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Apple Fined By Italy For Misleading Customers About Warranty Terms
beaverdownunder writes "An Italian watchdog has fined Apple 900,000 euros ($1.2m, £750,000) for failing to inform Italian shoppers of their legal right to two years of technical support, recognizing instead only a one-year standard warranty. This had led people to pay extra for Apple's own support service, AppleCare, which overlapped with the government-mandated guarantee."
The EU protects consumer rights. American companies an the like need to get a clue. Try to avoid the gray areas instead of screwing the customer.
They have to be making a shitton of money on hardware. I bought a laptop from Sager last summer for $1100: 1920x1080 extended-gamut screen, quad-core Sandy Bridge processor, Geforce 555M, the works. Very nice machine. I wound up pricing those specs on Apple's website: you couldn't get a graphics card on par with the 555M for love nor money from Apple, and to get everything else it'd be around $2300.
The Apple machine has nicer speakers and that aluminium body, but beyond that -- Apple's got to be pocketing a large part of that $1200 difference.