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Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

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Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#221

Post by zerostar07 »

jdietrich wrote: post #75
ericdykstra wrote: post #21

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.

It's a huge competitive advantage for privacy-oriented companies that were actually following the old Data Protection Directive. I've spoken to people who are in a blind panic about GDPR day, but I've also spoken to people who were completely unconcerned because they already had their ship in order. If your business relies on re-selling user data or aggressively targeting ads through data mining, coming into complian…

> huge competitive advantage

I get the advantage of being more prepared to apply GDPR but that lasts 1-2 months max. The fact that people keep using facebook mindlessly in and out of EU over the last year makes one wonder: Does it really matter to users?

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#222

Post by kodablah »

Roritharr wrote: post #86

What struck me as quite interesting was Guy Verhofstadts sideremarks. >"You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered," he said. "As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched our world and our societies, or on the other hand, the genius that created a digital monster that is destroying our democracies and societies." I imagine you have to talk like this to a…

> "destroying our democracy and societies"

Imagine how you have to talk to a doomsayer like that knowing no matter what you say, there will be no chance to get through to him.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#223

Post by SiempreViernes »

munchhausen wrote: post #187

It amazes me how both the hearing at the US senate, and the one at the European Parliament, were marred by an absurdly ineffectual format of the Q&A session. You'd think that having achieved the seemingly hardest part, which was to get Zuck to talk to these bodies at all, care will be taken to make the most of the opportunity. Rather, the complete opposite has taken place. I found it laughable how many times I've hea…

As I recall, Zuckerberg didn't provide any answers to the important questions that were actually asked during the hearings, but just said "Sorry" over and over.

I think it's pretty clear he had no intention of admitting substantial error on Facebook's part, come what may, and I think it's not likely that the outcome would have changed substantially had the questioning been longer or more intense.

Simply put, you can approach being questioned honestly, evasively, or in rare cases switch approach due to what is said to you during the questioning. I think it is well demonstrated that Facebook has chosen to be evasive as a core strategy, so the mere manner of questioning will at best serve to make it more blatant.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#224

Post by zerostar07 »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #56
ericdykstra wrote: post #21

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.

I think that's only a temporary thing. If people actually start writing software from ground up where it's easy to handle GDPR requirements, such as user deletion, giving users access to their data, etc., then it shouldn't be hard to start compliant and stay compliant.

I think the right to access and delete are the easy parts. More people are complaining about the consent requirements and the added bureaucracy.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#225

Post by rusk »

sparkling wrote: post #203
ionised wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm struggling to see what massive wins you are referring to here. The only 'win' I can think of of the top of my head was the UK referendum, which was 52/48 in favour of leaving. Polls taken now suggest that people are now mostly against leaving but the referendum result still stands.

Are you just going to ignore all the countries i listed? Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic all have goverments in place that reject giving more power to the EU and refuse to take in refugees. In France, Marie Le Pen did not win a majority but had big gains. And Macron, well, he seems to like the EU as long as someone else (Germany) picks up the bill. Italy: same as France.

reject[ing] giving more power to the EU is not the same as being anti-EU. I think there's a broad understanding that the EU isn't perfect, but that it's better than not having an EU. Britain is the one exception to this of course, but that depends on who you ask ... but even of the 50% who voted to leave, a large %age of those didn't really take stock of what it entailed.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#226

Post by rndgermandude »

zerostar07 wrote: post #214
rndgermandude wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's pretend facebook leaves and a EU competitor who follows the GDPR comes alive and Europeans start using it... And the other people outside the EU start using it to stay connected with their EU friends and family... and companies all around the world start using it to stay connected with their EU clientèle... and some major "celebs" start using it either as a political statement or because they don't like that fa…

Unfortunately it is the nature of the internet social network sector to be monopolistic. Few (if any?) local social networks have survived because people typically - especially europeans - have friends outside EU. VK is a notable exception and i wonder how they made it - possibly anti-americanism played a role. In a way, facebook should wish they have some competition, so they can avoid all the nosy anti-trust questi…

vk is big in Russia (and some other parts) because they are proper Russian, in Russian and for Russians, and they are largely unmoderated, so you can easily find nice and nasty in the same place and also all the warez, porn (incl revenge and child) etc you will ever want. It's really the "wild east" there; I was pretty shocked when somebody started spamming child porn vk groups to one of the websites I moderate (and they were active weeks later still).

Then again, I was told by some Russian acquaintances that vk does not try to push American/European morals (like no nudity for America, no "hate speech"/gore for EU) and that really is how they explain it is so popular (then again, of course you wouldn't want to run an LGBT community on vk). Other folks from the West and Latin America found it useful too. E.g. I read that some German Nationalists/White Supremacist fringe groups moved to vk because it will not crack down on those groups, unlike Facebook.

