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Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

foreignpolicy.com

21–30 of 761 posts

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#21
post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

Normally I wouldn't upvote a reply like this, but here in the US I got this one instead:

> There appears to be a technical issue with your browser

> This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at support@foreignpolicy.com.

I had to disable Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection in order to proceed. This is the first time since that feature was rolled out that I've had to remember where they put that disable switch.

EDIT: This isn't just a generic error handler, there's a specific piece of code that detects if their analytics provider loaded or not and shows that message if it didn't load. More details here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41082004

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#22

Europe is a place to take social benefits; there is no tech, no innovation. It's better to sit on the couch and watch Netflix than start a business. There is too much risk, too many taxes, and too many regulations.

> no innovation

So all innovation requires you to capture user's data for profit via advertisement or data brokerage?

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#23
Could articles like this bemoaning Europe's state of regulation be opinion pieces?

What if what Europe does is a good idea for the people but just inconvenient for companies?

Europe is one of the power houses of the world but with low self-esteem I am afraid. In the long term what matters is the people's quality of life and diversity.

Take China or the US: if a lot of people don't have purchasing power and leisure who are then buying stuff for themselves as end users?

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#24
The core issue with the DMA is that there is no kind of pre-vetting or assurances available. This is combined with a very wide set of interpretations from a vague set of texts. We've already seen the DMA being waged against a scenario which Margrethe Vestager¹ herself had originally stated would be an ideal outcome of the DMA.²

When 10% of global revenue is on the line it makes adequate sense to tread carefully with EU releases until there is some legal precedent. (And 20% if the EU finds that compliance isn't being met.)

Margrethe Vestager has stated that withholding features is proof of anti-competitive behaviour. Such a statement would be hilarious if it wasn't so obviously preordained, and patently tone-deaf from the consequences of her own statements.

So what's the end game for the EU? In theory this should allow local and small competitors to fill the void since they're not beholden to the DMA. My expectation is that it'll just be the EU perpetually several steps behind the rest of the world and some types of tech involvement only available via US-based purchases/import basis.

¹ Margrethe Vestager: "I would like to have a Facebook in which I pay a fee each month, but I would have no tracking and advertising and the full benefits of privacy." https://www.euractiv.com/section/competition/interview/vesta...

² Facebook and Instagram’s ‘pay or consent’ ad model violates the DMA, says the EU https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/1/24189796/eu-meta-dma-viola...

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#26
post #23

Could articles like this bemoaning Europe's state of regulation be opinion pieces? What if what Europe does is a good idea for the people but just inconvenient for companies? Europe is one of the power houses of the world but with low self-esteem I am afraid. In the long term what matters is the people's quality of life and diversity. Take China or the US: if a lot of people don't have purchasing power and leisure wh…

> Could articles like this bemoaning Europe's state of regulation be opinion pieces?

I agree with the broader idea that a lot of this stuff is PR from vested interests, but this case it's not really secret, since the news outlet categorizes it as:

> Argument - An expert's point of view on a current event.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#27
post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

Normally I wouldn't upvote a reply like this, but here in the US I got this one instead: > There appears to be a technical issue with your browser > This issue is preventing our website from loading properly. Please review the following troubleshooting tips or contact us at support@foreignpolicy.com. I had to disable Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection in order to proceed. This is the first time since that feature…

Whenever something changes on the screen while reading Reader Mode gets activated immediately and without remorse.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#28

Regulating the tech Market is great for local tech só what happens is pretty the opposite. No country will lose GDP if meta or google leave

how much of gdp is facilitated through the search abilities of meta and google, though?

Are you just counting on others being too exhausted to bring yet another moot argument to its predetermined conclusion?

I'll finish it to save everyone some time:

A: how much of gdp is facilitated through the search abilities of meta and google, though?

B: It doesn't matter.

A: Why not?

B: There will be someone else who is willing to play by the local rules fulfilling the same function in their place, just like in many countries around the world already.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#29
post #14

Oh the irony of this article being covered by a consent screen that starts with: „We & our 735 technology partners ask you to consent to the use of cookies to store and access personal data on your device.“

They can use any cookies required for providing services without having to ask users at all.

They do need to ask for cookies meant to siphon off people's data for all other purposes.

Re: Europe is in danger of regulating its tech market out of existence

#30

while we use it a lot apple is not our tech market.

No but between Apple and Google they are the foundation of mobility.

And if they are not going to bring AI SDKs to the EU because of the regulatory risk then an entire class of potential startups will never exist.

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