271–280 of 423 posts
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I live in Munich, Bavaria, and, to give an example, in most restaurants you will not be able to pay with a credit card. Having said that, you can pay once you reach a minimum amount with what they call an "EC-Karte", a sort of debit card.
Yes, debit cards are much more accepted than Credit Cards. I don't use Credit Cards outside of online though
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We hear this argument over and over again. See, they want Apple and Starbucks to pay taxes despite special arrangements because protectionism. Guess what, they are now going after Ikea, a large company from the European Union. CNBC compiled a lost of fines handed out by the EU and some of the largest ones concern companies from the EU: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/the-largest-fines-dished-out...
The argument was about French companies, not EU companies. Ideally, you would demonstrate France making a regular fuss against French companies, not a single EU company; however, maybe that's difficult due to the legal arrangement between France and the EU?
Part of the reason you will mostly hear of companies outside France running afoul of the rules, is that companies that is incorporated outside French jurisdiction is generally out of reach of French authority, and they try get away with ignoring them.
In the case with Facebook described in the article, Facebook refuse to even provide samples of what data they send, stating that they consider themselves not bound by French law and EU rules, but only by US rules.
French companies are more unlikely to get into that situation in the first hand, as if they would break data protection laws and ignore legal requests for information, the police could (potentially) walk in one day, only to walk out with all your storage arrays.
Given the history of Europe, it's almost certainly not all about protectionism, and part of it might also be about a different kind of protectionism then economic.
As the US election seems to show, availability of mass amounts of personal information can be a threath to democratic process itself, and Europe has seen information turned into weapons of population control long before internet was a thing, and the democracy we have is at the cost of tremendous amounts of blood and death.
Sure, having the information only available within a country doesn't negate the risk for that country, but it helps reduce it for all other. Privacy laws help ensure democratic processed is not as easily hijacked by either foreign states, or multinationals.
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Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). N…
The service available in France as UberX is what is known as UberBlack in the rest of the world - a black car and a professional driver (also applies to Pool). Uber in France is effectively a taxi company with an app (which is not a trivial improvement, but that's a separate discussion). This is strange because France is, philosophically, a "communist" country and sharing economy innovation is usually welcome and hap…
While they do follow taxi regs, I don't see how they aren't "UberX", UberBlack is just called UberBerline here: https://www.uber.com/en-IE/cities/paris/
> blocked a direct rail link between CDG and central Paris (my Uber on that route last week cost 99 EUR)
Well, true, there isn't a direct link, but there is a train link, also link to other cities. Last year an Uber from the city center to CDG had a fixed price (if I estimate the fare today it gives me 45Eur for X or 70Eur for UberBerline)
I haven't used Blablacar though
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My advice would be Xmpp with OMEMO encryption. On mobile, you can get the Conversations App for Android via Fdroid (no google play!), for the iPhone there is Chatsecure and on the Desktop you can use Gajim. The advantage over Signal would be that 1.) you don't have to share your telephone number and 2.) you don't rely on a single service provider/accounts are decentralized (there are various services for free and pai…
I didn't downvote you, but I imagine the counterpoint goes something like "The advantage of Signal over your solution is that more than 3% of the population can set it up".
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Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). N…
The service available in France as UberX is what is known as UberBlack in the rest of the world - a black car and a professional driver (also applies to Pool). Uber in France is effectively a taxi company with an app (which is not a trivial improvement, but that's a separate discussion). This is strange because France is, philosophically, a "communist" country and sharing economy innovation is usually welcome and hap…
When I (UK) think of France in this context I think they're strongly in to workers rights and that probably Uber aren't (based on the kerfuffle in London)? That makes it completely unsurprising to me that Uber wouldn't be doing well in France??
Uber is super-capitalism, it's not communistic, it's lowering workers (proles) wages; and using capitalist investment in order to bottom out the market and bankrupt the other players so that the market can be captured by a single player. Could you perhaps describe why you think this sort of market manipulation, particularly the reduction in wages and reduction in worker rights (through machinations of "they're not employees") makes this communist in any way shape or form??
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Ah also no roaming across countries and having aligned ALL phone producers on the micro USB phone charger standard have been really nice news
Is that slowing the uptake of USB-C with its standardized Power Delivery fast charging? What does Google ship with Pixels? The same USB-C fast charger and USB-C cable, then toss in a micro-USB to USB-C adapter for regulatory compliance?
1) USB-C fast charger
2) USB-C cable
3) USB-C to USB-A cable
No adapter whatsoever. I assume it's the exact same as anywhere in the world. Therefore it seems USB-C is considered an acceptable next standard for phone charging in the EU.
On a side-related note, I wonder why Apple was never subjected to charging standards in the EU.
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Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). N…
The service available in France as UberX is what is known as UberBlack in the rest of the world - a black car and a professional driver (also applies to Pool). Uber in France is effectively a taxi company with an app (which is not a trivial improvement, but that's a separate discussion). This is strange because France is, philosophically, a "communist" country and sharing economy innovation is usually welcome and hap…
SNCF is often pretty cheap.
Also Uber X seems pretty similar in France and in the US to me. It is not all big black cars.
» The CNIL said it had repeatedly asked WhatsApp to provide a sample of French users’ data transferred to Facebook but the company had explained it could not do so as it is located in the United States and “it considers that it is only subject to the legislation of this country.” « That's a very interesting quote from Facebook, and explains why the GDPR has a special section explaining that it also applies to foreign…
> taking our data Hang on. You're GIVING it the data. People want "free" services, so I'm genuinely curious what people actually expect is going to happen when they use WhatsApp. Is it just something provided benevolently? How does WhatsApp make money? Are people really so ignorant to think that they can get a free lunch? There's an implied quid pro quo -- you use a free service in exchange for providing data used to…
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Honestly, I believe that the market is big enough to make it worth it anyway. But if they decide to leave, that could be a win-win. "Worst" case scenario, some EU-based company replace them and becomes a tech giant. I mean, look at Yandex or VK in Russia. Facebook (the website) is not rocket science. As for Google, replacing it could take time, but in the long run it's good to destroy their monopoly in Europe.
> Honestly, I believe that the market is big enough to make it worth it anyway. Not for some of us just starting our companies. "Worst" case scenario is smaller players that would otherwise play globally will now not play in the EU market. I was told the other day, "don't worry about it if you don't have sensitive data." That misunderstands risk management. I have plenty of customer potential on this side of the pond…
I get that regulations make it more difficult for companies to enter a market, but if that means more protection for the user privacy (in this specific case), I cannot see how that could be a problem.
The fact that the EU might have more data protection than, say, the US, could also be an added value to a service. Case in point: protonmail. It's not EU-based, but they use Swiss privacy regulations as a selling point. Some people are willing to pay more for that.
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What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).
> Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?