> This happens all the time.

Not only does it happen all the time, it's often the only way to sort out what legislation means in practice.

This made me think of the other recent case against Apple from Epic, where Apple's response to the court was essentially trolling. The judgement required Apple to allow apps to advertise outside marketplaces where users could purchase in-game items. So apple responded by allowing developers to apply to place exactly one text-only (non-hyperlink), static, reference to an outside payment source on one page in an app, and further added a new term that developers must also pay Apple 27% of all revenue from these off-site purchases.

I'm certain they have the best legal team that money can buy, but I'm equally certain that that legal team is under the sort of pressure that happens when a multinational corporation is looking at the prospect of possibly losing billions of dollars in zero-effort recurring profit. I also think these sort of behaviors are damaging their brand, which is certainly Apple's most valuable asset - which is to say that I think they're acting in an irrational way, because of the amount of money at stake.

Yeah, if you can afford normal lawyers they attempt to make the company comply with the law, if you can afford Apple lawyers they attempt to make the law comply with Apple’s interests. They will eventually implement something specific the EU tells them and receive a fine but for now it is worth trying it on and messing the EU around to try to water down what this law eventually means.

Note: while legislators can chose to accept lesser terms, "leave it" means they follow up with the legal repercussions for non-compliance. Apple's only "leave it" move would be pulling out of the EU, which is an unlikely response.

Apple will as shown here do their best to comply the least with the intent of the legislation, but it's up to the legislators if it is acceptable.

E.g., if notarization turns out to be used for central gate keeping by declining specific apps in the human review step or by using it to impede the process for apps intended for third-party stores, that would be a violation.

I think this fits the intent of EU regulators. The DMA is essentially a tariff on American tech companies. A European company could now fork android and have a locked down App Store with large fees, without complying with DMA (as it only applies to certain companies the EU does not like).

Remember that Meta actually followed GDPR law in terms of getting constent for personalised ads, and the irish courts even said that Meta was doing things legally, and then the EU courts decided Meta was actually doing illegal things, and fined Meta.

So there can be multiple layers to this, and ultimately I don't think the EU really works as a robust legal system any more, there are so many politically driven cases where the courts follow the politics not the law.