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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

#61

Post by swagonomixxx »

DangerousPie wrote: post #12
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 Cale…

Out of curiosity, what are the European alternatives to GSuite?

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#62

Post by hetspookjee »

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.

The fact that you need to download a _opt-out_ plugin to disable Google Analytics for tracking you is a prime example of failing enforcement.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#63

Post by hrktb »

weinzierl wrote: post #58
tjoff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many sites ruin your experience because they don't know any better. GDPR is perceived as a Sword of Damocles by many smaller and medium sized companies and they will annoy you with elaborate consent solution for which they are paying a ton of money even if they most probably wouldn't need to do it. For the big players it is easy. They often don't annoy you with consent banners because: - they have legal departments t…

> they don't know any better

There is a ton of literature about how it should be done, there has been enough press for anyone to be aware that it's a serious subject that needs to be studied, and small companies will often consult with external legal advisors because they can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law on this aspect.

I've participated to a ton of these discussions in small and big entities, basically everytime a new service is launched or significantly changed.

In my opinion it's pretty close to handling your finances: you don't go through all the hoops to pass you holiday rental as expenses just because you didn't know better.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#64

Post by 908B64B197 »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #59
908B64B197 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love for Google to give the EU a solid reason to encourage homegrown (and tax-paying) alternatives to big US tech Big tech pays it's taxes in Europe, via Luxemburg and Ireland in a 100% legal way. If Europeans countries are serious about collecting tax revenues they claim should be theirs, all they have to do is simply write it in the tax code. If Europe wants to compete, the first thing it has to do is fix it'…

The moment your argument for paying 0.01% taxes is "it's legal", you've fallen pretty low for the quality of your arguments.

Why even have the argument when a simple well written tax code could make the issue not happen in the first place?

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#65

Post by avianlyric »

bzb6 wrote: post #57
tjoff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. Which is absolutely all of them. I guess the legislators wanted the popups to be annoying so publishers would be forced not to import their party scripts. Turns out publishers can’t stay open without the ads that pay their bills which means popups are the new normal, to the point where when I see a website that doesn’t hav…

> I guess the legislators wanted the popups to be annoying so publishers would be forced not to import their party scripts.

Nope, GDPR is pretty clear on this point. All they want is informed consent. GDPR doesn’t care how you get it.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#66

Post by danielscrubs »

reaperducer wrote: post #37
Zenst wrote: post #4

Title wrong as it's EU - not Europe, but many confuse and transpose them - even though they are not verbatim. EDIT Add - Europe is composed of 44 countries and the EU is composed of 27 from those.

Title wrong as it's EU - not Europe, but many confuse and transpose them - even though they are not verbatim. No different than European publications seeing something happening in a small town in a small county in a rural part of Texas and writing "Look what's happening in America!" headlines.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Even so here is the “across” definition by Oxford Languages: from one side to the other of (a place, area, etc.).

Doubtful it’s even correct if we replace it with EU.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#67

Post by actuator »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #59
908B64B197 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love for Google to give the EU a solid reason to encourage homegrown (and tax-paying) alternatives to big US tech Big tech pays it's taxes in Europe, via Luxemburg and Ireland in a 100% legal way. If Europeans countries are serious about collecting tax revenues they claim should be theirs, all they have to do is simply write it in the tax code. If Europe wants to compete, the first thing it has to do is fix it'…

The moment your argument for paying 0.01% taxes is "it's legal", you've fallen pretty low for the quality of your arguments.

But he is right. Why not just fix this at a policy level?

While paying low tax seems morally wrong, the job of a company is to do good for itself, because they all are responsible to their shareholders.

Google left China on moral grounds in 2000s. Did that make other companies follow suit? No. Apple had no problem censoring or using workers in exploitative conditions to eke out more profits. Did Apple's products get boycotted because of it? No. So, even the users don't care.

So why would a company try to uphold some weird moral standard at the cost of profit when its users and shareholders both don't care?

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#68

Post by piva00 »

bzb6 wrote: post #57
tjoff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Now you know which websites are willing to absolutely ruin your experience just to abuse you. Which is absolutely all of them. I guess the legislators wanted the popups to be annoying so publishers would be forced not to import their party scripts. Turns out publishers can’t stay open without the ads that pay their bills which means popups are the new normal, to the point where when I see a website that doesn’t hav…

No, the legislators didn't want the pop-ups to be annoying. They didn't even require pop-ups.

Who wants the pop-ups to be annoying and riddled with dark patterns are the ones implementing it, exactly to cause this kind of reaction on you so you start hating the law, not the ones who are trying their best to skirt around it, to find the loopholes and abuse them. To make your experience as poor as possible while being compliant so you will focus your hatred on the ones who wrote the laws.

This is part of their game, make the experience miserable to people start getting angry at politicians.

Don't fall for that.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#69

Post by Fradow »

frenchy wrote: post #60
weinzierl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sites ruin your experience because they don't know any better. GDPR is perceived as a Sword of Damocles by many smaller and medium sized companies and they will annoy you with elaborate consent solution for which they are paying a ton of money even if they most probably wouldn't need to do it. For the big players it is easy. They often don't annoy you with consent banners because: - they have legal departments t…

> - they can afford to skip Cookies because they have elaborate fingerprinting solutions This is really just a special case of your last point. As far as I know, there is nothing cookie specific in the GDPR.

That's because the "Cookie Law", which real name is the ePrivacy directive, is separate (and predates) from the GDPR.

This directive defines in (24) [1] : So-called spyware, web bugs, hidden identifiers and other similar devices can enter the user's terminal without their knowledge in order to gain access to information, to store hidden information or to trace the activities of the user and may seriously intrude upon the privacy of these users.

The definition is broad. Does server-side fingerprinting solutions fits into it? Maybe not in the letter of the law, but at least in the spirit. Until a court decide either way, we won't know for sure.

[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#70

Post by DangerousPie »

swagonomixxx wrote: post #61
DangerousPie wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Cale…

Out of curiosity, what are the European alternatives to GSuite?

The biggest competitors are obviously not European (eg. MS, Fastmail) but there are smaller companies like mailbox.org that offer less polished but functional alternatives. I'm not saying that those would be a perfect replacement for everything that Google offers, but they get close enough that they might do the trick for a large number of people (which would then give them the income to make further improvements to their platform).
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