Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 177 posts

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#111

Post by jariel »

piva00 wrote: post #68
bzb6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

This is the point: the legislators were exceedingly naive, and created a bad outcome.

'National Geographic' is not evil, they are struggling and most of these sites are not giant entities with well-staffed experts.

It's a good example of poorly designed legislation.

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

This is completely false and conspiratorial, almost disturbingly so.

These are normal companies, with normal people, pragmatic policies.

The legislation has unconditionally failed at least in this specific way - all we have now are constant popups. That's the reality of the change.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#112

Post by filoleg »

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.

They are paying no more than what they are legally required to, just like everyone else.

Would I want to see Google pay more? Yes. Do I expect them to be charitable and suddenly start paying more than the law requires them? No, this is unreasonable. What I expect is for lawmakers to make changes to the tax code, so that those tech giants end up paying more. Until that moment happens, that's fully on those lawmakers, not on Google or anyone else.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#113

Post by jariel »

trulyme wrote: post #86
leesalminen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because they can't afford to get on the wrong side of the law on this aspect. Conversely, some can't afford to get on the right side of the law on this aspect. In our case, we had ~15 customers in the EU (out of ~2000), totaling $2,000/mo MRR. After talking with our legal counsel, we decided to exit the EU market entirely. Our business model was a simple niche B2B SaaS. We never sold, shared, or traded any data of…

Cool! Care to share the niche? P.S.: no opportunity is lost. There is always someone else who seizes it. :)

"P.S.: no opportunity is lost. There is always someone else who seizes it. :)"

I'm sure these corporations want a random person in HN to provide service to 12 customers?

It's false to suggest that material barriers to providing services are only contextually relevant. It's a permanent tax and it's real.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#114

Post by opsy2 »

actuator wrote: post #67
ohgodplsno wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Viewing a company as responsible only to it's shareholders is perspective only proposed and adopted in the last 50/60 years (maybe less), and I believe, a flawed one.

Historically, businesses were understood to also have responsibility to their communities and customers. Also their workers, though perhaps that began to shed somewhat less recently.

In my view, any person or entity is morally responsible for their impacts on others.

So, I believe companies should, indeed, have moral standards.

...

That said yes this is a cultural shift so by no means any kind of immediate solution, and there will always be bad actors, so yes totally agree, fix the policy!

But let's not support a business culture where being a bad actor is cool- it makes the already very difficult job of appropriate regulation that much harder.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#115

Post by seph-reed »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #98

I recently spoke with an older brother of a young man, about 13, who is heavily addicted to TikTok. His brother told me that he has been skipping school to stay on his phone, and that when his phone is taken away, he flies into a screaming rage, and runs down the street barefoot.

Strangely enough, it's my friends who can't seem to have a good time without drugs who've told me how great tik tok is.

In response, I shared some medium form (10-20 min) educational video essays on YouTube about whatever I thought they'd be most interested in as an example of media I trust. I could tell my friend understood the difference, but also was never going to admit his tik tok feed wasn't just as productive.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#116

Post by schmorptron »

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.

In ublock origin, there are optional annoyance filters that are not enabled by default, those get rid of a lot of the cookie banners for me.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#117

Post by 908B64B197 »

actuator wrote: post #67
ohgodplsno wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Why not just fix this at a policy level?

Because the "Big evil foreign tech giants" aren't the only ones to use these clauses in the tax code. But it's fashionable to bash on them. So you keep the votes and your corporate friends.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#118

Post by xxs »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #101
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.

I refuse to click them, and just let them hang there. If I can still read the article, great. If not, I leave the page.

Reader mode

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#119

Post by forgotmypw17 »

xxs wrote: post #118
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refuse to click them, and just let them hang there. If I can still read the article, great. If not, I leave the page.

Reader mode

Here's the thing...

There are a number of ways I can get to that content.

However, I don't think the content is worth it.

I've found a very strong correlation between low-quality content and low-quality presentation.

When I see a site which pulls this kind of crap or requires several megs worth of JS just to display text, I just assume it's low-quality content and move on.

Sometimes there are exceptions, but they're rare.

Re: TikTok hit with consumer law breaches complaints across Europe

#120

Post by y04nn »

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.

I feel the same, the web is build around standards, and the fact that there is no standard for this central "feature" is a real pain to deal with everyday. If I had the time I would build a auto-reject browser plugin.
Post reply on HN