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ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

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Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#41

Post by ndriscoll »

cbg0 wrote: post #6
LoganDark wrote: post #4

> Companies that breach the DSA risk fines of as much as 6% of their annual global sales. It's nuts that this is all they can manage. Like, take 30% or 40% -- that might actually encourage compliance. I think they'll comply, but almost entirely not because of small fines.

The point of fines is to correct bad behavior, not to bankrupt businesses which create jobs.

At some point if they don't follow the law, you actually do want to dismantle them (perhaps by bankrupting via fines). Jobs where the function is to make society worse and perform illegal actions are not actually desirable. It completely makes sense to eliminate those jobs, and possibly jail the people who created them and the people who worked them.

Like if you're building gambling systems for 7 year olds then yes I think you should lose your job and then some. You the programmer, your product manager, your people manager, all the way up the chain. Everyone who participated should be individually accountable.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#42

Post by buzer »

benoau wrote: post #14
karmelapple wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6% is the cost of sales tax in some places. That is not considered any kind of correction to bad behavior - it's literally the cost of buying goods in a variety of places. I'd strongly argue that 6% will not correct bad behavior. What corrects bad behavior? The threat of serious consequences to a business.

For Roblox their 6% of global turnover ($5b) is $300m which while it seems trivial, is 30% of their profit ($1b). For a company like Google this fine would be in the vicinity of $24 billion, which would be a bit over 20% of their annual profit. So for companies that have to answer to shareholders this is already a pretty big deterrent, but just in case if they reject compliance it becomes a periodic penalty!

Of one year. How many years does it take complete the investigation and let courts handle appeals? I assume they do not need to change behavior nor can the fine increase during the appeals.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#43

Post by benoau »

buzer wrote: post #42
benoau wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Roblox their 6% of global turnover ($5b) is $300m which while it seems trivial, is 30% of their profit ($1b). For a company like Google this fine would be in the vicinity of $24 billion, which would be a bit over 20% of their annual profit. So for companies that have to answer to shareholders this is already a pretty big deterrent, but just in case if they reject compliance it becomes a periodic penalty!

Of one year. How many years does it take complete the investigation and let courts handle appeals? I assume they do not need to change behavior nor can the fine increase during the appeals.

I don't know, there's certainly mixed results so far for the DMA which has harsher penalties and none specifically for how this would play out with the DSA.

We've seen Zuckerburg pivot from openly pledging to defy the EU [1] and then presenting compliant plans six months later to avoid the the periodic fine [2].

But we've also seen Apple in a bid to avoid the periodic fine imposing a ~20% commission [3] on third party payments after their 27% fee was ruled illegal and they were told it must be free [4]. The investigation into that has taken a year now despite being immediately perceived as noncompliant by many developers and ressembling what Google was recently fined €430 million for [5] and Apple seems to feel no pressure to change it.

I guess what happens next to Apple will decide if companies fear this regulation, the periodic fine they were due if they didn't drop the 27% fee was touted to be up to $50m/day retroactively for the entire noncompliance period, which is now at least 400 days so lots of opportunity to send a message.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-offer-choices-personal...

[3] https://daringfireball.net/2025/06/apple_app_store_policy_up...

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/competition/digital_markets_act/cases/2...

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/23/eu-fines-...

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#46

Post by fl0id »

voxic11 wrote: post #23
himata4113 wrote: post #17

Roblox should be outright banned in the EU or at least the top 100 games all qualify for what would be considered lootboxes/gambling and generally predatory behavior. Basically every single action you can do has a "robux" alternative which is faster/better + boosts cost robux. Then there's the worst of them all: trading card games. Another problem is that nothing carries over between games so as the algorithm shifts…

I agree pay to win games suck, its the one feature which will make me instantly drop a game. But pay to win isn't gambling, afaik you can't earn robux by wagering robux you can only earn worthless in-game rewards.

You don't need to "wager" robux for it to be gambling. You pay real money for robux (or whatever intermediate "currency") then spend robux to buy lootboxes (for example) which then by having very bad odds to get the thing you actually want, counts as gambling.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#47

Post by fl0id »

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #20
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a maximum of 0.05% of the companies world wide income - scaled by their monthly users in the EU. Strictly speaking OpenAI is a loss making company so wouldn't pay anything (like Amazon, Snap and Pinterest) https://dig.watch/updates/meta-challenges-supervisory-fee-es...

It doesn't matter if you're losing money on paper, since the fee is on sales, not profit.

Which is also with good reason, as there's tons of ways to make your profit basically zero or even negative.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#48

Post by ravenstine »

maxwwwt wrote: post #40

Parents who let their kids play Roblox stun me. That is a cesspit of pedophiles, gambling, child exploitation, and bullying.

I'm not even sure I'd let my kids (if I had any :() play Roblox. People seem to just let their kids play it for hours without interacting with anyone, and when I do try and play it with kids of friends, etc., the games they play within it are pretty much all low effort trash. I get that creating and sharing games within it is sort of the point, but I don't think I've ever seen something with that much slop, and no one seems to have a problem with kids spending hours wallowing in slop.

But yes, it's one big child exploitation platform.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#49

Post by benoau »

throwayay4929 wrote: post #34
LoganDark wrote: post #4

> Companies that breach the DSA risk fines of as much as 6% of their annual global sales. It's nuts that this is all they can manage. Like, take 30% or 40% -- that might actually encourage compliance. I think they'll comply, but almost entirely not because of small fines.

"This year the European Union will again make more money from fining US tech companies Than from the total tax income from Europe's own public tech companies!" https://x.com/levelsio/status/2080314960656159018

What that tweet doesn't mention is how much "big tech" has been fined/settled in the US - which is also billions of dollars collectively for privacy, competition and other issues they created.

Re: ChatGPT, Roblox to fall under strictest EU rules for platforms

#50

Post by helsinkiandrew »

Liquid_Fire wrote: post #20
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a maximum of 0.05% of the companies world wide income - scaled by their monthly users in the EU. Strictly speaking OpenAI is a loss making company so wouldn't pay anything (like Amazon, Snap and Pinterest) https://dig.watch/updates/meta-challenges-supervisory-fee-es...

It doesn't matter if you're losing money on paper, since the fee is on sales, not profit.

No it’s based on “net income”: revenue - expenses

> But there are a handful of designated platforms that aren’t paying anything in the first round as they reported a loss during the preceding financial year — including Amazon, Pinterest, Snapchat and Wikimedia.

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