EU Lawmakers Pass Landmark Tech Rules, But Enforcement a Worry (reuters.com) 31
EU lawmakers gave the thumbs up on Tuesday to landmark rules to rein in tech giants such as Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, but enforcement could be hampered by regulators' limited resources. From a report: In addition to the rules known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), lawmakers also approved the Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires online platforms to do more to police the internet for illegal content. Companies face fines of up to 10% of annual global turnover for DMA violations and 6% for DSA breaches. Lawmakers and EU states had reached a political deal on both rule books earlier this year, leaving some details to be ironed out. The European Commission has set up a taskforce, with about 80 officials expected to join up, which critics say is inadequate. Last month it put out a 12 million euro ($12.3 million) tender for experts to help in investigations and compliance enforcement over a four-year period. EU industry chief Thierry Breton sought to address enforcement concerns, saying various teams would focus on different issues such as risk assessments, interoperability of messenger services and data access during implementation of the rules.
Reminder (Score:2, Insightful)
The EU is slowly bringing the western internet to where China's internet is at; don't think for a second they have any lesser end goals than total internet fascism.
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The internet does not belong to Europe.
BZZZT! All things belong to Europe! Right now, for one example, energy collapse belongs to Europe as Norwegian oilfield workers go on strike and Germany scrambles to reopen its coal-burning generators.
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The internet does not belong to Europe.
BZZZT! All things belong to Europe! Right now, for one example, energy collapse belongs to Europe as Norwegian oilfield workers go on strike and Germany scrambles to reopen its coal-burning generators.
And EU's immigration problems belong to Greece and Italy and Poland and UK....
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Reminder: The internet does not belong to Europe.
You don't seem to get - he who programs the network owns the network, and that means big corporations and their families actually own the internet. Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the last 23+ years of PC game theft when garriot and company back ended Ultima and rebranded PC rpg's mmo's so they could steal them from the public, which lead to steam in 2003.
There's been a war on software ownership and general computing which the industry has been winning soundly because the average person on our
open source alternatives getting easie Re:Reminder (Score:2)
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Reminder: The internet does not belong to Europe.
Of course it doesn't. Nothing about this is about ownership of the internet. It is about laws affecting the content distribution and practices of local European companies. US companies don't need to comply with this, just the local EU ones. Like the French company Amazon s.a.r.l, or the Germany company Facebook Deutschland GmbH, or that Dutch company Twitter Netherlands B.V, or that Austrian company Google Austria GmbH.
The internet is unaffected. Only these local EU based companies need to comply with local
As ymmy as their cookie recipe (Score:1)
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be better if they spent their time writing laws that prohibited the data collection and abuse.
Then let companies target ads all they want.
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Already got them, GDPR stops most of that collection. There are compliance issues, mostly around coerced consent (if that's not an oxymoron).
Sometimes you might want to exchange some data for services. In that case, there will now be limits on what can be used to target ads.
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I would say that GDPR fails in protecting me since I have to consent in order to have access to any useful service such as insurance, banking, private health care, credit/debit card, apartment rent, smart phone use, phone subscription, tv/streaming services, shopping online, gym membership, search engines, etc.
Living in my country without giving any such consent at all would be practically unmanageable.
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I would say that GDPR fails in protecting me since I have to consent in order to have access to any useful service
What you are consenting to is only a tiny portion of what GDPR covers. If you don't think the GDPR is providing you protection then you are simply ignorant as to data collection practices both before the GDPR and still actively elsewhere in the world.
There's a good fucking reason websites load in a fraction of the time in the EU compared to elsewhere assuming you're not manually taking action on your device to block tracking scripts.
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Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Let's try to add to the confusion.
While GDPR gives me a lot of protection, the exploitable loophole around consent-if-you-want-to-use-our-service-and-good-luck-finding-an-actor-providing-a-similar-service-without-requiring-such-consent is enormous. My initial argument was that there is room for additional regulation, and I tried to demonstrate that GDPR didn't suffice.
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That's a GDPR violation.
They have to get individual opt-in permission for every use, and can't force you to accept targeted ads just to access a service. That would be coercion, which is not allowed.
If that is happening to you then you should complain to them, and then to the regulator if they don't fix it.
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It would be better if they spent their time writing laws that prohibited the data collection and abuse.
The EU already has multiple such laws and have current active working groups looking at expanding them.
It would be better if Slashdotters realised that normal people can have more than one item on their todo list at any given time.
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Ad targeting is primarily a scam. None are scammier about it than faceboot, which tags content and then attaches the same tags ("interests") to anyone who interacts with it, then sells advertisers "targeted advertising" based on those tags. I have watched their system do it first-hand. I presume literally everyone is doing essentially the same thing, although some may be doing it slightly more faithfully.
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I sometimes feel a little bit sorry for all those toaster companies that are burning their ad dollars trying to sell me a toaster for weeks after I just bought one online.
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Amazon is especially bad about this.
We see that you've just purchased a portable battery pack. We're now going to recommend several different models of portable battery packs to you, on the odd chance you're starting a collection.
hampered by LIMITED resources ??! what ?! (Score:1)
What do they mean "hampered by limited resources" ?!
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EU only has some of the highest taxes in the world ! What do they mean "hampered by limited resources" ?!
Here's some citations to go with your comment. The personal income tax rates appear to be much higher than corporate tax rates in Europe, but I did not check all European countries.
Personal Income Tax Rates in Europe:
https://tradingeconomics.com/c... [tradingeconomics.com]
Corporate Tax Rates, alphabetical order showing all countries in the world:
https://www2.deloitte.com/cont... [deloitte.com]
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They're only responsible (in general) for what they willfully deliver to users in specific markets in which they also have offices and sell advertising. If they want to engage in commercial activity somewhere then they're going to have to follow their rules for commerce.
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Why should a company that operates in Country A be held liable for something deemed illegal in Country B?
Because companies don't operate in Country A, they operate in Country A and B, as well as C,D,E,F,G,.... That's how multinationals work. You're liable and need to follow laws in countries in which you are a registered company.
You know like Facebook Netherlands B.V. that Dutch company headquartered in Jollemanhof 15, 1019GW Amsterdam
or like Facebook Deutschland GmbH, that German company headquartered in Schopenstehl 13, 20095, Hamburg
or like Facebook France s.a.r.l, that French company headquartered in 6 Rue
So... (Score:2)
Will US companies obey these rules? What about when India that requested master keys for BlackBerry? Sorry, forgot, that was given out... Ok, what about Russia who wants a local representative ^h^h^h^h"hostage"? What about Erdogan who wants access to critics' Twitter accounts? What if these rules conflict with US rules?
With 100+ countries and regions each with unique rules, can we keep the Internet a coherent and free medium?
Or is it already too late?
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Will US companies obey these rules?
Which US companies? Facebook is a Dutch company. As well as a German, Spanish, and French company, each with registered businesses for operations in their respective countries.
There are precisely no tech giants which are "US companies". They are all multinationals registered as businesses in many countries the world over.
What about Erdogan who wants access to critics' Twitter accounts?
Funny you mention that. Facebook is not a registered company in Turkey, instead they are a non-operating entity as a subsidiary of Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. And what was Facebook's answer