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Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

politico.eu

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Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#121

Post by pjc50 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU should abandon the stupid Commission structure and have a real Parliament that can actually draft legislation. The current one can just vote down legislation drafted by the Commission.

What they ought to do is have a process for passing EU-wide laws where they get introduced by a popularly elected legislature but to be enacted they also have to be approved by the majority of the legislatures of the member states. That gives you a good check on centralized power grabs because the member states have to approve anything that could usurp their role, but you can still pass things that make sense at that…

Isn't that how QMV works?

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#122

Post by petcat »

stavros wrote: post #32
petcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personal injury attorney > ... a degraded culture Do matters of personal injury liability not apply in Europe?

Suing for damages here isn't profitable enough for attorneys, because "damages" with free healthcare means "missed a week of work", instead of "got a $200k bill".

"damages" can be a lot more than just "missed a week of work" or "got medical bills". It can be lifetime debilitation.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#123

Post by vincnetas »

whateverboat wrote: post #84
mikkupikku wrote: post #58

After decades of trying and broadly failing to regulate American tech corps, at what point does the EU admit that leveling fines against Meta will never stop Meta from being Meta, that American megacorps are essentially ungovernable in Europe (or elsewhere for that matter) and the best course of action is to ban and block them in Europe? Just more fines. Bigger fines, surely this will work eventually... It's been 20…

At some point, EU needs to build an alternative to those corps and that will never happen as long as they keep holding on to their precious pearl clutching regional and linguistic issues. EU needed to be a single country like 10 years ago.

what do you mean by single country? All the cultures in these countries can not disappear in 10, hell even 100 years. And i would prefer that they would not.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#124

Post by petcat »

inexcf wrote: post #53
petcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personal injury attorney > ... a degraded culture Do matters of personal injury liability not apply in Europe?

Insurance and worker rights probably takes care of that here. What is it that personal injury lawyers usually do?

Insurance and "worker rights" don't cover cases of lifetime pain or loss of energy due to negligence causing trauma. They'll cover your medical bills and your time off work.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#125

Post by stavros »

petcat wrote: post #122
stavros wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suing for damages here isn't profitable enough for attorneys, because "damages" with free healthcare means "missed a week of work", instead of "got a $200k bill".

"damages" can be a lot more than just "missed a week of work" or "got medical bills". It can be lifetime debilitation.

Obviously it can, but it usually isn't. If 90% of your target market isn't there, the economics are different.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#126

Post by tracker1 »

I'm mixed on this... the article itself is relatively one-sided... of course you negotiate among concerned parties when it comes down to laws regarding anything largely produced outside your nation's purview.

The EU can absolutely make all the invasive laws they want, the US has been happily doing the same... the individual EU nations and US states with more variations than practical on top of that. Age verification as a prominent example.

Concerned parties will of course try to leverage what they are able to.. if that is a prominent political figure, foreign or domestic, it happens. This can be good, bad or even very bad. While I can totally understand criticism at any level... US in EU politics, or UK trying to coerce entirely US companies with fines that don't apply to them.

The reality is negotiations happen all the time... you an accept/reject/renegotiate on every aspect of every topic.. and to some extent, make take it or leave it laws, where you are simply no longer a customer.

For example, really curious to see how the foreign router ban (US) is going to shake out. As long as my OpnSense box and commercial AP continue to work, I should be okay for now... but who knows.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#127

Post by benoau »

SllX wrote: post #113
troyvit wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not rob them blind, just rob them a tiny bit to make up for a generation's worth of extortion.

So rob American businesses blind, but say you didn’t, but if you did, they had it coming anyway because of an unsubstantiated flimsy moral justification that disregards the purchasing choices of the EU citizenry, businesses and governments?

What is not substantiated?

Practically everything the EU DMA/DSA addresses was highlighted in the "House Antitrust Report on Big Tech" back in 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/06/technology/ho...

But if that's not enough, since then:

Apple's policies banning developers from referring customers to alternative payments has been widely ruled illegal around the world, first and foremost in the USA where they were even referred for criminal investigation for continuing to do it after being court ordered to stop.

Google has been twice convicted of antitrust monopoly abuse in the last year in the USA, and found to have exploited user privacy settings several times.

Meta's harmful practices have been continuously revealed in court: allowing sex trafficking and prostitution to help train their AI, allowing scam ads because they're profitable, deliberately exploiting children spending in games because it's profitable, and illegally tracked users.

Amazon's antitrust for exploiting vendor data is ongoing, so I guess you can have a point there.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#128

Post by troyvit »

rescbr wrote: post #100
troyvit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This talk from Cory Doctorow made the rounds on HN when it happened: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition In it he espouses going a little further. He posits that other countries should repeal their versions of the DMCA and just start jailbreaking American megacorps' app stores, hardware, software, etc. and providing their own, much cheaper (or free) versions. Free trade has already broken down,…

> Free trade has already broken down, what do they have to lose? The US parking an aircraft carrier nearby so the crew can enjoy a sunny vacation. Or meddling with elections. Or both.

That second one is already happening.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#129

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pjc50 wrote: post #121
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they ought to do is have a process for passing EU-wide laws where they get introduced by a popularly elected legislature but to be enacted they also have to be approved by the majority of the legislatures of the member states. That gives you a good check on centralized power grabs because the member states have to approve anything that could usurp their role, but you can still pass things that make sense at that…

Isn't that how QMV works?

The current system is new legislation has to be drafted by the Commission, which is the indirectly elected executive branch. That allows what would otherwise be popular proposals to never even be introduced. Whereas if you have legislation introduced by the directly elected body, popular proposals at least get a public debate and people get to see what they are and who is blocking them, but you still ultimately want the check on power grabs and populist nonsense before it actually gets enacted.

Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure

#130

Post by [deleted] »

stavros wrote: post #32
petcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personal injury attorney > ... a degraded culture Do matters of personal injury liability not apply in Europe?

Suing for damages here isn't profitable enough for attorneys, because "damages" with free healthcare means "missed a week of work", instead of "got a $200k bill".

[deleted]
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