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Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

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341–348 of 348 posts

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#341
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The purpose of is the EU single market That's also a misconception. The EU single market is an important project, but there is a constant failure to understand the actual reason why the EU exists or also a purposeful misinterpretation. Countries joining the EU are requested not to join because of the single market, but because they want to join the political project of a more peaceful and an improving Europe. At it…

> UK politicians also mislead the public about that. It's worth noting that they didn't just do that in 2016. They were doing it for the entire history of Britain's membership of the EU. During the referendum campaign I talked to quite a few older people (my mother included) who remembered the original Brexit referendum in the 1970s, one that most people outside the UK aren't aware ever existed. It happened just a co…

> Many people of that generation say they voted Remain the first time because they were explicitly promised that the EU (or EEC as it was then known) was merely a free trade zone with no ambitions to be more.

This is absolutely not true! I can't believe how many people repeat this. The people who tell you this are either misremembering, or they've fooled themselves into believing it, or they're lying to you.

The entire argument against joining the EEC at the time was based on the threat to UK democracy because it was well known the project was a political one, not merely a common market.

The leaflet the government sent out to every household in the UK stated this explicitly but chose to reason about why this wasn't a bad thing.

Here: https://civitas.org.uk/content/files/1975ReferendumGov.pdf

And there is a lot more material out there with various viewpoints on both sides expressed, almost all of them talking about the political side of the EEC.

It's just a nonsense that this wasn't known about.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR is a nightmare. So much paperwork, so much money down the drain. Only for the receptionist still yelling your diagnosis through the doctors office.

please detail the nightmares you personally found! I detailed my personal experience here: https://reddragdiva.dreamwidth.org/606812.html tl;dr no it isn't, unless your business model is to abuse customer data.

professionally: We just don't do things anymore. We don't have a lawyer and can't afford one. So we don't know what we're allowed to do - so we just don't do anything that even remotely relates to data collection. Our product suffered as a result, substantially in parts.

Personally: No one actually cares about data protection. As I said: You sign documents. And three seconds later no one cares anymore. It's just to comply on paper - it didn't actually improve things.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#343
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should play their Trump card and threaten to pull out of the EU. The EU would blink first because the public backlash would be career ending.

You are taking the side of a 3 trillion dollor consumer goods company's bottom line, rather than 500 million people's right to choice and privacy. You do realise that, don't you?

No, I'm taking the side of sanity over an overly bureaucratic union that requires all its websites to show cookie banners.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#344
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we'll most likely get is a backdoor to iPhone encryption in the name of "security".

What makes you so sure there isn't one already? The FBI's whining? It's like that scene at the end of Sneakers : "they just don't want to share with the other children..."

We do know with 100% certainty there is a backdoor built in to the hardware. [0] The only question is who gets the extreme pleasure of using it.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/12/exploit-used-in-mas...

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me at least it’s not actually the price of the Uber but that I know what it will be up front. I wasn’t really taking cabs until uber was ubiquitous though so maybe that’s not the same for everyone.

In Oslo, Norway, one of the major taxi companies has an app called Taxifix. You reserve a maximum price in advance. If it ends up cheaper, you only pay the actual price. If it ends up more expensive, the taxi company covers it. You can also see where your taxi is on a map while you are waiting I think other companies have similar apps, but I always use this company as they usually have more competent drivers and reas…

That also works in göteborg.

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxis are not great here in Denmark, I don't know why you'd think to state this. They are also not "used all the time", instead used sparingly because of how outrageously expensive they are. Taxis are run by cartels here who have carved up Denmark amongst themselves. Drivers wait in queues, idling, and are paid to idle, sometimes dozens of cabs at a time. As a result, taxis in Denmark are some of the most expensive i…

hmm, ok so maybe things changed in the last 15 years as I do not go out on the weekends anymore but basically all I remember was everyone taking cabs everywhere. My experience from other countries made me feel like hey, these Danes sure do use the cabs quite a bit. As a general rule I find the cabs in Denmark more reliable and better maintained than UK, Italy, and any region in the U.S I've lived in. >As a result, ta…

I guess you and your friends are rich. I can easily go out 3 nights instead of going out 1 night and taking a taxi home in sweden. I can imagine dk is worse :D

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#347
post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking the side of a 3 trillion dollor consumer goods company's bottom line, rather than 500 million people's right to choice and privacy. You do realise that, don't you?

No, I'm taking the side of sanity over an overly bureaucratic union that requires all its websites to show cookie banners.

Where does the EU require websites to show cookie banners?

Re: Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can vote for who decides things in the EU. I have no say in how Google, for example, does their business. I'm way too poor for that. I'd need literal billions of stock to get Satya Nadella's phone number =)

Good luck getting the personal phone number of an EU Commissioner. You can't vote for who decides things in the EU. You can vote for MEPs but they don't decide things. The DMA represents the desires and priorities of the European Commission, a body carefully placed well beyond any form of democracy and whose membership isn't even close to representative of the actual continent. If the EU Commission were influenced by…

> Good luck getting the personal phone number of an EU Commissioner. You can't vote for who decides things in the EU. You can vote for MEPs but they don't decide things.

Replace "EU commissioner" with "government minister" and you've just described the UK, where we also don't elect the people who decide things (the cabinet).

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