[HN Gopher] Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling
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Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling
Author : shivbhatt
Score : 183 points
Date : 2021-06-15 09:43 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| thrower123 wrote:
| They keep doing these things that are ostensibly aimed at hurting
| Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. But the effect of their actions
| just entrenches those big players, who have the money and the
| legal teams and the resources, such that the added regulatory
| burden widens their moats and suppresses upstart competition.
| thakoppno wrote:
| Perhaps it slows down bigger tech companies ability to
| innovate.
|
| My tech co has spent a significant amount of energy complying
| with GDPR and CCPA the last couple years while the products
| have received less and less feature improvements.
|
| A brand new entrant would likely bolt on compliance to their
| innovative product once it reached critical mass, not before.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The real result is preventing smaller players from emerging.
|
| Big tech can easily deal with regulations, they have money. A
| new social network? It doesn't stand a chance, especially if
| they raised money in Europe.
|
| I wonder if Big Tech will bail out the EU once they collapse
| on their debts.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It's about time.
|
| Provided the GDPR now actually gets enforced, this would clean up
| the web from all the obnoxious consent flows (remember those are
| _not_ compliant with the GDPR to begin with).
|
| This will also make Facebook and similar monopolies less toxic as
| they'd have to either obey the law at a loss or start charging
| for their services, opening themselves up to competition.
| nivenkos wrote:
| How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead
| of just adding endless bureaucracy?
|
| Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start
| supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM
| (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in
| a great position to do this.
|
| We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive,
| monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in Europe, and then
| take all the profits back to the US where they pay 3x the
| salaries - only supporting the US economy.
| axlee wrote:
| >How about actually supporting the European Tech industry
| instead of just adding endless bureaucracy?
|
| Why do you make it sound like they don't? The EU invests
| massive amounts in technology (in regards to its paltry
| investment budget, but that's another debate).
|
| One does not prevent the other. And calling regulations against
| clear abuse "endless bureaucracy" is insidious at best.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Calling it bureaucracy, whatever the implications, is
| perfectly fair... assuming we're talking about the subject of
| this article.
|
| This is about 27 separate national governments to apply
| separate regulatory procedures, rather than just having
| Ireland's current gdpr enforcement. That's not necessarily
| bad, but it is more bureaucracy.
| nr2x wrote:
| A major goal of GDPR was to streamline enforcement and
| reduce compliance cost. Then people thought they could use
| Ireland to just avoid it, and instead they now have to
| worry about 27 DPAs, so it utterly backfired. Same dynamic
| in USA: they blocked national level privacy laws for
| decades and now they'll have to deal with 50 state laws
| instead, which is much more onerous.
| foobiekr wrote:
| US states will not have the same issues that GDPR had.
| The bounds of enforcement will be much more clear and the
| US has a much clearer way of dealing with vagueness in
| laws in general. Despite assurances, US companies do not
| like the "the statute documents the intent but not all of
| the specifics" approach the EU uses.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Instead of funding they should just get out of the way
| throwaway12509 wrote:
| I believe the EU would be better off if it just deleted its
| technology funding apparatus and tried to rebuild something
| like DARPA, while focusing on procurement like the poster
| suggested.
|
| There is a huge amount of money available, but it's locked
| behind layers and layers of bureaucracy. It is a huge waste
| of time on both sides, for some anecdotal I'm procrastinating
| from an application as I type. I should be coding or doing
| something otherwise useful.
|
| The situation has devolved to where startups treat public
| funding as though it were revenue and have dedicated teams to
| chase it.
|
| The Economist had an article here a few days ago lamenting
| that Europe fails to produce IPOs, which is where the actual
| problem lies. If ExpectedValue[European Startup] =
| ExpectedValue[Startup] | No IPO, then it's no wonder European
| startups are valued at 10% of their US counterparts.
|
| The EU needs to get out of the way and end its Lots of Little
| Winners policy, because without winners you just wind up with
| Lots of Little Losers in a globalised economy.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| There are companies and people specialized to get grants
| and funding from the eu. They will take 15-20% . Most of
| the time the money goes to incompetent companies, but with
| good connections. Normally you'd call this corruption, but
| of course that doesn't happen here.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| > The situation has devolved to where startups treat public
| funding as though it were revenue and have dedicated teams
| to chase it.
|
| This is how it works in America, too. Professional grant
| writers who know how to get funding are basically the
| rainmakers for research teams.
| onion2k wrote:
| _The Economist had an article here a few days ago lamenting
| that Europe fails to produce IPOs, which is where the
| actual problem lies._
|
| A lot of European startups don't get to the size where an
| IPO exit would be appropriate because a US company buys
| them before that can happen.
| Silhouette wrote:
| You don't _have_ to sell out to a big US company, so it
| 's worth pausing to ask how we've reached the situation
| you described.
| onion2k wrote:
| Of course you don't, but someone offering to make you a
| multi-millionaire is hard to say no to. I imagine. I've
| never been in the situation unfortunately.
| throwaway12509 wrote:
| Generally it's not you making the decision but some
| investor who needs to close out a 10y fund and can force
| the sale through some nasty term in the SHA.
|
| In a unicorn situation, the founder will generally take
| money off the table early and will be okay regardless.
| Just look at WeWork.
