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Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

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Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#71

Post by dreamfactored »

icebraining wrote: post #8
Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

The EU and many of its members have plenty of programs encouraging entrepreneurship. Stuff like http://startupeuropeclub.eu/ Whether they're actually able to lead to the creation of European Googles and Facebooks is a different question.

China has demonstrated one way to do this

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#72

Post by rublev »

pc2g4d wrote: post #63
skybrian wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing WeChat would be considered a monopoly in China, if they cared about such things. Smaller companies do scary things too. Consider Equifax, the zillion adtech companies out there injecting Javascript everywhere, and all the no-name Android vendors that never put out security updates. At least some of the big names invest in improving security and do some policing of the smaller ones. The Internet's feudal…

Yes, this is the way to understand it. Internet is feudal. Because law hasn't kept up with the transition to a new source of power (data + information flows) the familiar forms of feudalism are emerging. So how does the Internet transition to constitutional monarchy and democracy?

>So how does the Internet transition to constitutional monarchy and democracy?

What does this mean? How you envision this happening?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#73

Post by dreamfactored »

alexasmyths wrote: post #44
switch007 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Munchen and Berlin are completely different markets In what respect? Berlin and Munich are 363 miles apart, share standard German, a currency, a time zone, a prime minister, some culture, legal system... Are you referring to class/wealth?

They are different cultures. Munich/Bayern - old school, conservative, traditional. Berlin - multicultural, hipster. Kind of like SF vs. Dallas. That said, they are both very German and it's a little bit of a stretch to say they are different markets. But Germany and Spain are night and day different and building for EU-wide is very hard. Not only are there different markets, but Europeans have strong cultures, which…

>kind of like SF vs. Dallas

Which would make the US no more homogenous than Germany at least.

> There are basically no places in Europe with a critical mass of early adopters for anything in tech

Finland pretty much invented the mobile business (and the US still lags Europe), and European startup culture is very strong in London, the Nordics, and Berlin, (with Paris and Amsterdam also starting to make a play). Where do you think Skype, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Angry Birds come from?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#74

Post by bhalp1 »

drawnwren wrote: post #60
hodgesrm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not really a valid analogy here because we're talking about services with network effects that impose behavioral norms for all users regardless of location. To use your driving example it would be like saying that to use a car everyone has to drive on the same side of the road or accept identical pollution control standards. That's obviously not the case. Cars are adapted--sometimes quite substantially--to l…

Korea and Japan actually did this with cars. Enforcing extremely high tariffs on all imported vehicles. It seems to have worked well for their automotive Industries.

AFAIK the US also has significant tariffs on certain kinds of imported vehicles, namely pickup trucks.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#75

Post by daveid »

Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

Mastodon[1] is European :)

[1]: https://joinmastodon.org

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#76

Post by return0 »

Facebook could just ask its users "Do you agree to be tracked, even without your consent?" and they 'd still say yes. If it mattered, people would have switched to one of the open source alternatives. This fine serves more as governmental virtue signaling than anything else.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#77

Post by blfr »

alexasmyths wrote: post #41
nradov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax avoidance isn't helping large US based tech companies aquire more users or gain more control of the Internet. It only impacts investors and executives. So that's not the reason why EU based competitors have mostly failed to reach dominant positions.

"Tax avoidance isn't helping large US based tech companies aquire more users or gain more control of the Internet" No, it really does help large entities wield their power even more. The billions of dollars that the big cos have stockpiled ensures they can suck up the talent, attack new markets and keep competitors at bay. It's not the biggest thing, but it's a thing.

Talent is bought with pre-tax money. Same with investments.

And Facebook was barely making any money while it was becoming the dominant social network.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#78

Post by dilemma »

drawnwren wrote: post #60
hodgesrm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are not really a valid analogy here because we're talking about services with network effects that impose behavioral norms for all users regardless of location. To use your driving example it would be like saying that to use a car everyone has to drive on the same side of the road or accept identical pollution control standards. That's obviously not the case. Cars are adapted--sometimes quite substantially--to l…

Korea and Japan actually did this with cars. Enforcing extremely high tariffs on all imported vehicles. It seems to have worked well for their automotive Industries.

The US economy was founded on tariffs. No such thing as a free market in North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariffs_in_United_States_histo...

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#79

Post by kaoD »

setgree wrote: post #34

Not the first time Spain has taken on a tech giant, but it didn't go so great with Google: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-... "A study commissioned by Spanish publishers has found that a new intellectual property law passed in Spain last year, which charges news aggregators like Google for showing snippets and linking to news stories, has done substantial damage to the Spanish news indust…

Spaniard here.

Google tax was just a ploy from our crony capitalist government to divert money towards publishers aligned with them (i.e. most major news outlets). Actually, the publishers are the ones who promoted it (lobbying for it long before it was even a law proposal) and the government just followed its masters (the two large media groups who own mostly everything).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEDE

> In response, Google announced that they would be shutting down the Spanish version of their Google News service.

>

> The AEDE reacted by lobbying the Spanish government to force Google to keep it running.

It would be funny if it wasn't so worrying.

__

Fortunately this just looks like public workers from AEPD (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Spanish Agency of Data Protection) doing their jobs.

AEPD is one of the few public organizations I'm glad we have.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#80

Post by nradov »

alexasmyths wrote: post #45
alexasmyths wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tax avoidance isn't helping large US based tech companies aquire more users or gain more control of the Internet" No, it really does help large entities wield their power even more. The billions of dollars that the big cos have stockpiled ensures they can suck up the talent, attack new markets and keep competitors at bay. It's not the biggest thing, but it's a thing.

Yes, it does help. A) They have massive operations internationally and hire a lot. B) Did you witness Microsofts dismantling of Nokia? That was a takedown of an entire ecosystem and huge gift to Apple and Google/Android as well. Paid for by cheap taxes overseas.

Nokia never had a real ecosystem. That's exactly why they failed.
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