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EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

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Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#111

Post by brainwad »

vrganj wrote: post #101
brainwad wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that the laws are so broad that the EU can always find a violation even when companies try to follow the law, and that they mostly target foreign companies. TBH I find this focus defensible: the big US companies are just so much bigger that it makes more sense to police them than insignificant local players. But it is a good cash cow.

The problem is that American companies try to follow the letter of the law , while going as much against the spirit of the law as possible. This is why they complain it's "too broad", because they can't avoid the spirit as they would like to. Example here: Facebook changing their ToS to claim usage itself constitutes freely given, informed consent under GDPR. No it doesn't, you knew that was against the spirit, you d…

Sometimes the "spirit of the law" seems to be "degrade your offerings until the European competitors who keep pestering us stop". Little consideration ever seems to be given to telling those European businesses to make a good product themselves. European competition regulators could be weighing consumer welfare more heavily.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#112

Post by f6v »

Gud wrote: post #105
f6v wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They could simply ask you which map provider you'd like to use. Yeah that's why EU isn't producing capable tech competitors. If other map services want my business they need to work on that. Instead, someone who built a search infrastructure is supposed to do a free promotion for competitors.

There are many amazing tech companies in Europe. Siemens, Sulzer, ABB, Rolls Royce and so on. Or perhaps you meant advertising companies like Google and Meta when you said "tech"?

It's kind of obvious that when someone says "Europe can't into tech" what they mean is when the EU officials fly to the US and beg "Please give us Mythos access".

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#113

Post by NekkoDroid »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #41
rnnr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US's DoJ fined Microsoft for bundling a web browser into its own OS. EU is the apprentice.

What's surprising here is that people still cheer on this, but no one is suggesting to do the same on mobile today. I honestly am confused by this. Obviously, the current situation warrants it 100x as much.

> but no one is suggesting to do the same on mobile today.

I am unsure what you you mean with this? If you are talking about choosing a different browser on mobile I will point you to the DMA Browser Choice Screen page for Android[1], it has been a thing for a while as far as I can remember.

[1]: https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/browser/

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#114

Post by nolok »

spwa4 wrote: post #85
maccard wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. I'm generally a proponent of the spirit of the law rather than the wording of the law, and I've argued that is how the EU works here in the past. I think GDPR is a much, much better attempt at solving the problem, and has made meaningful change in tech industries. The ePrivacy directive just added pseudo-mandatory popups to every company without a technical lawyer.

Why? The whole point of the GPDR was to prevent medical information being used for insurance and all sorts of purposes. Then come the lists of what exceptions are approved. Your medical info is used for divorces (anything involving court cases, anything involving criminal law), the police has access to it, your mayor has access to it, tax departments have access to it (think you can not pay tax and pay for your kid's…

Gdpr whole point was about insurance? Can you please diversify your news source and educate yourself? I didn't even bother to read your pamphlet of a comment after seeing such an obviously wrong first sentence

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#116

Post by KronisLV »

esterna wrote: post #37
phiresky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU told them they can not by default prefer their own maps product when linking from their search product, they have to allow the user to choose. They could have simply added a selector when a user first clicks on the maps preview in the search result, and then remembered it on device or across that user's account. But of course, then the user could choose a competitor's product and Google would have to honor it.…

I wonder if the EU will someday figure out a patch for this "Deteriorate everyone's user experience in a way that is technically compliant and blame the EU" behavioural exploit...

Yeah, it's very overpowered and should be nerfed - they still haven't patched the cookie consent dialogs out.

To expand upon the silly comment a bit, not sure about this particular initiative, but to me it very much feels like something that should be configurable at browser level, instead of half-assed dark-pattern-filled JS dialogs: https://killthecookiebanner.eu/

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#117

Post by KronisLV »

bko wrote: post #109
piyuv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google also makes money by making search worse. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

[flagged]

I often hate how loaded/incendiary Ed Zitron's tone is and don't like some of his takes, but I wouldn't call it "some random blog". I run a random blog, that guy's closer to being a proper journalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Zitron

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#118

Post by vrganj »

brainwad wrote: post #111
vrganj wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that American companies try to follow the letter of the law , while going as much against the spirit of the law as possible. This is why they complain it's "too broad", because they can't avoid the spirit as they would like to. Example here: Facebook changing their ToS to claim usage itself constitutes freely given, informed consent under GDPR. No it doesn't, you knew that was against the spirit, you d…

Sometimes the "spirit of the law" seems to be "degrade your offerings until the European competitors who keep pestering us stop". Little consideration ever seems to be given to telling those European businesses to make a good product themselves. European competition regulators could be weighing consumer welfare more heavily.

I'm not sure I've observed any of that. American companies usually degrade out of spite in my experience - they'd rather not offer the product than to offer it lawfully.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#119

Post by spwa4 »

nolok wrote: post #114
spwa4 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The whole point of the GPDR was to prevent medical information being used for insurance and all sorts of purposes. Then come the lists of what exceptions are approved. Your medical info is used for divorces (anything involving court cases, anything involving criminal law), the police has access to it, your mayor has access to it, tax departments have access to it (think you can not pay tax and pay for your kid's…

Gdpr whole point was about insurance? Can you please diversify your news source and educate yourself? I didn't even bother to read your pamphlet of a comment after seeing such an obviously wrong first sentence

No it was about privacy. Specifically given as an example in the actual law, privacy of medical data FROM insurance companies. But of course privacy from everyone.

The goal was not even remotely achieved, and this was 100% on purpose.

Re: EU Fines Google $1.02B for Favoring Its Own Services

#120

Post by TeMPOraL »

NekkoDroid wrote: post #113
TeMPOraL wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's surprising here is that people still cheer on this, but no one is suggesting to do the same on mobile today. I honestly am confused by this. Obviously, the current situation warrants it 100x as much.

> but no one is suggesting to do the same on mobile today. I am unsure what you you mean with this? If you are talking about choosing a different browser on mobile I will point you to the DMA Browser Choice Screen page for Android[1], it has been a thing for a while as far as I can remember. [1]: https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/browser/

AFAIK it doesn't affect the System Webview, and IIRC Microsoft was in hot water not merely over the IE the app, but rather over embedded browsers.
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