| Silhouette wrote:
| It certainly is, but in the US there have apparently been
| enough incentives for some founders not to accept an
| offer at that level. Some of those founders have gone on
| to build their businesses up to billion-dollar
| valuations, with dominance in their field, and now
| they've become the ones doing the investing and acquiring
| for the next generation of tech businesses. We have
| almost none of that in Europe, and I think it's important
| to ask why. I don't believe we lack people with ideas,
| skills and entrepreneurial instincts, and that means
| something else is getting in the way.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Name some in the EU
| jeltz wrote:
| The issue is that there are a bunch of big is companies
| with way too much cash who can buy any potential
| competitor. I do not feel it matters much how they got
| that big. What we instead need to limit is their ability
| to buy competitors.
| onion2k wrote:
| If we stopped them buying competitors they'd just build
| their own competitor, and then the founders with the
| original idea would _probably_ lose and nothing else
| would change. At least while FAANGs buy up their
| competitors the founders get an exit.
| Silhouette wrote:
| I think both are important. There is a question of what
| we do to prevent any successful medium-sized European
| business becoming a small part of some huge US business.
| But there is also a question of how our entire
| entrepreneurial sector got so broken on this side of the
| Atlantic that such a huge imbalance arose in the first
| place. If we don't address the issues that caused that to
| happen once, surely it will tend to happen again sooner
| or later.
| axlee wrote:
| It is, as always, an inequality issue. Sadly, the
| alternative is not acceptable in a neoliberal world: no
| european company is willing or able to pay up for a
| promising technology as much as Google, Apple or Amazon
| will, but nation-states definitely can.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I don't see how its in anyone's interest to generate more
| rent-seeking giants. All these R&D statistics are bullshit
| as they work on tax data, which in turn clearly
| incentivises companies to classify every programmer or
| engineering salary as research. A healthy world needs more
| dynamic startups, not more anticompetitive giants that
| squeeze or buy everyone else. The US or Chinese advantage
| is not quality engineering or better companies, its just
| financial engineering and huge state or venture financing
| specifically intended yo generate winners.
|
| I'm happy that the EU still bets on the small guys.
| nr2x wrote:
| We're not talking about artisan cheese here, we're
| talking network effects. "Small guys" can't offer the
| same value without a user base.
| [deleted]
| danaris wrote:
| But why is a high stock value the ultimate goal?
|
| Shouldn't the goal be producing tech that's beneficial?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| That's the purpose of a commercial company. To return
| money to shareholders.
| throwaway12509 wrote:
| Because high future valuations allow companies to raise
| capital and do useful work in society.
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| [citation needed]
| viro wrote:
| AMC
| sidlls wrote:
| Beneficial to whom?
| danaris wrote:
| In general, to its users, hopefully without also being
| detrimental to society as a whole. But my point here is
| mainly "shouldn't the goal of a company be to _produce a
| useful product or service_ rather than simply _to make
| money for its shareholders_? "
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| There no massive capital flow like in the US because
| nobody's putting their entire life savings and pensions on
| the markets.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Interesting, where do retirement savings go? I don't know
| much about the European context beyond the S = I identity
| from my intro macro courses back in the day.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Real estate, guns, oil.
|
| And we'll they actually cannot pay what they promised, so
| they keep upping the pension age etc.
| varispeed wrote:
| > The EU invests massive amounts in technology (in regards to
| its paltry investment budget, but that's another debate)
|
| The problem is that the EU invests. Small businesses are
| taxed to death and swamped with bureaucracy. From that you
| can clearly see where this is going.
| nivenkos wrote:
| IMO the issue isn't so much the taxation, although this has
| a big impact on hiring since you need to be very certain
| about anyone you keep past their trial period.
|
| The bigger issue is that the US has a massive advantage, in
| that a US tech company can launch in one language (their
| native language) to 300+ million potential customers, and
| hire from the same pool with minimal bureaucracy (the laws
| are largely the same, and at least written in the same
| language, ID and visa requirements are the same, payment
| providers are mostly the same, etc.)
|
| In Europe on the other hand, to launch even to other
| countries in the EU involves a lot of translation work.
| Then taxation varies a lot, and the laws are in different
| languages so you'll need local lawyers and a local tax
| office to hire employees there, etc. - on the employee
| side, the ID and visa requirements vary a lot too, so
| you'll need local specialists / relocation companies to
| help with that. The payment providers also differ a lot,
| e.g. with Sofort-uberweisung in Germany and the lack of
| online card payment options there (until recently), etc.
|
| And then there's the extra EU regulations - the GDPR,
| cookie consent laws, age verification laws for video
| content, link tax for aggregation services, etc.
|
| But I still think the best solution in the short-term is
| protectionism. Give European companies a bigger advantage
| in Europe by not sourcing from foreign corporations
| (especially for critical infrastructure like public
| services), and invest in FOSS and development companies
| around that (where smaller companies could work together on
| FOSS projects).
