Why no ban like china? Weak
Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
61–70 of 153 posts
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#62After 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…
My monkey brain would love to see if corporate strategy would work here:
For repeating offenses fines should rise much faster, multiplied by 10x-100x every time, until we find fines so big they are physically unable to pay even if corps would consider liquidating their all global assets. Then lower it just slightly, so that being operational in Europe would produce no financial benefits and see if they'll comply, or just quit themselves.
Recent political and technical events makes me question why do we even attempt to keep such strong relations with megacorp businesses (and, by extension, US gov). We would still be here even if multiple megacorps would die. It would take us decades to build up capacity to have complex tech of our own (fully local). But meanwhile we'd be just fine, just less trendy.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#63After 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…
Well you have to ask why fines aren’t working. In Meta’s case, recent revelations show that they make choices based on how much they stand to make by refusing compliance and just paying the fine. They decided the fine was small relative to the billions they made. A fine could still work but it needs to reach maybe unprecedented punitive levels.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#64[flagged]
I once read that PayPal was not successful outside the US because people outside the US couldn't understand why not just do a normal bank transfer. PayPal realized this and tried lobbying governments outside the US to make bank transfers harder.
No idea if this claim is true. How do Americans transfer money? Don't your banking apps allow that?
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#65[flagged]
Nope. It gets undue hate on Reddit (and by extension HN) but most people who matter in Bruxelles are heavy Politico consumers and leak to them all the time. Them, Table Media, and Indigo Publications will give you the best pulse on what's happening in Bruxelles.
Nope. The simple fact that a politician gives any kind of quote, let alone an interview, to politico is a clear sign he/she is on the declining part of a political career. A bit like how using "Bruxelles" in a comment about the EU is a giveaway that your British and/or a (former?) brexiteer.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope. It gets undue hate on Reddit (and by extension HN) but most people who matter in Bruxelles are heavy Politico consumers and leak to them all the time. Them, Table Media, and Indigo Publications will give you the best pulse on what's happening in Bruxelles.
Nope. The simple fact that a politician gives any kind of quote, let alone an interview, to politico is a clear sign he/she is on the declining part of a political career. A bit like how using "Bruxelles" in a comment about the EU is a giveaway that your British and/or a (former?) brexiteer.
> like how using "Bruxelles" in a comment about the EU is a giveaway that your British and/or a (former?) brexiteer
It's a very common metonym for the EU - like how I'd use "Berlin" or "Paris" as a metonym for political leadership in Germany and France respectively.
Also, I ain't a Brit and have made that clear in my history on HN.
> The simple fact that a politician gives any kind of quote, let alone an interview, to politico is a clear sign he/she is on the declining part of a political career
In what way? You only give an assertion and no actual reasoning, and appear to be a long-living throwaway account. Meanwhile, I've been very open on HN about my past career in the policy space.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#67After 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…
Per the book “Careless People” Meta started “backing” right wing candidates everywhere (via algorithms, not money) to avoid regulation and taxes as soon as the EU tried to tax and regulate it more - thus leading to a surge of that sentiment all over the EU.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#68[flagged]
I once read that PayPal was not successful outside the US because people outside the US couldn't understand why not just do a normal bank transfer. PayPal realized this and tried lobbying governments outside the US to make bank transfers harder. No idea if this claim is true. How do Americans transfer money? Don't your banking apps allow that?
I don't know if that Paypal story is true, but that definitely is the situation with Intuit/TurboTax in America.
> How do Americans transfer money? Don't your banking apps allow that?
If the exchange isn't online and is a fairly large amount of money, something like buying a car, checks (cheques) or even envelopes of cash are a lot more common than PayPal. Online, those aren't easy so that's where Paypal and their competitors shine. Americans also now use other apps for small money exchanges, like paying somebody for mowing your lawn, although refusing the app and offering/demanding cash is still relatively normal.
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#69[flagged]
I once read that PayPal was not successful outside the US because people outside the US couldn't understand why not just do a normal bank transfer. PayPal realized this and tried lobbying governments outside the US to make bank transfers harder. No idea if this claim is true. How do Americans transfer money? Don't your banking apps allow that?
As far as I can remember, Paypal was successful in Europe because of the tie-in with Ebay and because bank transfers at time were slow thanks to asynchronous settlement. SEPA fixed that, I don't know how much lobbying in the EU was involved but I'm certain payment processors eschewing banking regulation hastened it (the same way the push for WERO and the Digital Euro is coming from the problematic VISA/MasterCard duopoly).
Re: Critics say EU risks ceding control of its tech laws under U.S. pressure
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Notably, more than 60% of all fossil fuel subsidies granted in 2023 were spent in three countries: Germany (EUR 41 billion), Poland (EUR 16 billion), and France (EUR 15 billion). This is another one of those cases where people say "Europe" when meaning something much more country specific. I can't find any detailed breakdown of this; I'm guessing it's something to do with coal mining in Germany? France has absolute…
Your bet is right, but it's based on a misunderstanding. Those are not real subsidies, those are tax exemption on farmers, fishermen, trucker and traveling nurses.
And airplanes. They also pay no fuel tax, as far as I'm aware. Or at least it's rare; it requires bilateral agreements to tax fuel.