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Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

reuters.com

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Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#61
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

I'd rather ban fb, twitter, tiktok

Calling them tech associates them with inventors and people who want to improve life.

The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma is a more accurate association. They purport to help and in some situation they do. We all love cat videos and notes from mom and dad. But they make money from addicting people. Whatever technologies they create serve that mission. They're not opposed to improving the quality of users' lives, but that's a side effect. Mostly they relieve craving in ways that recreate it.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#62
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

> How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Their power is to make rules, so they will make rules because it is all they know how to do. Leaving things alone is often the most difficult (and important) thing to do.

If all you have is a ban hammer, everything looks like a flame?

I'm not sure that criticism is entirely valid, as it looks at European institutions exclusively. Surely lobby groups and their perpetual pressure on legislators play a role, too, like they would for the US House and Senate. Even with that pressure, I suppose they could "leave well alone", but then they'd be seen as uncooperative and ignoring their constituents.

I'd like to live in a world where legislators have competent cabinets and can be assumed to be reasonably well-informed, but for instance the Facebook hearings have shown there's a long way to go.

Even non-technical issues show this to be true. Case in point: the UK and Dutch governments thinking they would solve the housing crisis by giving mortgage grants to starters. Expectation: case closed. Reality: housing prices surged even more due to the cash injection.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#63
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London is an exercise in marketing, to see how far peoples suspension of disbelief can be stretched whilst being a net drain on a country it isn't even strictly part of, and a drain the world as a whole. It is amazing to see how Brits outside of (hell, even in) London live, the British countryside has some of the poorest areas in western Europe. Evidence marketing is effective!

What parts of the British countryside are poor? Anecdotally, the stereotypical British farmer is a wealthy Tory, and low income populations are concentrated in council estates in postindustrial northern towns and cities (i.e. not the countryside).

to most non-brits, Britain is effectively divided between "London" and "anything else". This "anything else" can be referenced to, more or less interchangeably, as "the countryside", "Scotland" or (after Game of Thrones) "the North". Manchester is basically a London suburb, Sheffield is just a factory that closed in the '80s, and Birmingham doesn't exist.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#64
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? How about doing both the first while also ensuring that european law is actually being followed? So far US monopolists have relied on being in bed with Irish lawmakers to avoid the GDPR fines.

Perhaps there is an inverse correlation between those things.

If the state can only regulate the economy, which is part of its core task and cannot be done by any other entity, or pump money into it, I'd absolutely prefer the former.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#66
post #18
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

It won't happen. EU bureaucracy just likes to travel from one capital to another and enjoying 5 star comfort pretending to be extremely busy completely disconnected from reality. Its not that they haven't poured in huge amounts of cash into science and tech. Its that its all gone into building ivory towers even more disconnected from reality. So the people in those ivory towers have no clue how to compete in a ruthle…

> When someone just gets cash grants without loosing sweet and blood how the fuck are they supposed to compete with people around the world who have that experience?

Somehow, "market forces" (in a certain not-literal sense) where supposed to take care of this. In an honest marketplace there exists a level of competition which keeps the participants honest.

Back when knowledge still needed a physical merchandise-like form to be transferred (even as printed books) this market-given-honesty pattern still somewhat worked. But the modern digital age has completely broken this.

There's just something fundamentally different about "cognitive commodities" (i.e. digital data) and "merchandise" (i.e. goods with physical exclusiveness) which completely changes things

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#67
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

For one thing, these countries employ thousands of people in the EU. Banning them from public procurement would hurt many of their residents, and still wouldn't guarantee good solutions.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#69
post #55
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

Rather than play silly buggers why not start with things like this: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-fo... That's the UK govt standard for document/data exchange. Short, simple and open. Get the basics right first then tackle the complicated stuff.

> That's the UK govt standard for document/data exchange. Short, simple and open. Get the basics right first then tackle the complicated stuff.

Which would be great if they actually followed their guidance.

In reality, the UK Westminster government is one of the worst entities for pushing out spreadsheets that use over-engineered excel-specific validation (often wrong for excel, too) with protection. There is no offer of an ods version, only xlsx.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#70
post #20
post #16

The world's countries at a party, tech edition: US: We'll bring the software! China: We'll bring the hardware! EU: We'll bring the regulation!

Ah yes, the country of the European Union

Categories are created for people not people for categoried

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-ma...

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