|
| Otherwise the US companies just dominate, and then use
| their dominant position to get a monopoly through bribes
| and threats (see Microsoft in Hungary and Munich for
| example). Then they pay no taxes in the EU, take all the
| profit back to the US and use that to crush EU industry
| even further - just like how in the past natural resources
| were plundered from colonies, but all the skilled industry
| was kept in the coloniser countries.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Reality is different. The EU just loves to talk to
| Amazon. The politicians are in awe of anyone from big
| tech. Star struck. It's disturbing to have seen this from
| up close
| jeltz wrote:
| As someone running s small business in the EU: how am I
| taxed to death? The only taxes a startup really needs to
| care about are taxes on salary but since competent
| employees are a fraction of the cost here compared to SF it
| does not matter that taxes are higher. There is also VAT
| which can affect some businesses but in general is not too
| big of a deal.
|
| No, I can't see how taxes are to blame. Taxes are not
| signficant concern for most startups.
| viro wrote:
| it could be the fact that EU employees are randomly out
| of office(vacation) for months at a time. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| stefanfisk wrote:
| I've never worked at a place where vacation was random.
| The most common pattern I've seen is a fairly tight bell
| curve centered on July, with individuals spread out a bit
| depending on individual and business needs.
| ThalesX wrote:
| This is a hilarious view on European work culture, and
| this is coming from a guy that is randomly out of the
| office (vacation) for months at a time.
| YorkshireSeason wrote:
| > EU invests massive amounts in technology
|
| An interesting question is: what's the ROI of this
| investment. Anecdotally, the over the last 50 years the EU
| has been loosing their leadership in field after field. First
| to the US, then Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, now China. With the
| loss of the UK Arm is no longer an EU company. Have you
| looked into Linux commits recently [1], or where papers come
| from in the top CS conferences?
|
| [1] https://news.itsfoss.com/huawei-kernel-contribution/
| flexie wrote:
| Well, Arm is not a UK company much longer either:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/14/qualcomm-offers-to-invest-
| in...
| Chris2048 wrote:
| The link says "as regulators threaten to block"
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > calling regulations against clear abuse "endless
| bureaucracy" is insidious at best
|
| It's insidious, yes, but also what if foreign competitors
| gain a competitive advantage due to _fewer_ regulations?
|
| They will still need to follow EU regulations, but they gain
| R&D momentum locally.
|
| The only solution I see is to bar foreign companies that do
| not adopt EU regulations locally too - e.g. a self-driving
| car developer that does not need to follow safety regulation
| as strictly locally.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _And calling regulations against clear abuse "endless
| democracy" is insidious at best._
|
| Well, GP wrote "endless bureaucracy" not "endless democracy",
| unless the comment has been edited.
|
| And that, IMNSHO as someone who has founded tech businesses
| here, is entirely fair criticism. The environment created by
| all those regulations is insanely hostile to tech
| entrepreneurship, and it's not as if many of those
| regulations are well considered or effective at protecting
| vulnerable groups anyway.
|
| The worst part is, I'm not convinced anyone deep inside the
| EU corridors of power even realises this is what they are
| doing. If the first step in solving a problem is
| understanding that it exists, the EU is still at step 0.
| varispeed wrote:
| You have companies that specialise in creating "start ups"
| that get tax payer funding, ride the money wave out and
| then close. Usually they put homeless people in suits to
| act as CEOs. One business folds, they create another one.
| Then governments complain the public purse is shrinking and
| there is no economic growth.
| Silhouette wrote:
| IMHO, the taxpayer funding aspect is a red herring
| anyway.
|
| There is no reason that a small team of founders or even
| a solo founder should not be able to start and grow a
| tech/software business well. The natural barriers to
| entry are very low in this industry. If you have a useful
| idea, the technical skills to implement it, and the
| willingness to try, you should never _need_ lots of
| external help to build a viable business.
|
| Obviously there are advantages to taking substantial
| external investment or other funding, and doing so
| usually also comes with strings attached. You have to
| weigh up whether the cost/benefit is favourable. But in a
| tech/software business, this should primarily be useful
| for accelerating the success of a business already
| destined to be successful. We're not talking about
| manufacturing where you need to pay for factory
| facilities and supply chains of physical materials and
| other big up-front costs before you can start creating
| value yourself that you can charge for.
|
| The reason it is increasingly difficult for any small
| founding team to actually do that in much of Europe has a
| lot more to do with regulatory barriers and red tape than
| lack of funding. No startup is going to perform well if
| someone keeps distracting the people building it and
| making them do things that aren't directly adding value.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I see this comment a lot but I have never seen any
| evidence for this. What exactly is the barrier that a
| tech startup faces in Europe vs US? Which regulations are
| in the way (and are they EU or national ones)?
|
| There is a lot of bs thrown around e.g. GDPR is far from
| evil or bothersome, as well funded lobby groups have made
| it out to be. You don't need cookie warnings if you use
| cookies to log your users in, only if you sell your users
| out to google and other analytics companies. You are
| obliged to have unsubscribe links in your emails to
| users. You have to provide and delete data you hold on
| specific users if requested. From a few hundred thousand
| users you need a data controller which is for ally
| responsible to watch out for data breaches (this is just
| an identified person, not a full time post). What's the
| big deal?