But back to my point: if the EU really cracks down on facebook so that it is (forced to) stop(s) being available in the EU, then some new player from the EU might fill the gap and the network effect of friends and family may drive people to the EU version that anybody can use and away from the US version that EU cannot use and is a privacy nightmare anyway; so the effect may point in the opposite direction this time. I know the likelihood of this happening is pretty low, but a lot less low now with the GDPR and the EU politicians' new found interest in facebook's business model.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#227

Post by kankroc »

sparkling wrote: post #137
gambiting wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Im pretty sure the fall of the EU has little to do with Facebook Wait, what? EU is doing better than ever and it looks like after Brexit we will enjoy greater integration, and hopefully a full financial and political union in the future. If this is what a "fall" looks like to you, then I don't really know what to say to you - but from the rest of your sentence it seems like you don't like EU as an institution, so I…

So you are saying the EU is doing "better than ever" but yet, in every recent national election in the EU we have seen massive wins for anti-EU parties and movements? Just to name a few: Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Hungary, France. Add to that a failing currency, massive debt in the southern EU member states, the next banking crisis ready to come. Do you believe that it is a sustainable model to have Germany guara…

Since when is Macron anti-EU?

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#228

Post by rndgermandude »

zerostar07 wrote: post #218
veddox wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that analysis. The main reason why Facebook is relevant in Europe is because everybody is still on it - but actual usage is steadily decreasing, especially in the younger generation. Most communications nowadays is done via WhatsApp, but that is trivial to replace. (Telegram is already quite popular, and then there is Signal, Threema, etc.) Of course, it would be a blow for individuals if all their uploa…

> least in Germany Germany is draconian about privacy , but a lot of the rest of the EU is really not. I would even expect a backlash to GDPR from businesses or politicians or people who lose access to audiences.

Draconian? Just because we got laws in Germany saying you need permission to store personal data and you need to make available that data upon request and/or remove it upon request?

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#229

Post by jdietrich »

zerostar07 wrote: post #221
jdietrich wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a huge competitive advantage for privacy-oriented companies that were actually following the old Data Protection Directive. I've spoken to people who are in a blind panic about GDPR day, but I've also spoken to people who were completely unconcerned because they already had their ship in order. If your business relies on re-selling user data or aggressively targeting ads through data mining, coming into complian…

> huge competitive advantage I get the advantage of being more prepared to apply GDPR but that lasts 1-2 months max. The fact that people keep using facebook mindlessly in and out of EU over the last year makes one wonder: Does it really matter to users?

>I get the advantage of being more prepared to apply GDPR but that lasts 1-2 months max.

The advantage is in having a sustainable business model that isn't based on exploiting user data.

With GDPR-compliant privacy controls in place, it'll be a lot harder to target advertising or profit from user data by selling it to third parties. Companies that provide a "free" service based on these revenue streams will face a long battle of regulatory enforcement and dwindling ARPU. They might have no choice but to completely pivot their business model. If you just provide a service in exchange for money and take reasonable steps to protect your users' privacy, it's business as usual.

This applies doubly to startups. If a service like Snapchat or Instagram were to launch next week, potential investors will be asking a lot of questions about how their revenue model will hold up against GDPR. The old approach of "grab a ton of users, harvest a ton of data and figure out how to monetise it later" doesn't really stack up when your ability to financially exploit personal information is severely curtailed. If you decide to fence off EU users and exploit everyone else's data, you're playing a risky game - the regulators will not react sympathetically if it turns out your geofencing technology is imperfect and you've been illegally harvesting EU user data.

Re: Zuckerberg didn’t make any friends in Europe today

#230

Post by TotempaaltJ »

phicoh wrote: post #69
thebradbain wrote: post #55

If worst comes to worst and EU tries to break up Facebook — and it seems likely they might — what would be Facebook’s best path forward? Theoretically, would it send a stronger signal to US regulators if Facebook simply shut down all operation in the EU? A pop up message to all EU citizens along the lines of “You may no longer access Facebook from within the EU due to X Y and Z from your government. As such, all of y…

Just my impression: if this was Google, then yes. It is very hard to replace Google at this point in time. Facebook is on its way out. Due to the network effect, Facebook will stay relevant for a long time. But if Facebook would leave the EU then it wouldn't take long for other social networks to take its place. Facebook is relevant because everybody is on Facebook. Not because it is such a great service. Personally,…

> Personally, I am way more worried about Google.

The reason I'm not is that Google appears to be a /lot/ more willing to respect their user's privacy, and were ahead of the curve with allowing opt-outs of personalized advertising and the likes...

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