poor planning if true.

One could also argue that if it takes longer than 6 months to add something dictated by law, you simply have to implement it faster or accept the consequences.

I don't think companies this big has a lot of excuses for taking so long to implement things. They have thousands of employees they can shift from other projects (projects that doesn't decide if the phone is illegal or not) to implement urgent things like this.

> What if Apple claims implementing required feature X will take more than 6 months?

Then that will increase the implementation cost by at least (edit: up to) 10% of their global revenue.

Up to 10%*

Assuming they won't go with the maximum amount early on.

Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation I'd wager that the US would lean heavily on the EU to reach some kind of compromise. These companies aren't just big themselves, they also have the most powerful country on the planet willing to exert pressure to make them stay powerful. I'd be very surprised if Apple/Google/etc. ever paid 20% of global revenue even if they blatantly violate much of what the EU wants.

> Jumping to such colossal fines is probably an excellent way to annoy the US, too, and given the current security/economic/political/world/universe situation

The US military having bases in Europe is a mutually beneficial arrangement, not some sort of charity America is giving Europe. The US threatening to withdraw from those bases for the sake of Apple would be supreme stupidity. Not impossible, but supremely stupid. There are much bigger fish in this sea than a handful of tech companies, large as they are. Apple is a small drop in the bucket compared to the vast commercial and industrial scope of America's global priorities.

If the US was able to 'exert pressure', things would not come to this point. And no, the US is not the 'most powerful country on the planet'.

That would be really stupid. The fines are set by courts, not politicians. So by pressuring politicians the US just makes an enemy out of the EU without changing the verdict. Good thing though is that GDPR shows that most European courts try to keep fines low for offenders actin in good faith.

The US leveraging its immense economic and political power would be...really stupid? Do you think it doesn't do that? I'm confused. It does that all the time, and if I was a US citizen I would expect it to do just that, although obviously preferably in favour of consumers (which this legislation very possibly is, so to be clear I'm not saying it'd actually be a good thing if the US used its influence to water anything down).

It is very likely that it is much lower than that in the beginning of noncompliance, as long as they show that they are trying.