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EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

politico.eu

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Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#311

Post by dane-pgp »

igorkraw wrote: post #283
elvischidera wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the limit that an indie could go without caring about GDPR. Is it actually until they want to be "commercial"?

Until they start saving PII that is not necessary for their core business relationship with the user. If your app is literally about self quantification and the user pays you to collect that data and keep it private? You might not even need to state it anywhere, although the safe thing is of course to list all the ways you do or do not collect data. If your app is about self quantification and you monetize by selling…

> you probably shouldn't be allowed to YOLO handling it

Exactly. If a company doesn't care enough about its users to even tell them what they are doing with their data (or in some cases even know what they are doing with it) then the user can't expect that company to secure it or to provide a valuable service with it.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#312

Post by matheusmoreira »

hrnnnnnn wrote: post #2

> Parliament also succeeded in convincing the Council of interoperability requirements for messaging services, meaning outfits such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms. For group chats, this requirement will be rolled out over a period of four years. This would be great. I remember using pidgin back in the day and it was really convenient…

Interoperability is great but how is this going to affect end-to-end encryption? Will every app be required to support it?

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#313

Post by matheusmoreira »

chmod775 wrote: post #14

> mandates to allow users to install apps from third-party platforms Some people at Apple are getting a headache right now. Other companies that have been dabbling with the idea to lock down their OS probably too. If this happens my next phone might even be an iPhone.

Good, laws are supposed to be a headache for monopolists. If this happens, my next phone will also be an iPhone.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#314

Post by spiffytech »

MattJ100 wrote: post #280
spiffytech wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Version 1.0.0 (2020-10-14) Glad to see it's being addressed, but: - The proposal is stable, but not finalized - 13 years is a long time to wait for a solution (iPhone debuted in 2007, got apps in 2008) - Plus however long it takes for implementations to adopt this - Plus whether they adopt it at all, since this is a protocol extension and not a protocol requirement. The XEP requires client-server cooperation, which…

> "The proposal is stable, but not finalized" Is "stable" now a negative thing? I don't understand. If you are referring to the "document lifecycle" at the side of the XEP, and the "Final" status there... "Stable" is the "widespread adoption" stage. "Final" is a dead-end status that means the extension is frozen. It's rarely used for extensions that are actively in use until they are beyond updating. > "13 years is a…

> Is "stable" now a negative thing?

The XEP page indicates the proposal is still subject to change ("some changes to the protocol are possible before it becomes a Final Standard.)". That kind of thing sometimes holds up adoption of standards, creates incompatible implementations. But you've demonstrated it clearly doesn't in this case.

> This problem is solved, since a long time :)

I stand corrected! Thank you for your instructive reply.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#315

Post by 8fingerlouie »

viccuad wrote: post #188
8fingerlouie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> meaning outfits such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or iMessage will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms The way i read it, they're calling for open standards, which can be a good thing. Sadly, open standards also slow down the development of new features, as everybody needs to be "on board" for new features to roll out. Take email (SMTP, IMAP, etc) as an example, where no major progr…

> The way i read it, they're calling for open standards, which can be a good thing. > > Sadly, open standards also slow down the development of new features, No. They are asking for endpoints and public APIs. Nobody is forced to adopt a standard, that is a fallacy you have just built (and has powered a tangential thread of 20 messages and counting.. debating something that is not in the topic). Services will be force…

> They are asking for endpoints and public APIs

How will they interface with the different APIs ? Or is it a single API defined by a standard ?

The first one means that most clients will play “whack a mole” with 20 APIs, trying to keep up with features. The second will be the lowest common denominator, limiting what can be sent between different clients. It would be the new “green bubble”.

Next, how do you identify people uniquely across different networks ? Phone number ? Email ? What happens if you’ve registered your Id in multiple places ? Or is it up to the sender to specify which network they wish to target ? Like someone@gmail.com@imessage ? The last one solves nothing. In case of multiple id registrations, should the network just keep trying round robin until it successfully delivers ? Or can I as a recipient register my preferred delivery network in case I never want Meta or Google to see my data ? Who maintains this central registry ? Will they do it for free ?

