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EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

juliareda.eu

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Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#121

Post by distances »

pacnard wrote: post #53
xevb3k wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no karma level that allows users to downvote articles according to the unofficial hackernews faq. It’s possible that the admins downweight the articles because politics in general is frowned upon? I don’t think you really have much proof on pro-EU state sponsored sock puppets... but a more detailed analysis would be interesting!

I am talking about comments. Of course I can be wrong about this situation since it's basically gut feeling and perceptions. Still, aside from the votes, there have been some really weird comments in this thread too, something that just doesn't feel it can align with how a programmer or entreprenur would express himself. Sorry if I'm sharing my emotions.

I feel it's a ludicrous idea that EU would have paid commenters anywhere. It's just not politically feasible; someone would leak sooner ir later, and the political fallout would be enormous. Russia is known to do that, but I don't think even they bother with HN. The simple explanation is, I think, that at some point the timezone is right for folks from Europe, or the post just hits the frontpage.

As for your gut feeling, could it be that the other viewpoint is just so foreign to you? I'm a programmer and hacker, and generally pro-regulation, as I feel that a strong state is a necessary counterbalance for the self-interest of companies.

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#122

Post by orbital-decay »

barry-cotter wrote: post #86
fanzhang wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets aren't always good at pricing things. For example highways wouldn't get built because of the holdout problem if there wasn't eminent domain. There is also such thing as inalienable rights: the ability to sell yourself into slavery probably should be banned, even though libertarian agents seemingly should know the value of their own freedom. But it also seems evident in this regulation that no one is doin…

I suggest you look up the history of road building in the U.K. The holdout problem is far from insuperable, even without eminent domain.

Can you recommend any good sources on that?

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#123

Post by aianus »

microcolonel wrote: post #47

Does anyone know of a good way to comprehensively (and believably, in the eyes of the court) block the EU from your web services? It's getting out of hand, and I'd like to be able to avoid this cost in some cases.

https://apility.io/2018/05/25/gdpr-lazy-block-european-users...

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#124

Post by literallycancer »

donatj wrote: post #80
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the EU is "moving fast and breaking things" because the industry was incapable of self-regulating.

I think it's self regulating just fine. It's met the needs and desires of the majority. I just think Privacy advocates are a very vocal very small minority whom found themselves in power in Europe. Basically everyone save a select few would rather have the convenience Facebook has brought over the privacy GDPR tries to bring. I assure you the majority would rather have free services than self righteous lack there of.…

The EU parliament is democratically elected. It reflects the preferences of the majority of people, even if perhaps not perfectly. The other EU bodies are composed of people selected by national governments that are, again, democratically elected.

So the only possible argument similar to what you are saying is that in the time since the last set of elections, the population changed its preference and it's not yet reflected in the parliaments.

>I assure you the majority would rather have free services than self righteous lack there of.

It's not free if they sell your data.

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#125

Post by hessenwolf »

kd5bjo wrote: post #116
yummybear wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine websites refusing to link and instead displays the URL so the user can enter it themselves. A lot of new companies will pop up offering their LINKTAX compliant packages that offer automatic downgrading of off-site links to user-selectable link fields, some even with custom functionality to automatically place the link in the clipboard. Tech savvy users will use adblockers to disable this auto-delinking…

It's not the link that's being taxed, but the short excerpt that's being displayed. If a website writes its own summary instead of taking a snippet directly from the article, there shouldn't be any fee.

Those auto-summary bots on reddit are suddenly a hot commodity.

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#126

Post by Keverw »

So if you link to a website, you are suppose to pay the website you linked to money? That is insane... I hope this doesn't passes or I'm misunderstanding somthing.

Links pointing to something is helpful for search engine ranking, plus every link is free traffic basically... Linking seems like a good thing and beneficial to the website and other parties too. I'm sure someone who's article gets on the front page of HN would most likely to happy, but I guess HN would have to pay every website some money then?

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#127

Post by nickpp »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #120
nickpp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations are compulsory - no matter if they are bad or not. Technical standards on the other hand, are optional. People will adopt them only if the benefits will outweight their drawbacks, thus ensuring that only beneficial technical standards survive. That little difference (optional vs compulsory) changes everything. Good ideas, when compulsory, are still a dictature, while free choice is what makes a democracy.

s/good ideas/ideas directly beneficial to implementer/ Technical standards are not adopted when they interfere with business goals. That's why we have no ubiquitous computing yet, that's why it took regulation to make a standard charging port for phones happen. Regulations are necessary to solve coordination problems on the market - the very problem that's defined by individual voluntary choices leading to bad outcom…

s/good ideas/ideas directly beneficial on the free market/ - to the implementer and/or the customer. The implementer doesn't do things in a vacuum. Customers and competition will swiftly punish ideas beneficial to the implementer but bad for the market.

That being said, the regulators do tend to have the arrogance of thinking they know better than the consumer. They take non-issues on the market (charging port) and impose crappy solution (micro-usb) while the eventual better solution (usb-c) is still much worse than some of the offers on the market (Apple's lightning port).

With thinking like that we would end up with zero innovation or competition on the OS platform just to solve the "coordination problems on the market". Because who needs Mac OS or Linux, right?! Windows should've been good enough for anyone! Of course, that is why big-cos like Microsoft love that kind of regulatory thinking.

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#129

Post by kuschku »

Reason077 wrote: post #128

These kinds of laws are symptomatic of the democratic deficit that exists in the EU. These days, the commission can pretty much push through any crazy law it likes. Because no-one is paying any attention.

And the worst part is, ALL the heads of states of EU nations are in support of this law. The council approves of it.

This means that even if you’d end the EU, these same people would still be able to pass the law.

Re: EU censorship machines and link tax laws are nearing the finish line

#130

Post by kuschku »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #114
speedplane wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few less obvious reasons why you wouldn't want to allow people to link to your content: - Privacy: You want to be in control of how the information on your site is procured. This is common on government sites that generally allow public access, but require all sorts of forms and certifications to gain that access. - Competition: If you are competing with Google or another to create the user's initial land…

Absolutely, but not getting linked to has always been an option. Publishers want Google to link to their content. At the same time they want Google to pay for the honor and prevent competitors from letting Google link to their content for free. The only reason this ridiculously brazen set of demands doesn't get laughed out of the room is that these publishers have tremendous political clout.

The big issue is that Google over time has moved to scrape the web.

One big thing Google has done recently is they extract what you search for from a website, and show it inline.

E.g. when I search for a recipe, I get the result in the Google search, and don’t need to visit their website. https://i.k8r.eu/aILGEg

Google extracts reviews from Yelp!, and I can read them without visiting Yelp!.

They’re doing this for everything, and AMP furthers this.

Google is trying to keep the user as long as possible on Google, and show snippets instead of letting users leave.

As result many of these sites lose out on ad impressions, and money.

Google has no way to disable this feature short of entire unlisting your site.

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