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The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

politico.eu

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Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#601

Post by Moldoteck »

bruce511 wrote: post #439
Funes- wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

i would ban any advertising that targets populations on individual/subgroup behavior. Maybe targeting on country/language level at most, otherwise - just untargeted ads. Another option could be artificial slowdown of loading the content. Eg each content display general element (post, video, image) to be loaded with 0.5-1sec delay from the current in focus content

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#602

Post by Someone »

stingraycharles wrote: post #460
bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

> It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising.

if you rent a billboard or space on Google.com, you’re not paying to promote a product/company; you’re just renting space.

So, if you then, yourself, put your company logo there, you’re saying that’s not advertising, but if you pay your nephew to put it there, it is?

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#603

Post by atoav »

jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

I am betting people would quickly ignore the spitit of the law and make it about "inginite scroll verboten" like with the GDPR where some people quickly moved to make it mean "you have to have a cookie banner!"

No you don't have to have a cookie banner. The law means you need to ask for informed consent for each purpose where you collect and or transfer personal data from your users. So (1) if you don't collect the data, you don't have to ask for consent at all and (2) it doesn't matter too much if cookies are involved (or you use some other client side storage for tracking) and (3) you need to have their informed consent, meaning just having them click OK somewhere is absolutely useless unless you explained which data you collect for what purpose. Good luck doing that for your 300+ "partners".

The ad industry and self-declared SEO experts have displayed an astounding inability to read the text of the law and follow its spirit. One could argue, probably on purpose. The same will happen here. This is clearly about giving users an way to sue against addictive designs and giving the EU a lever to protrct consumers from particularily bad actors. Now anybody who still profits from using these dark patterns will try to make it about one thing "infinite scroll verboten" and then proceed to violate the spirit of the law.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#604

Post by baxtr »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #585
bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

In a lot of countries in the EU, advertising for tobaco products, prescription medication, lawyer/docts are prohibited. That ban has been working quite well for decades.

In the US, sport teams usually don’t have sponsors on their jerseys. In the EU they do have every inch covered.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#605

Post by BrenBarn »

initramfs2 wrote: post #249
BrenBarn wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the first amendment is due for an overhaul anyway for a variety of reasons. (Heck, the whole constitution is.)

You can't say something like that and refuse to elaborate

Sure I can, we've got free speech. :-)

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#606

Post by maccard »

kerkeslager wrote: post #507
bruce511 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

Let's drop the charade where you pretend you don't know what advertising is. You're smarter than that, and your playing dumb act would be more persuasive if you didn't ask leading questions that clearly show you know the answers. This isn't a good faith argument. I mean are you really asking whether creators embedding "sponsored by" scenes is an ad as if you don't know? C'mon, don't insult your readers with this nons…

OPs comment isn’t a charade, he’s pointing out that it’s a very blurry line.

If I receive compensation from company A for a product, and I genuinely like it, is it advertising if I talk about another item on their product line that I bought because of the free item I got?

If I run a retail business, and have a better deal with a provider, am I allowed to prioritise their results?

If I run an AI SAAS, with a bring your own key model, am I allowed to recommend a provider that I think gives the best results, even if my margin is bigger on that model?

I’m not trying to gish gallop you here - the point isn’t to cherry pick any specific example it’s that advertising isn’t just a billboard or a sponsored VPN segment in a YT video.

> HN commenters are not legislators

That doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to have a discussion about it.

> a minimally funded team of experts would have any difficulty with the problem.

I’m a hugely pro EU person, and support the vast majority of what they do. The Cookie Banner is a disaster and has just resulted in a massive step back for the Internet worldwide. The USB C charger rule missed the forest for the trees. Their stance on technology has been poor, misguided and misunderstood, and often pushes the needle towards US companies winning out.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#607

Post by atoav »

bruce511 wrote: post #439
Funes- wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do. For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant? If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites? If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising? I assume…

You get money from others to show certain content on you platform.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#608

Post by hirenj »

Funes- wrote: post #158
jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

>"well what specific laws would I write to combat addictive design?" Hear me out: banning advertising on the Internet. It's the only way. It's the primordial domino tile. You knock that one over, every other tile follows suit. It's the mother of chain reactions. There would be no social media, no Internet as we know it. Imagine having TikTok, YouTube or X trying to survive on subscriptions alone in their current iter…

Even better, don’t ban it, but require companies to do age verification (above a certain age?) before displaying advertising. You get two wins in one: make the child market less attractive for algorithmic feeds, and you also can get a better product (no algorithmic feeds) without ads if you don’t age verify. Win-win situation!

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#609

Post by atoav »

Someone wrote: post #602
stingraycharles wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not. Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not. It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company. > It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising. if you rent a billboard or space on Google.com, you’re not paying to promote a product/company; you’re just renting space. So, if you then, yourself, put your company logo there, you’re saying that’s not advertising, but if you pay your nephew to put it there, it is?

You got it reversed. If you're Google and someone is paying you to put content on your website or give it some sort of preferential treatment within your already existing website, that is advertisement. It doesn't really matter whether some company paid for it or the company CEO had their nephew pay for it through aoney laundered network of obfuscation.

Re: The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling

#610

Post by henrikschroder »

jjcm wrote: post #64

Here's the actual statement from the European Comission: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_... It's important to note they aren't creating laws against infinite scrolling , but are ruling against addictive design and pointing to infinite scrolling as an example of it. The wording here is fascinating, mainly because they're effectively acting as arbiters of "vibes". They point to certain feat…

I remember the GDPRpocalypse which had a lot of Americans up in arms because of the wildly different approach to lawmaking that the EU has. Everyone on the US side was screaming for a checklist they could implement, and assumed they would get maximum penalties if they didn't cross every t and dot every i. But it just doesn't work like that, EU laws are generally not very procedural, they are a lot more about intent.

These findings are very much in line with that, they bring up a feature, a checkbox, a specific thing TikTok did to pay lip-service to protect minors, and then they're simply saying that it doesn't appear to work. So it doesn't matter that TikTok checked the box and crossed the t.

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