Now that we’ve established how to pass messages between networks, how do we secure them ? Do we use the iMessage model and use a central key repository ? Or do we implement a protocol (potentially per API) on how to acquire encryption keys ? Or do we simply skip encryption because security is hard ?

What about attachments ? Since most secure platforms use “per device” encryption, do we just send a 500GB attachment X times, one per device ? Do we limit the size of attachments ? iMessage solves this by encrypting it with a temporary key, and the attachment is then uploaded to Apples servers, and the temporary key is exchanged using normal messaging. Is that the way forward ? Will whoever handles it do it for free ? Do we trust them ?

What about Memoji/whatever the kids use ?

All of the above, and more, needs to be agreed on by all involved parties, which sets the lowest common denominator, either by a shared standard, or by reducing functionality for cross network messages. If it ends up complex enough to support all the features of modern instant messaging, it sets the bar rather high for new players. If it ends up simple, we have gained almost nothing over using SMS/MMS.

Things are never as simple as just exposing an API.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#316

Post by piaste »

gorgoiler wrote: post #294
MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote the original article : "platforms with a market capitalization of €75 billion or turnover in the European Economic Area equal to or above €7.5 billion" I'm not sure what the current market cap for Signal is, but I'm fairly sure they don't have a turnover of 7+bn in the EU.

It doesn’t seem moral to do this on revenue. The only thing that should matter to regulators is the active-users metric, as a percentage of the population. Doing it by money seems like sour grapes. You succeeded in the free market so we’re going to hamper your progress.

"Active users" is a metric that is:

(a) somewhat tricky to define with legislative-grade rigour, and much more importantly:

(b) only measurable by the very same entities who would be subject to this regulation

Were it not for the problem of measurement, I would agree that it would be a better proxy for "needs regulation" than market cap.

EDIT: On second thought, I don't even think that's true. Imagine a networking app that absolutely dominates a small but highly profitable and societally / strategically important sector, such as medicine or law.

That company could have relatively few users as a % of the population, but still have enough of a warchest to hobble most potential competitors, and to have undue influence in wider society thanks to its control of critical sectors. Going by market cap doesn't measure a company's pervasiveness, but it measures its sheer economic power.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#317

Post by lowbloodsugar »

pzduniak wrote: post #309
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty funny that you think it's ok for EU government monopoly to enforce rules but not ok for Apple to do so, despite not being a monopoly. Which is it? Are rules ok or not ok?

Apple didn't win any elections, so they can fuck off.

People voted with their cash: "Shall I spend my money on an iPhone or an Android?" And that is the whole point. Apple represents freedom of choice. You people want winner-takes-all, might makes right. It's the tyranny of the majority. If you want a phone you can install anything on, get an Android. Don't take away my right to freely choose a phone that behaves differently.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#318

Post by Jensson »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #292
trh0awayman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that it's related to taxes and that it's not exclusive to Germany (that's just the one I'm most familiar with). But there are better ways to do this that don't involve the government or my employer. These things violate my personal privacy far beyond what an advertising company does, or at least have an actual effect on my life. I also think you're massively underestimating how much people care, especial…

Why are Germans ok with registering their religion with their government after the government rounded up everyone of a certain religion and killed them?

Because those religions wants to collect taxes, to do so they register their members so that they automatically can take a part of your paycheck. A bigger question is why Americans are fine with the state registering their race given how much history of racial abuse they have.

Re: EU negotiators agree new rules to rein in tech giants

#320

Post by toyg »

can16358p wrote: post #295
toyg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a state-operated private service If they implement a public service, freemarketers not unlike yourself will accuse them of unfair competition and spend their lives sabotaging them, like Murdoch does with the BBC in the UK. The reality is that your position is effectively that nothing should change, and everything in this space is as good as it can be. The public at large clearly disagrees, and this is a step in the…

Confiscating someone's land should also be illegal, but unfortunately government has too much power. Mandating size of plugs is a good thing for anyone to build things that can operate with electricity, mandating some private entity with a perfectly functional ecosystem without any interest to open its system to provide a certain type of socket, is not.

If it were "perfectly functional", people wouldn't be campaigning for this sort of laws. The reality is that these conglomerates are anything but perfect.
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