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EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

consilium.europa.eu

581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#581
post #534
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolistic regulation? This is clearly aimed against existing monopolies, i.e. gatekeepers. Can you explain how ensuring that 1. Making unsubscribing is as easy as subscribing, and 2. Guaranteed interoperability between instant messaging services, and 3. Sharing marketing and/or advertisement performance with business users will "kill competition"?

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That's complete nonsense.

This regulation increases freedom for everyone (users and businesses), except for large platform operators.

You as a user are free to continue exactly as you were, and if you are a business that is not Apple or Google you have more flexibility and freedom to choose.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#582
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am in the camp of apple allowing side-loading, i am not a fan of monopolistic regulations like this. It opens all kind of questions, like 1. What devices have to comply? 2. Who decides what device has to comply? Should playstation open their system too. What about a niche bank transaction signing device that internally uses an android capable hardware. Is this illegal now? 3. What about a car infotainment sys…

the first two are very important questions. For example, if I make $500 “unhackablePhone”, where it literally doesn’t run web apps and every app is vetted by top-talent security researchers for weeks, and then I sell billions of these devices, do I then have to open up the ecosystem to allow anyone to be able to take a phone, punch in the passcode, and install a third party App Store? This is synonymous with the curr…

They will still be able to choose the apple ecosystem. Feigning to see? The regulation is to put a stop to walled gardens tynany.

The players this regulation target are pretty obvious. It's those that have gained such market dominance along the years that it has become unfair competition for newer players. It is the outcome of years of consumer pressures and entrepreneurs who are calling out for some government actions because markets are regulated anyway everywhere in the world, and these US based companies (for the most part for now) have lobbied along the years to get away with their practice but the EU has decided their lobbying won't do with them. At least not anymore.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#583
While this will put some pressure on Apple and Google, personally I still want a third choice of Smartphone Platform.

People would immediately point to Microsoft being a possible third should they decide to do it, I am not looking forward to it as much considering Microsoft would be more of the same as current Apple and Google.

In terms of consumer facing companies, it is sad there is not a single company in Silicon Valley which I like.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- require the most important software (e.g. web browsers) to be installed by default when installing an operating system How is chromebook going to exist without a chrome browser? Sometimes I wonder if the people making the laws have any knowledge of the technology landscape?

Why is a Chrome browser specifically required? Let's have a popup that asks which browser you want to use. I am certain that Google is more than capable to create websites that work with any browser.

I am sure the ChromeOS user interface is the Chrome browser and the integration is at a much deeper level than just a pretty window or pop up. Integrating all other browsers at that level to the ChromeOS will be either extremely difficult or impossible IMHO.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#585
I hope this means Apple is finally forced to start competing on features and not just on being able to block apps from their platform. Case in point: Push notifications for PWAs. If there is an alternate browser that supports this, that can be installed on iPhones, Safari is going to get this real quick.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#586
post #583

While this will put some pressure on Apple and Google, personally I still want a third choice of Smartphone Platform. People would immediately point to Microsoft being a possible third should they decide to do it, I am not looking forward to it as much considering Microsoft would be more of the same as current Apple and Google. In terms of consumer facing companies, it is sad there is not a single company in Silicon…

Really sad we don't have a Palm or a General Magic around these days.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#587

This is easily one of the most expansive Acts regarding computing devices passed in my lifetime. The summary is in the link. As an iPhone user, this will enable me to: * Install any software * Install any App Store and choose to make it default * Use third party payment providers and choose to make them default * Use any voice assistant and choose to make it default * User any browser and browser engine and choose to…

Europe’s requirement of those pesky cookie notices have killed the joy of surfing the net. Every goddamn site has this stupid cookie popup show up. It is like playing whack-a-mole. They should have instead only allow necessary cookies and marketing and other cookies should be part of signing up for a specific service and not just visiting the website. The thought is noble but the implementation sucks.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Further it seems more like a moat to keep anyone else from getting as big as these "digital gatekeepers" are as suddenly when you get to a certain size you have an enormous expense. If these companies really are that large that they have to get special laws for them i…

> It also starts to bother me quite a bit when we go from treating everyone equal before the law to creating certain requirements based on other factors. Like tax brackets? Treating big things exactly the same as small things seems ideological, not rational.

Sometimes it’s a fun mind experiment:

YES, like tax brackets. Everyone should pay 30k$ per year to the government, no matter how rich or poor, for the services they get, and it would be the literal individual fair share.

The percentage-based taxes are already an unfair distribution of cost for the rich, and the progressive taxes amplify it even more. After all, who costs more at school, a Jeff Bezos, or an unruly one?

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#589
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone). How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild w…

> the walled gardens are clearly a market failure I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits with wall gardens and it's not done solely for profit. BUT there's also drawbacks and places where walls don't make sense. Not being able to install arbitrary apps from various app stores provides security, UX consistency, and stability of the software. But there's also drawbacks for things like privacy o…

> Given the benefits/drawbacks, the best solution is to have options in the marketplace.

Android has those options. Please point me to this great privacy and security conscious competitor to Google Play Store.

Re: EU Digital Markets Act, aimed at Google, Apple, Amazon, approved

#590
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much welcome this legislation (and I use an iPhone). How would you approach this otherwise? The EU probably can't break up Google or Apple (how would this even look like?) and the walled gardens are clearly a market failure, including apples fat margins. You mention details, but regulation can be well made and just continuing the status quo is also bad. All regulations open up questions but it's not the wild w…

> the walled gardens are clearly a market failure I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits with wall gardens and it's not done solely for profit. BUT there's also drawbacks and places where walls don't make sense. Not being able to install arbitrary apps from various app stores provides security, UX consistency, and stability of the software. But there's also drawbacks for things like privacy o…

> I wouldn't call it a market failure, there's plenty of benefits to [walled garden]

Do you realise the irony of arguing for free market and a walled garden (not a free market)- simultaneously?

You can't have it both ways, pick your poison

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