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TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

reuters.com

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Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#11

Post by tiagod »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

Those companies are operating globally, not locally. There's great benefits to this (more customers), but you also need to deal with the local laws of all the countries you want to do business in if you want to make money there.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#12

Post by DangerousPie »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

> Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything.

I think the EU would have loved that. There are perfectly viable alternatives to pretty much everything that Google offers, some of which created in Europe. They just never gain any traction because it's convenient to just use Google for everything.

I still use Gmail and Google Calendar at the moment, but that's primarily out of inertia. The biggest thing I'd miss would probably be search, but even for that there are reasonable alternatives.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#13

Post by NicoJuicy »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

Complaining about regulations on an article protecting children What comes to mind in your example is that tobacco may not advertise/give discounts. Bundling them with something else should have the same result. Not being able to bundle them has the same end-result.

If you want to sell in a certain market, you need to consider local rules that could differ from your own.

Eg. US meat is not allowed in Europe because of the excessive use of hormones in most of their meat.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#14

Post by m12k »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

I'd love for Google to give the EU a solid reason to encourage homegrown (and tax-paying) alternatives to big US tech (much like China has managed to do with Baidu, WeChat and Alibaba). Breaking big tech monopolies is hard, so I can only pray for them to get the ball rolling with a massive mistake like that.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#15

Post by dfgdghdf »

Nextgrid wrote: post #10
djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

The problem isn't the legislation but its lack of enforcement. The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts.

Perhaps, but legislation should be designed carefully so that it can be enforced in a meaningful way

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#16

Post by tchalla »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

> I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in.

Do you believe that a society should ONLY maximise metrics towards "ease of business"?

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#17

Post by tjoff »

djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

As clear as can be yes.

Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. The implications can be seen pretty much everywhere in society, it is a momentous step in the right direction.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#18

Post by duxup »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

Does that makes sense if you want to be a Billionaire? Just leave Europe / money on the table and let some competitor take that space?

Some of these laws are ineffective, wonky, and probably annoying, but they're existential threats to doing business.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#19

Post by iFreilicht »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #7

I have always promised myself that if I become a billionare, I will simply stop providing services to municipalities or countries that create arbitrary laws that make it hard or difficult to do business in. Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything. California is particularly onerous about all sorts of stuff like labelling eve…

> Honestly Google should have just boycotted Europe for a week and seen how well everyone handles not having gmail, google, or anything.

So we'd all be using outlook.com, bing and other alternatives now. Would've been a really bad move to just forfeit a market like that.

The cookie banners do actually help a lot, as they bring awareness about privacy issues to the broader public and allow to choose which sites to use based on how hard they make it to opt-out.

Laws like this are important because they make companies design for the benefit of the consumer as opposed to just for their own. And I'm gald the EU is pushing for this with the power they have while no other legal entity of similar size seems to bother.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#20

Post by kyrra »

Nextgrid wrote: post #10
djohnston wrote: post #9

As I click my 10,000th cookie modal to read this article, I am forced to ask if this legislation has made my web experience better in any way, to which the answer is a resounding no. I understand the importance of it, but please prioritise revising its shortcomings rather than doubling down on being the most tech-hostile region in the developed world.

The problem isn't the legislation but its lack of enforcement. The legislation itself explicitly prohibits annoying/misleading consent prompts.

I disagree. Pop-up fatigue causes people to just click the button that will get them to their content the fastest. While some people might dive into trying to opt out, when you get these pop-ups on every other site, many people are going to click the easiest button to make it go away. This is a poor law because it has to be done on every website.

I think it may be better to have this as a decision the user chooses once within their browser, and the browser can then pass along the intention to the website. There can maybe also be a third option where the user could then choose on each site, and the browser would show the choices, rather than the website itself. This would standardize the UX around the issue.

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