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Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

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Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#2
I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#3
post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

I on the other hand enjoy having high taxes (i.e. good services) and lower wages while the US creates all the products I need and it is them who are on the brink of a civil war over inequality.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#4
post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

Perhaps it is an action boosting EU-based companies? Otherwise they are at a disadvantage in competition, because US-based Googles and Facebooks game the e.g. the tax system in a way that EU-based companies cannot.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#5
Those are the kind of regulations that should help create a consensus around the utility of the european union.

Giant corporation, spending tons of marketing money to make everyone think they're trying to help the world, while behaving like scammers with regards to personal data, and like white collar criminals with regard to tax should be prosecuted to death.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#6
post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

As an investor in my first startup once put it: You want to build a company in the US because you have access to a market of 300,000,000 people right from the beginning. In Europe markets are much smaller. Munchen and Berlin are completely different markets. Germany and Spain? Fuggetaboutit.

Yes you can't address that big of a market immediately, but if you're into the whole rapid expansion VC thing, having a big market helps a lot more than having a thousand tiny markets does.

Where I'm from, Slovenia, basically nobody builds startups for the local market anymore. You go straight for global and that shit's hard. Would be nice to have a bigger local market that you can experiment with.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#7
I remember them getting in trouble a couple years ago in the EU, I wonder if this the result of it. Back then, every website that had a Facebook button, would put a Facebook cookie on your machine. So it was basically cancer, and everyone had it. I think Twitter and G+ did/do the same thing too.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#8
post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

The EU and many of its members have plenty of programs encouraging entrepreneurship. Stuff like http://startupeuropeclub.eu/

Whether they're actually able to lead to the creation of European Googles and Facebooks is a different question.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#10
post #3
post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

I on the other hand enjoy having high taxes (i.e. good services) and lower wages while the US creates all the products I need and it is them who are on the brink of a civil war over inequality.

If you think the US is on the brink of civil war you've been spending too much time reading fnords on the internet.
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