|
| Much more stifling are e.g. the processes to register a
| company in the country you are based in or to get a bank
| account, and of course Europe's language diversity
| shrinks the potential reach so most that want to scale do
| so in English and then find it convenient to have offices
| e.g. in the US or UK.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _I see this comment a lot but I have never seen any
| evidence for this._
|
| While this is not intended as a criticism of you
| personally, you have ironically just demonstrated a big
| part of the problem. I might reply that I have seen this
| response a lot, no matter how often I have previously
| given detailed examples, sometimes even in the same
| forum. A lot of people who haven't themselves tried to
| run a business in this environment are almost completely
| unaware of the hassle it can be. Here in the UK, this is
| a particularly poignant issue because of the poor quality
| of "debate" around Brexit a few years ago.
|
| Now, to answer your question, here are a few of the
| different barriers a new tech business would face here in
| the UK right now.
|
| 1. It's been difficult-to-impossible to open a new
| business bank account for the past several months. The
| big banks have (they claim) been so busy administering
| government support schemes for existing business
| customers that they couldn't take on any more. Government
| have been mostly ineffective at dealing with this
| problem.
|
| 2. To hire anyone (other than owner-directors, when some
| of this might not apply) means drawing up employment
| contracts with all the required elements, establishing
| formal grievance and disciplinary processes, being aware
| of numerous employment regulations, arranging all
| required insurance policies, identifying what evidence
| you need to keep to confirm a candidate's legal right to
| work for you, understanding any relevant minimum wages
| and time off including many kinds of statutory leave and
| pay, understanding your health and safety obligations
| including things you must say/provide/fund for your
| employee, establishing a payroll system and integrating
| that with the government's real-time information system
| if you haven't already done this, setting up a compliant
| company pension scheme if you haven't already done this,
| and who knows what else because this sentence is already
| half a screen long.
|
| 3. All of your personal data processing needs to be GDPR
| compliant. Its defenders like to say this isn't a big
| burden because it "just" means you have to do a few
| reasonable-looking things they can type out in a single
| comment. However, the main GDPR document alone is nearly
| 100 pages long and that's before you consider all the
| supporting material and the views of 28 different
| regulators. One of these things is not the same scale as
| the other.
|
| 4. If you're selling B2C, the consumer rights rules will
| apply. Again, on the face of it, that's fine. Who can
| object to fair protections for consumers, right? But when
| you actually read them, they are full of things that
| aren't well considered, like defaults that probably no-
| one would ever want, long and highly context-sensitive
| lists of information that must be provided at different
| times, obscenely disproportionate penalties for minor
| infractions by merchants, etc.
|
| 5. VAT. I'm not going to elaborate much, though I could
| write a pretty long book on the subject at this point.
| You're welcome to Google the numerous extensive
| criticisms out there. I suggest starting with #vatmess.
| Pay particular attention to how the EU changed the rules
| so what used to be a single market where merchants
| treated customers anywhere in Europe the same as in their
| home country got turned into a situation where merchants
| had to understand and comply with the tax rates and rules
| in every one of 28 member states. This is literally the
| opposite of the EU promise of creating a single market.
|
| 6. The IP landscape is unclear. Attempts to standardise
| it have repeatedly failed. No-one really knows what you
| can or can't get a patent for, or even what _types_ of
| inventions you can or can 't get a patent for. Copyright
| rules differ significantly with geographical location,
| and in some places additional related rights exist.
|
| 7. Lots of relatively minor stuff like the "cookie law",
| which is a tiny and yet totemic issue. It was well-
| intentioned but written by people who didn't really
| understand the technology and its implications. It
| doesn't do much to protect anyone. It annoys almost
| everyone. Non-compliance is widespread, whether
| deliberately or through simple misunderstanding or
| ignorance of what is technically required. There is
| little enforcement in practice, so operators who do make
| the effort to comply are left at a disadvantage. And
| years later, all of this still hasn't been properly fixed
| even though just about everyone agrees on it.
|
| Edit to add:
|
| 8. How could I forget PSD2/SCA? There's nothing like
| putting obstacles in the way of actually collecting money
| from your customers to help a business grow.
| foobiekr wrote:
| Agree with all of these.
|
| In the US there are multiple turnkey schemes for #2,
| though, albeit at some cost. Is there a gap in the EU?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| In NL, you can't fire someone. Only in certain cases,
| after a long buildup of cases about this person. So you
| do temporary contracts, but after 3 periods, it will be
| indefinite. People are "sick", and you get to keep paying
| them for a couple of years.
|
| Now combine this with self funded companies, and 1 bad
| hire can kill your company
| Silhouette wrote:
| Many of the rules around hiring employees are national
| rather than EU, so anything that did the whole lot as a
| turnkey solution would probably have to vary
| significantly from one member state to another (and
| within the UK, which for now remains aligned with the EU
| rules as well).
|
| You can certainly get software that handles things like
| payroll and statutory leave. Using it has become a
| practical necessity anyway since governments like the
| UK's started requiring payroll data to be filed
| electronically using approved software built on top of
| their API.
|
| IMHO, the problem with becoming an employer for the first
| time is that there are _so many_ things that an employer
| is now required to arrange that even if they are
| individually quite reasonable the cumulative effort can
| be a deterrent.
|
| For example, if an employee at your tech firm uses a
| display screen, you must arrange and pay for an eyesight
| test with a suitably qualified professional if they ask
| for one. You must also pay for their glasses if they need
| an extra prescription specifically for display screen
| use, but you don't need to do this if their ordinary
| prescription is already suitable.
