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EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

politico.eu

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Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#51

Post by gcthomas »

FreeHugs wrote: post #31
matthewmacleod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason the EU missed out on the internet… Here in Germany, everyone is afraid to start a web startup The EU does actually have a variety of "internet" companies – and that includes Germany! There are certainly less of them; regulation could be one of the things that affects that, but it seems way more likely to be a wildly different environment for funding. Investors are more conservative and far less likely to t…

That sounds very theoretical. I witness the journey of several German startups for a while now and get a very different picture. Many of the most powerful web tools are not compatible with the GDPR. Google Analytics. Ad marketplaces. Free CDNs. And its all a moving target. I see small companies struggling for years now with these problems. And they will keep struggling for the forseeable future.

It is the most powerful tools that I want restricted. the milli-second bidding auctions for ad placements and the tracking that goes on to enable that is unethical and illegal. There are perfectly good alternatives that don't abuse my personal data — companies should use those.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#52

Post by igorkraw »

FreeHugs wrote: post #37
AitchEmArsey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your own argument, foreign companies can navigate the rules for selling into Europe just fine - so what is stopping a European company from doing the same? If there is any remaining problem it is that the rules are not enforced strictly enough on tech giants.

Lets talk about startups first: An indie dev in New York does not care about the GDPR. The just build cool shit and put it online. Look at all the Show HNs here. In the EU, the situation is very different. Indie devs are super afraid and work hard to make their stuff less useful to please the GDPR. Now about larger players: EU companies agonize their worldwide users with cookie banners. Because that is what the GDPR…

Small correction: the indie devs just building cools shit are fine under GDPR. The indie dev who wants to monetize his community while not caring about the externalities of possibly leaking their information has a headache.

If your business model depends on creating undesirable externalities for your "users" then you don't have my sympathy. The only shame is that we still need to enforce GDPR properly on large players, but that's a political and social thing, not per se a problem with the law itself.

And the oh so horrible cookie banners: the solution would be to not track people. If you aren't fully acting in the users interest, the cookie banner is easy to implement, or maybe not even required. So whenever you are annoyed by a cookie banner, it should be directed at the company, not the law.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#53

Post by philjohn »

zdkl wrote: post #33
Zenst wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time they did anything, the problem/market had sorted itself out.

You believe the (very public) inquiries had no effect on the market?

I don't - I think a better product came along, one that was aggressively pushed by the dominant search engine that swathes of the internet used each day (which is not in and of itself a good thing either, FWIW).

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#54

Post by Vespasian »

can16358p wrote: post #28

While I think big tech needs to be controlled, I think this is the wrong approach. This will slow down development by being forced to implement interop where they shouldn't be forced to IMO, and will confuse less savvy users (e.g. "Why can't I send this $platform_native_content to Bob but can send perfectly to Alice in the same app?"). Controlling entities' presence within the public (the Internet) is one thing, forc…

Well then they better get their shit together and implement the features on both ends.

They have lots of devs and project management experience. If they don't want to do interop it's just fair that customers are complaining.

Nothing a typical chat group on WhatsApp uses is particularly innovative or unique. Text, Voice, Images, Video, map links and attachments probably cover roughly 99% of the use case and everyone supports that.

They are free to compete on additional features.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#55

Post by mhitza »

FreeHugs wrote: post #8

One reason the EU missed out on the internet is our unlimited willingness to be regulated. And we keep piling more and more bureaucracy on top of it. This only cements the power of US big tech like Google and Facebook. And it sets the stage for the next big applications of the web all being build outside the EU as well. Here in Germany, everyone is afraid to start a web startup. And if they do, they spend endless amo…

Every developer should try to understand GDPR to a basic level, as those basic principles are good enough of a baseline. Won't go into minutia, cause at the enterprise/large scale level you'll need a DPO (data protection officer) and follow stricter auditing practices (among other things).

Second, cookie banners are unrelated to GDPR. They became mandatory years before the GDPR, and the level of intrusiveness is because websites don't follow the "spirit of the law". With time hopefully the cookie banners dark patterns will subdue (after a few more entities get fined).

In terms of EU startups, what I'm familiar with, is them getting bought by US corporations, and not failing under the pressure of EU pro-consumer bureaucracy.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#56

Post by giorgioz »

naoqj wrote: post #45

It's so easy to destroy a sector when you have nothing to lose.

Can you clarify in this instance what is

- the sector

- who has nothing to lose

- and what could be lost

I think I understand who/what you imply but I don't want to misunderstand you.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#57

Post by ClumsyPilot »

FreeHugs wrote: post #37
AitchEmArsey wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By your own argument, foreign companies can navigate the rules for selling into Europe just fine - so what is stopping a European company from doing the same? If there is any remaining problem it is that the rules are not enforced strictly enough on tech giants.

Lets talk about startups first: An indie dev in New York does not care about the GDPR. The just build cool shit and put it online. Look at all the Show HNs here. In the EU, the situation is very different. Indie devs are super afraid and work hard to make their stuff less useful to please the GDPR. Now about larger players: EU companies agonize their worldwide users with cookie banners. Because that is what the GDPR…

Unlike in UE, EU companies are not allowed to sell their customers data to random third parrty spammer, scammers, adtech companies and bounty hunters.

That is it - as a startup, GDPR is not a massive prohlem. You know what is a real problem? The fact that you can raise 10x more investment in the US with the same slide deck.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#58

Post by Vespasian »

the_duke wrote: post #46
Vespasian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trilog between the parliament and the member states decided upon a text. Next each chamber will vote on it but this is usually just a formality since they gave the negotiators a mandate beforehand. If it passes, the text will become a EU directive which needs to be incorporated into national law by the member states. After that it becomes enforceable.

Edit: whoops

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_%28European_Union%29...

Regulations can built upon the foundations laid down by directives and they apply directly.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#59

Post by [deleted] »

hrnnnnnn wrote: post #2

> Parliament also succeeded in convincing the Council of interoperability requirements for messaging services, meaning outfits such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms. For group chats, this requirement will be rolled out over a period of four years. This would be great. I remember using pidgin back in the day and it was really convenient…

[deleted]

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#60

Post by ClumsyPilot »

FreeHugs wrote: post #8

One reason the EU missed out on the internet is our unlimited willingness to be regulated. And we keep piling more and more bureaucracy on top of it. This only cements the power of US big tech like Google and Facebook. And it sets the stage for the next big applications of the web all being build outside the EU as well. Here in Germany, everyone is afraid to start a web startup. And if they do, they spend endless amo…

So you like that your code is protected by intellectual property so that you can make money off it and noone can just take it and use it whoit permission?

But you dont like that your users data is protected by GDPR, so that you cant take it without permission? Thats unnessesary regulation holding back business?

Does not sound like it has anything to do with regulation, it sounds like you want the fovernment to give you an advantage.

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