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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

#331

Post by Spivak »

ketkev wrote: post #170
ericmay wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m the opposite. I buy an iPhone specifically because I want a locked-down device. World is about to get a little worse on this front.

But you can still choose to only download apps from Apple's app store?

I really don’t get how people on a tech forum seem to believe that software is fungible. If I’m an Instagram user then I have to go to where it’s offered which will be the Meta store. As a user I can’t just download it on the App Store if it isn’t there. All of this legislation has been about publisher choice. Users do not not gain any choice in this — that’s all marketing.

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

#332

Post by Spivak »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #282
robertlagrant wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary feature will be end to end decryption.

Yep, because we have absolutely no way to do e2e encryption without closed protocols like GPG.

Okay sure but how do you reckon Signal to Messenger is gonna work? Not gonna be E2E that’s for sure. It’s gonna be “this chat will be unencrypted because one or more parties doesn’t support E2E.”

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

#333

Post by can16358p »

toyg wrote: post #320
can16358p wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confiscating someone's land should also be illegal, but unfortunately government has too much power. Mandating size of plugs is a good thing for anyone to build things that can operate with electricity, mandating some private entity with a perfectly functional ecosystem without any interest to open its system to provide a certain type of socket, is not.

If it were "perfectly functional", people wouldn't be campaigning for this sort of laws. The reality is that these conglomerates are anything but perfect.

They are perfectly functional, and no one has to use them.

You either pay for their hardware (Apple) or be okay with some data harvesting (others) and get a free chat service in return. It's a fair game. And no one forces you to use anything: all my friends, literally every single person here uses WhatsApp for primary communication, and I've deleted my WhatsApp account 2 years ago and still communicate with anyone without issues.

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

#334

Post by can16358p »

paxys wrote: post #323
can16358p wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If government thinks access to a commonground chat platform is a necessity for the public, then they should either provide it themselves or buy/outsource a state-operated private service instead of messing up with private companies' private platforms. What they are doing is equivalent of trespassing private property, such laws shouldn't exist in 2022.

Why should they do it themselves? Food is necessary for the public, but there aren't a lot of governments running their own farms. Or construction companies, power generators, or really anything else. The best possible system is where people create goods and provide services to each other, and the government ensures a system where this exchange can be fair and thrive. This is exactly what they are doing with this law…

If food farms or construction companies do something wrong, people can die.

Power companies are being created while there are rules so they know what they're dealing with.

What's happening here is someone created a platform, spent years building things, and now EU is coming and saying oh you HAVE TO open it up. Not even mentioning the mess about having different rules at different places (e.g. I can't send many things to people in the EU in Instagram DM).

This is plain wrong.

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

#335

Post by can16358p »

the_duke wrote: post #69
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…

Full functionality with platform native users, limited functionality with third parties is still a lot better than no functionality for third parties. The bigger issue is malicious compliance. I can see companies deliberately making the experience horrible.

I think it will just mess things up UX-wise. From what I've observed, people expect things to be simple and just work.

If there is an inconsistency introduced (e.g. I can send something to one user but can't to another) it will just confuse the users more.

About malicious compliance, yup, it will probably happen. If I were a company with my platform and someone comes to me and says that I have to open up my own private platform, I probably would implement the bare minimums to not get fined, and cripple that part in every conceivable way, while still "complying" with the law. I'm a private company and want people on my platform, simple as that.

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

#336

Post by 8fingerlouie »

viccuad wrote: post #326
8fingerlouie wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are asking for endpoints and public APIs How will they interface with the different APIs ? Or is it a single API defined by a standard ? The first one means that most clients will play “whack a mole” with 20 APIs, trying to keep up with features. The second will be the lowest common denominator, limiting what can be sent between different clients. It would be the new “green bubble”. Next, how do you identify p…

You are moving goalposts. This legislation is not the end all be all, and only applies to those with ~7 billion capitalisation (so, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and little more). If you want to solve all those problems, you can use and push for Matrix for example.

Am I though ?

It applying only to ~7 billion capitalization only increases the chance that somebody uses their network, and as is already evident today, that is where the majority of conversations happen. It also increases the risk that my messages will be routed to somebody I don’t want poking through my messages, even if it’s metadata only, like Meta and Google.

It also increases the risk that I have registered the same ID with multiple providers.

I am not interested in solving the problem, and especially not interested in using Matrix. My only interest in this is I want to have functional instant messaging between people I know. Matrix does not solve that (for me).

My point was/is, that either the legislation solves nothing (open APIs, native “own network only” clients), or it creates a lot of problems (unified API, shared standard, cross platform messaging for all).

Also, imagine the spam you’ll receive if every email you’ve ever registered with some ~7 billion provider suddenly routes messages.

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

#337

Post by mschuster91 »

mardifoufs wrote: post #306
thow-58d4e8b wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because in the US, money has nowhere else to go. Stocks? Wildly overpriced. Real estate? Wildly overpriced. Bonds? Zero returns. Mineral extraction? Risky outlook. Energy sector? Subsidies are likely on the horizon, better to wait. Infrastructure? NIMBYs That's not the case for the EU. Money gets reasonable returns in energy sector, industry, any investment in Eastern Europe, tourism, PPP infrastructure projects, etc…

Is this a joke? European banks are much much more yield starved than their American counterparts. Your bonds have negative yield and pretty much every type of investment is more profitable in the US than in Europe. That's why big EU banks like Deutsche Bank or Credit Suisse have been severely underperforming, and thats why housing bubbles in Europe are much more severe (Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc) You are literally…

> and thats why housing bubbles in Europe are much more severe (Spain, Greece, Portugal, etc)

Nothing, not even the Londongrad bubble, is as excessive as the US housing crisis.

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

#338

Post by kilburn »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #221
andyferris wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a telecom protocol tied to your carrier and phone number that predates both android and iOS, but not a (free to use, free to implement) internet protocol. (EDIT: unless you are talking about email)

Whatever communication method you select, there will always be ties to a carrier. In GSM it’s a IMEI ID / phone number, in TCP/IP it’s a MAC/IP address. Internet also requires a subscription, subscriber and more. And how would you implement a messaging service with “anonymous” endpoints ? Can’t send messages without a unique identifier for the recipient.

SMSs are expensive in the EU. Typical mobile plans don't include them and they cost some cents per message (Only some "2fa" and notification systems use them. Actual people don't.

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

#339

Post by cf141q5325 »

pabs3 wrote: post #325
cf141q5325 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also with offTheRecord Messaging for encryption. I am really loving this news, i was able to convince some of my old icq contacts back then to switch to jabber this way. And why wouldnt they if its all the same interface?

Please note that OTRv3 has laughably insecure encryption these days (1024-bit keys etc). There is OTRv4 in progress but it isn't ready for use yet. https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4 The interface for Pidgin is exactly the same as it was back then (it still uses GTK2), modern users have much different interface tastes in 2022, so you might find it difficult to convince people to use Pidgin.

Damn, DH 1536 (and AES128), thanks for the heads up

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

#340

Post by dureuill »

scim-knox-twox wrote: post #32
dureuill wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good news. we also need interoperability requirements for social networks. like twitter and facebook must be mandated by law to provide access to their networks to smaller networks. only then would people be free to leave these networks without suffering from "network effect"

So, you mean "Fediverse" ;) https://wikiless.org/wiki/Fediverse?lang=en

i mean forcing the dominant networks to interoperate with the fediverse. i can open as many diaspora and mastodon accounts as i want, i will still be alone because everyone i know is on twitter and facebook. make it mandatory that facebook and twitter lets me connect my fediverse accounts and i can connect with my friends regardless of their network of choice
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