|
| While you're dealing with H&S issues, don't forget to
| conduct your suitable and sufficient risk assessment for
| each new employee who is going to be working from home
| during the pandemic restrictions and then make any
| changes needed so they can do so in a safe and healthy
| way, whatever any of that actually means in practice.
|
| The list of things you're automatically responsible for
| the moment you become someone's employer is pretty long
| in my country, and if you want to get it even close to
| right you'll probably end up dealing with lawyers,
| accountants, insurers, pension providers, HMRC, anyone
| who makes related software you now need to use, and from
| time to time possibly others like medical professionals.
|
| As far as I'm aware, the closest thing to a turnkey
| solution that covers all of this is engaging an HR
| professional, presumably on a consultancy basis since you
| hardly need one full time if you're a bootstrapped
| startup looking for employee #1. But then that's more
| cost to deal with, and it's still going to take
| considerable time for one or more of your founders to
| make all the necessary arrangements even if you've
| brought in an expert to tell you what those arrangements
| need to be.
| rusk wrote:
| Please add some details or citation to this. It's a
| fascinating idea and I'd like to know more. I mean YC is
| literally in the business of startup businesses but your
| whole remark about the homeless guys has thrown me
| perhaps it needs \/s?
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > And that, IMNSHO as someone who has founded tech
| businesses here, is entirely fair criticism. The
| environment created by all those regulations is insanely
| hostile to tech entrepreneurship, and it's not as if many
| of those regulations are well considered or effective at
| protecting vulnerable groups anyway.
|
| yup.
|
| Many different rules in eu countries, fscked up tax rules
| for companies trading with foreing customers, high taxes
| for relatively well paid tech workers, and high cost of
| entry into the business is killing european businesses.
|
| Even starting a business is hard... I hear a lot of people
| from USA who (eg.) find a old t-shirt printing press in a
| yard sale, and start their own t-shirt printing business,
| fill out some forms, sell 7 tshirts in two years, mostly to
| family, and then stop doing it. Just being able to letally
| sell a t-shirt in many eu states will cost you thousands
| and thousands of euros, where it's just not worth it to
| start. Wanna make an app by yourself and host the backend
| on a $5 digitalocean VM? Sure... but do it for free. Want
| to earn something? If you have just a few dollars of
| income, it's not worth it... you need a lot of users paying
| you a lot of money to pay the government fees, even if you
| work for free.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I wouldn't ban the company (there's no way to make that sound
| right).
|
| Just ban the practices they follow, which makes them
| unqualified to participate unless they really change that.
|
| For example, public procurement should always require software
| be open source as a hard dealbraker. This is actually the case
| in [too few] countries.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| As a practical matter, there would need to be exemptions (and
| usually are). There is closed source software used by
| government that has no open source equivalent, is unlikely to
| have an open source equivalent in the foreseeable future for
| various reasons, and the government has no leverage to force
| the companies to make their software open source.
|
| Some things can be open source, the government already uses a
| lot of open source in many countries, but the government has
| little recourse if providers of critical software
| capabilities refuse to do business under those terms.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| I'd be curious about an example of a country where this is at
| all a requirement. Sadly I think not even Estonia asks for
| that, they just work with great central services and APIs.
| realityking wrote:
| It's starting to happen in Germany, at least in healthcare.
| The Corona Warn App was open sourced (developed by SAP und
| Deutsche Telekom) and the server software (developed by
| IBM) will also be open sourced (https://www.kma-
| online.de/aktuelles/it-digital-health/detail...)
| usr1106 wrote:
| > It's starting to happen in Germany, at least in
| healthcare. The Corona Warn App was open sourced
|
| And now there is a closed source competitor with a lot of
| backing from some politicians. So it's not that they
| would have learned the lesson.
| Stranger43 wrote:
| Europe is not America and emulating American mercantilism is
| probably not going to result in anything positive, as the
| European market is too decentralized for the kind of collusion
| between the political/diplomatic system that allows the
| American multinationals to dominate.
|
| What the EU should do is play to it's strengths as the last
| organizations left that takes the regulative role required by
| smiths model of capitalism serious and start enforcing
| transparency, choice and interoperability on the digital field,
| with the same zeal it treats similar regulation in the
| agricultural and manufacturing sectors.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| > Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start
| supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex.
|
| Neither of those are EU either, are they? Baidu is Chinese and
| Yandex is Russia (admittedly they are in Europe, but not part
| of the EU). How is that any different, from the EU's
| perspective, to supporting Oracle and Microsoft? Unless I'm
| misinformed, which is entirely possible.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| The commenter said _equivalent_. They were not saying the EU
| should fund Baidu or Yandex. They were saying to either find
| or create an equivalent in the EU and fund that.
|
| Curious as to how one expects to will such a company into
| existence, but whatever I guess.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| That's fair. I suppose I misread what the OP said. Thanks
| for the clarification. It's greatly appreciated.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I don't want to replace Facebook's panopticon data collection
| with a European one in the name of European nationalism, I just
| want companies to respect user privacy, I don't want to adopt
| Russian or Chinese style surveillance state-capitalism to do..
| what exactly?
