If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.
Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
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Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#22If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.
What alternative do you propose? The free market obviously fails to address privacy issues, I don't see how anything besides stricter regulation can help the affected people here.
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#23The EU and its officials are a joke. I cringe when these EU bureaucrats act like they are going to "get tough" on US businesses and the Trump administration.
They lack digital sovereignty and nation state sovereignty. Local and federal EU agencies continue to depend on Microsoft and other US tech giants. They didn't even manage to unveil the NSA wiretapping, to this day still not a single person or company has been charged with wiretapping Germanys biggest internet exchange hub (DeCIX).
They rage about US tax cuts and tech companies using tax loopholes while doing nothing about the greatest tax haven on earth located within their own borders: Luxembourg.
The EU is a joke and i sincerely hope it falls apart soon.
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
you're not allowed to say usage of an application/service is conditional on accepting data collection.
I still don't see why not. Maybe it's what GDPR says, but it's wrong and I can't see this being enforced. If data collection is the "payment" for using the "service", you have two choices: you don't pay and don't use the service, or you pay up. This is like saying a business can't make usage of a service conditional to payment.
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Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#25FB is perfect example for monopoly abuse
Having a lot of customers isn't a monopoly.
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#26From what I gathered on news sources, most of the (german) MEPs are extremely pissed at Zuckerberg in regards to the question answered, the format of the Q&A and the refusal to livestream a real Q&A. He brought up the question about FB's monopoly on the market, stating that there are plenty of competitor products ("we might have a monopoly on cars but there are still planes, bikes and walking!"). Zuck didn't make fri…
At least the format and the fact that a lot of the time was taken up asking long-winded questions was the fault of the European Parliament and not Zuck personally. Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me. Looks like more of a PR exercise.
> Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me.
Well, we have to restore the long-forgotten idea of responsibility. The CEO is legally responsible for any wrongdoings of the company. He should also be morally responsible for all unethical activities. But Zuck's defense strategy so far is "I see nothing wrong".
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#27If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.
What alternative do you propose? The free market obviously fails to address privacy issues, I don't see how anything besides stricter regulation can help the affected people here.
I'm not a policymaker, but GDPR seems overly-reactionary, over-reaching, and not well thought-out. I think the negative unintended consequences are likely much greater than however much it actually protects the privacy of individuals (which I don't think will be much at all).
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Requiring consent as a pre-condition of a service is frowned upon under GDPR. If you have a legitimate requirement (which is fairly rigidly defined under GDPR) or legal obligations for that data then you don’t need user consent, but if you don’t then you need to offer the service regardless of the user consent or not.
I think that's where the wiggle room (or court battleground?) of GDPR will be. Lots of companies do that: Quora, Pinterest,...
There will be years of battles in court how to interpret the GDPR, but not for this.
> (Article 4 ) ‘consent’ of the data subject means any freely given, ...
> Recital 42: Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment.
> Article 7: 4. When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract.
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#29From what I gathered on news sources, most of the (german) MEPs are extremely pissed at Zuckerberg in regards to the question answered, the format of the Q&A and the refusal to livestream a real Q&A. He brought up the question about FB's monopoly on the market, stating that there are plenty of competitor products ("we might have a monopoly on cars but there are still planes, bikes and walking!"). Zuck didn't make fri…
At least the format and the fact that a lot of the time was taken up asking long-winded questions was the fault of the European Parliament and not Zuck personally. Of course the idea that you can just drag the CEO up to account for whatever grievances you have against the company and hope to get anything out of it seems a bit misguided to me. Looks like more of a PR exercise.
That’s what I thought about both US Congress and EU. The GDPR on the other hand, is more effective (albeit constraining).
Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today
#30If anything, this kind of regulation helps companies like Facebook keep their "monopoly", because it raises the monetary cost of starting a competitor. A number of smaller services and games have shut down due to increased cost of compliance, even for companies that don't have any privacy issues.
It's a win-win politicians can make hey of continuing to hate Zuckerberg and "making good" on it by continuing to prop him up with such barriers to entry.