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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

#261

Post by adventured »

icebraining wrote: post #20
Tharkun wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"In the EU, personal information cannot be conceived as a mere economic asset: according to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the processing of personal data requires protection to ensure a person's enjoyment of the right to respect for private life and freedom of expression and association". https://edps.europa.eu/sites/edp/files/publication/16-09-23_...

Which is another way of saying that people in the EU do not have the right of ownership over their own lives or property, including their data - that the State owns it and dictates what may be done with it. Terrifying.

It's funny though, to watch everyone talk about how people should own their data in these threads. And there's the EU proclaiming plainly that you in fact do not own your data and may not do with it as you wish.

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

#262

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

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…

Of course it was for show, that's why it was public. If the politicians wanted real answers to real questions they'd have done the whole thing behind closed doors, they have these little hearings as a group PR exercise. This is hardly unique to 2018, it's pretty much always been like this.

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

#263

Post by usrusr »

rusk wrote: post #171
akie wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, they all speak the same language. That's huge.

Pretty much everyone in Europe that operates in any kind of a pan-European business space speaks English. Kind of ironic these days really ...

B2C is still wildly localized. In the earliest days of the commercial web (and before), this wasn't the case and it felt like a truly level playing field (the general lack of transactions involving the real world fulfillment certainly helped as well).

Only when the giants started translating their offerings to reach an even wider audience in non-anglophone countries did end users start to expect a web in their home language and the potential audience of non-anglophone-based companies dropped (because they usually address their home language first).

Now the most inhibiting cost of multi-language offerings is usually not the act of translation itself, but the resulting quality which is rarely high.

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

#264

Post by adventured »

PeterisP wrote: post #233
sparkling wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shut down the EU company entities, move all operations back to the US. There is no need to show a warning message to its users, EU laws do not apply to US firms. Also, despite what EU lawmakers may say, a purely US-based internet company is not required to comply in any way with EU laws even if they have customers/visitors/users in the EU.

Around 25% of Facebook's worldwide revenue comes from EU. Taking your ball and going home means leaving a lot of money on the table. A purely US-based internet company is required to fully comply with EU laws if they want to see a single (euro)cent from customers in EU, otherwise all that money can and will be seized.

Facebook can trivially afford to end all business in the EU as needed. Very little of their business growth is in the EU, and that will go for future growth as well. Courtesy of the changes to US corporate tax law, Facebook also has no need to store large sums of foreign profit overseas eg in Ireland or similar (where the EU can reach it).

They're one of the most profitable large corporations in world history in terms of margins. Their net income margin last quarter was 41.6%. Facebook will generate at least $23b in profit this year (probably closer to $25b). Giving up $4 or $5 billion of that is not a dire problem.

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

#265

Post by [deleted] »

vixen99 wrote: post #247
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary elected Viktor Orbán, a notoriously anti-EU, anti-immigrants hatemonger.

How about arguing specifics instead of merely emoting? For instance, what does a national border mean to you? Is it totally meaningless? What is a nation? Does it share any characteristics at all, with the concept of a family? Should a country not set any requirements for entry or should it adopt a free-for-all with no barriers? Actually I'm not taking sides here but merely suggesting it would be instructive to see a…

[deleted]

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

#266

Post by collyw »

TotempaaltJ wrote: post #230
phicoh wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Have a look at the data they have on you.

I was really annoyed to see all my duckduck go searches via chrome got stored (there was a reason I was using duck duck go). Plus they know my email. Even if I used a different email address probably 50% of my emails would still go via google because that's what my contacts have.

Facebook is less transparent, but they get a fairly crappy subset of my data in my opinion. Plus I barely use it this days.

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

#267

Post by pjmlp »

rusk wrote: post #171
akie wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, they all speak the same language. That's huge.

Pretty much everyone in Europe that operates in any kind of a pan-European business space speaks English. Kind of ironic these days really ...

Additionally all young Europeans that are used to travel across Europe speak fluently three languages on average.

English, their mother tongue and the language of the country where they are actually living on.

A few speak even more.

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

#268

Post by imglorp »

Y_Y wrote: post #9
zaarn wrote: post #2

From 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.

> PR exercise

Yup, in the states we call that Grandstanding. It's not unusual for a witness testifing for Congress to answer one or two questions and the rest of the day is spent listening to long winded speechmaking from the panel with no actual questions.

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

#269

Post by foobarian »

eastendguy wrote: post #244
philliphaydon wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you like your free travel and ability to work anywhere in the EU??? But beyond that what does the EU offer other than a lot of regulations that seem to be hurting a lot of smaller countries?

"...beyond that"... that is funny. The "ability to work anywhere in the EU" is a huge win for all countries involved, and it alone would be worth having the EU. And what kind of "regulations that seem to be hurting a lot of smaller countries" do you mean? I can't think of any.

Well... not a win for the countries the high-skilled labor is escaping from in droves.

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

#270

Post by adventured »

AstralStorm wrote: post #33
sparkling wrote: post #23

The 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 c…

Other than being politics as usual (which are a joke because politicians are not equipped for dealing with complex issues other than public relations)... If EU died, who do you think would take over and why do you think they'd be any better? US has problems of its own with "digital sovereignty" as it allowed China to take over most of manufacturing. Russia is saddled with social debts and social warfare. EU nation st…

> US has problems of its own with "digital sovereignty" as it allowed China to take over most of manufacturing.

US manufacturing output is at an all-time high. Presently manufacturing in the US is booming, and the US is the #2 nation in manufacturing.

I'm guessing that you're referring to the myth that China stole away all US manufacturing. That didn't happen. What did happen is vast productivity gains in US manufacturing have eliminated millions of manufacturing jobs. Real manufacturing output per US manufacturing worker increased by 4x from just 1980 to 2010 for example.

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