|
| America, Russia and China are heading head first into cyberpunk
| dystopia and your suggestion is we better hurry up because
| we're currently being stopped by 'endless bureaucracy'? I'm
| gonna be honest I'd rather take the bureaucracy than play that
| game
| simfoo wrote:
| >How about actually supporting the European Tech industry
| instead of just adding endless bureaucracy?
|
| How about doing both the first while also ensuring that
| european law is actually being followed? So far US monopolists
| have relied on being in bed with Irish lawmakers to avoid the
| GDPR fines.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Perhaps there is an inverse correlation between those things.
| anoncake wrote:
| If the state can only regulate the economy, which is part
| of its core task and cannot be done by any other entity, or
| pump money into it, I'd absolutely prefer the former.
| nob0dyasked wrote:
| Why judging things by their capacity to pay taxes?
|
| Taxes are about the least thing that matters for society. You
| complain about incompetent bureaucracy but who do you think
| manages taxes?
|
| Good service, privacy, innovation, these are the questions.
| LightG wrote:
| Whether Facebook comes from the EU or the US, the same data
| issues would arise. Hence, regulation.
| tester34 wrote:
| I'd rather ban fb, twitter, tiktok
| spodek wrote:
| Calling them tech associates them with inventors and people
| who want to improve life.
|
| The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma is a more accurate
| association. They purport to help and in some situation they
| do. We all love cat videos and notes from mom and dad. But
| they make money from addicting people. Whatever technologies
| they create serve that mission. They're not opposed to
| improving the quality of users' lives, but that's a side
| effect. Mostly they relieve craving in ways that recreate it.
| Dobbs wrote:
| Because not everything is about money and business. The EU
| while far from perfect does try and look out for, respect, and
| care for its people. Both at an EU wide level, and at
| individual country levels. GDPR and this are both attempts to
| provide more protection to individuals. Not necessarily to
| build homegrown alternatives. The problem isn't the specific
| company, but how companies in this sector act.
| tallanvor wrote:
| For one thing, these countries employ thousands of people in
| the EU. Banning them from public procurement would hurt many of
| their residents, and still wouldn't guarantee good solutions.
| TX0098812 wrote:
| > How about actually supporting the European Tech industry
| instead of just adding endless bureaucracy?
|
| Their power is to make rules, so they will make rules because
| it is all they know how to do. Leaving things alone is often
| the most difficult (and important) thing to do.
| etripe wrote:
| If all you have is a ban hammer, everything looks like a
| flame?
|
| I'm not sure that criticism is entirely valid, as it looks at
| European institutions exclusively. Surely lobby groups and
| their perpetual pressure on legislators play a role, too,
| like they would for the US House and Senate. Even with that
| pressure, I suppose they could "leave well alone", but then
| they'd be seen as uncooperative and ignoring their
| constituents.
|
| I'd like to live in a world where legislators have competent
| cabinets and can be assumed to be reasonably well-informed,
| but for instance the Facebook hearings have shown there's a
| long way to go.
|
| Even non-technical issues show this to be true. Case in
| point: the UK and Dutch governments thinking they would solve
| the housing crisis by giving mortgage grants to starters.
| Expectation: case closed. Reality: housing prices surged even
| more due to the cash injection.
| csunbird wrote:
| who cares about new rules when nobody is enforcing them. it
| has been 3 years since gdpr is in effect, but nobody actually
| cares, especially the U.S. tech giants.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > instead of just adding endless bureaucracy?
|
| What do you mean by "endless bureaucracy"? Making sure that
| people's personal data is not sold right and left?
| dvdkon wrote:
| How about we actually think hard about the situation, formulate
| clearly why we don't like it and propose non-ad-hoc legislation
| that fixes the specific issues? Banning companies on the basis
| of "too powerful"/"I don't like them" is how dictatorships
| work, we should strive to be better than that, even if it is
| more work. I agree with your motives, but I still believe in
| the "legal state" ideal.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Rather than play silly buggers why not start with things like
| this:
|
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-fo...
|
| That's the UK govt standard for document/data exchange. Short,
| simple and open. Get the basics right first then tackle the
| complicated stuff.
| dpwm wrote:
| > That's the UK govt standard for document/data exchange.
| Short, simple and open. Get the basics right first then
| tackle the complicated stuff.
|
| Which would be great if they actually followed their
| guidance.
|
| In reality, the UK Westminster government is one of the worst
| entities for pushing out spreadsheets that use over-
| engineered excel-specific validation (often wrong for excel,
| too) with protection. There is no offer of an ods version,
| only xlsx.
| mtgx wrote:
| Why not both?
| md9001 wrote:
| It won't happen. EU bureaucracy just likes to travel from one
| capital to another and enjoying 5 star comfort pretending to be
| extremely busy completely disconnected from reality.
|
| Its not that they haven't poured in huge amounts of cash into
| science and tech. Its that its all gone into building ivory
| towers even more disconnected from reality. So the people in
| those ivory towers have no clue how to compete in a ruthless
| world.
|
| When someone just gets cash grants without loosing sweet and
| blood how the fuck are they supposed to compete with people
| around the world who have that experience?
| tester34 wrote:
| (real question) aren't e.g Tesla, SpaceX, NASA, Boeing using
| govt money too?
| Ralfp wrote:
| In fact they are:
|
| SpaceX does gov contracts for US defense and NASA.
|
| Tesla is selling their carbon credits to other companies.
|
| NASA is gov agency.
|
| Boeing is doing both defense and civilian contracts for US
| gov.
| dgellow wrote:
| Regarding Tesla, it's even their main source of revenue!
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/02/01/teslas-dirty-
| little-s...
| [deleted]
| bsedlm wrote:
| > When someone just gets cash grants without loosing sweet
| and blood how the fuck are they supposed to compete with
| people around the world who have that experience?
|
| Somehow, "market forces" (in a certain not-literal sense)
| where supposed to take care of this. In an honest marketplace
| there exists a level of competition which keeps the
| participants honest.
|
| Back when knowledge still needed a physical merchandise-like
| form to be transferred (even as printed books) this market-
| given-honesty pattern still somewhat worked. But the modern
| digital age has completely broken this.
|
| There's just something fundamentally different about
| "cognitive commodities" (i.e. digital data) and "merchandise"
| (i.e. goods with physical exclusiveness) which completely
| changes things
| dieortin wrote:
| I'd say Airbus is competing quite well, Boeing not so much.
| throwaway12509 wrote:
| Neither Airbus nor Boeing has initiated a new aircraft
| design since the late 90s early 2000s with the A380 and 787
| respectively.
|
| The A220, a legitimate clean-sheet and fantastic aircraft,
| came from Bombardier and only fell into Airbus hands due to
| regulatory warfare, albeit from the American side this
| time.
| delroth wrote:
| Did you mean A350 rather than A380?
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| This is the european equivalent to project golden shield.
| Establish hostile laws, locking google,amazon and fb out & grow
| local companies to fill the gap.
| sgift wrote:
| Nothing about these laws is specific to foreign companies. It's
| specific to data abusing companies and if those come from
| within Europe they get fined too.
| streamofdigits wrote:
| What is it with the British Isles and their "job specialization"
| in arbitraging / milking the economy of continental Europe?
|
| From the financial rent seeking of London, to the tax and privacy
| regulatory arbitrages of Ireland the same pattern of exploiting
| arbitrarily erected information walls to evade scrutiny and
| accountability.
|
| Of course this is a tango that takes three to dance...
| rusk wrote:
| You think this stuff doesn't go on in Paris or Frankfurt?
| Luxembourg is a whole city state dedicated to this kind of
| thing.
|
| They're just better at keeping under the radar and probably
| have better PR.
| nivenkos wrote:
| The former PM of Luxembourg was also the head of the EU.
|
| They're running the dog and pony show.
| rusk wrote:
| It goes on everywhere. New York is the same.
|
| Ireland is an outlier in the fact that her ascendancy
| coincided with the US tech boom and language was an
| advantage. You have a very awkward situation developing and
| the current political leaders don't have the imagination to
| get out of it.
|
| The UK is an outlier because though they had a far more
| robust and diverse economy they threw everything into
| finance and have just burned any bridges back.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _The UK is an outlier because though they had a far more
| robust and diverse economy they threw everything into
| finance and have just burned any bridges back._
|
| That's not really true.
|
| https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-
| briefings/sn06...
|
| The financial services sector only contributes around 7%
| of total UK economic output.
| rusk wrote:
| Yeah that's what they want you to think. Just like how
| Ireland has the highest GDP in Europe or some nonsense
| brnt wrote:
| London is an exercise in marketing, to see how far peoples
| suspension of disbelief can be stretched whilst being a net
| drain on a country it isn't even strictly part of, and a drain
| the world as a whole.
|
| It is amazing to see how Brits outside of (hell, even in)
| London live, the British countryside has some of the poorest
| areas in western Europe. Evidence marketing is effective!
| maccard wrote:
| > the British countryside has some of the poorest areas in
| western Europe
|
| All rich countries have impovrished areas that have been left
| behind.
|
| > It is amazing to see how Brits outside of (hell, even in)
| London live,
|
| The same can be said for California, New York, Florida,
| Dublin, Paris, Barcelona, etc.
| seniorivn wrote:
| Swiss don't
| bojan wrote:
| In The Netherlands they are few and far between.
| brnt wrote:
| > All rich countries have impovrished areas that have been
| left behind.
|
| Check which countries make the top 10 lists in QoL. You'll
| find their ghetto's are as nice to live as some of
| Britain's good neighbourhoods!
| HPsquared wrote:
| >> net drain on a country it isn't even strictly part of
|
| Not quite:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_fiscal_balance
| estaseuropano wrote:
| London and the City of London are different entities.
| newroman wrote:
| good job it's not talking about the city of London, then
| ForHackernews wrote:
| What parts of the British countryside are poor?
|
| Anecdotally, the stereotypical British farmer is a wealthy
| Tory, and low income populations are concentrated in council
| estates in postindustrial northern towns and cities (i.e. not
| the countryside).
| toyg wrote:
| to most non-brits, Britain is effectively divided between
| "London" and "anything else". This "anything else" can be
| referenced to, more or less interchangeably, as "the
| countryside", "Scotland" or (after Game of Thrones) "the
| North". Manchester is basically a London suburb, Sheffield
| is just a factory that closed in the '80s, and Birmingham
| doesn't exist.
| mc32 wrote:
| From my US PoV, most smallholder farmers in the UK are not
| rich or wealthy, but almost subsistence --perhaps better
| than break even but do not generate enough income so one
| partner has to keep a professional job.
|
| As for post industrial rust-towns, I think of the
| northeast/Newcastle, Humberside & Scotland --maybe
| influenced by 'The Post War Dream' and Kris Killip's
| photography.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Maybe it's a matter of perspective: If you buy a million
| pound property to live in and keep as a hobby farm that
| also generates a little bit of income, are you
| "subsistence" or in fact "very wealthy"?
| nob0dyasked wrote:
| It would be much easier if France, Germany, Italy, Spain made
| an effort to be a bit more competitive, rather than bullying
| economies that are already reshaping to compete globally.
| blibble wrote:
| let me introduce you to the existence of the Netherlands and
| Luxembourg
| mpweiher wrote:
| With Ireland, this was intentional by the EU to bring the then
| new member closer to the rest, economically.
|
| Now that Ireland has passed most of the rest of the EU in GDP
| per capita, it's time to pull that back, and that's starting to
| happen.
|
| The UK...well... -\\_(tsu)_/-
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's a bit like the relationship between China and Hong Kong
| (until recently, at least)
| s_dev wrote:
| >What is it with the British Isles
|
| It's not a British Isle -- it's an Irish one. Great Britain
| refers to the main island composing England, Scotland and
| Wales. The Irish isle of Ireland is composed of the two
| Irelands (Ireland and Northern Ireland). The 'British Isles'
| term is disputed by many Irish people. The reason it's not a
| geographic term is because it's not a river -- Britain is a
| geopolitical entity not a purely geographic one.
|
| The fact the Ireland was head of the GDPR for the EU was merely
| an odd coincidence and has been rectified. You won't many upset
| Irish people over this.
| tremon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles
|
| > The British Isles are a group of islands in the North
| Atlantic off the north-western coast of continental Europe,
| consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle
| of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand smaller islands.
| [They] include two sovereign states, the Republic of Ireland
| and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute
|
| No-one in Ireland would refer to them as the British Isles.
| dangerface wrote:
| I do
| s_dev wrote:
| According to your own source the term is disputed -- a
| substantial amount of the article is dedicated to the
| dispute.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Its very hard. Even if you build an EU Facebook that is awesome,
| how do you make users switch? All the data is in the old
| Facebook. Not just your profile: groups, pages, marketplace etc
| etc
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Enforcing the GDPR properly would make Facebook as we currently
| know it unsustainable, so they'd have to charge money, opening
| themselves up to competition.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Thats quite harsh though, lots of people rely on Facebook for
| their business/pages/groups etc. Whats more the U.S can
| retaliate back since it can be seen as protectionism...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't deny that lots of people rely on Facebook.
|
| However what the GDPR demands seems absolutely reasonable.
| All it requires is that the company must be transparent
| with what data it collects, how it uses it and gives each
| individual control of whether they want to allow Facebook
| to collect and use their data for specific purposes.
|
| If Facebook can't sustain itself without stalking everyone,
| it's a problem with Facebook, not with the GDPR.
| joelbluminator wrote:
| Well since it's gonna destroy Europe not just for
| Facebook but probably all big U.S tech I don't see why
| the U.S won't reciprocate with nice tariffs on EU auto
| industry for instance. It seems quite draconian actually
| since almost no one complies with GDPR to that extent.
| kostyal wrote:
| The world's countries at a party, tech edition:
|
| US: We'll bring the software!
|
| China: We'll bring the hardware!
|
| EU: We'll bring the regulation!
| toyg wrote:
| might be a joke, but the thought of being the Wise Old Men
| setting rules for the rest of the world plays perfectly well to
| our historical strengths, so to speak. Euro man burden, anyone?
| uhorb wrote:
| Ah yes, the country of the European Union
| kostyal wrote:
| it's a joke you pedant
| r8d7u3h3 wrote:
| Frankly, given the primacy of EU law it's strange to me that
| EU members feel like they really are countries anymore.
| uhorb wrote:
| From my perspective, EU law does not play the most dominant
| role in everyday life. Apart from the big (or super silly)
| changes, it's often more of a news maker. Take that plus
| big cultural differences (most notably: not being able to
| understand each other's language), and you get a feeling of
| own nationalities.
| esperent wrote:
| I'm guessing you're not European from this comment. This is
| not meant as an attack; it just seems like your comment
| lacks the perspective of actually living in the EU.
|
| EU law makes news. It doesn't make many obvious appearances
| in day to day life when you're living there, however.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| There are still so many cultural and legislative
| differences between countries that people don't feel
| Europeans, they identify with the individual country.
|
| The UK was definitely the country which stood out the most
| in EU, so after Brexit, the EU lost one furthest away
| country in its block, in terms of diversity.
|
| EU law cover stuff you hardly run into. Sure, you have
| euros everywhere but they don't regulate how much taxes you
| pay or how your national health care is managed.
|
| All is fine until they start regulating on things that
| matter. Immigration is definitely one of the first sector
| where people started noticing they're in the EU, because
| they're unhappy with the results.
| afiori wrote:
| Categories are created for people not people for categoried
|
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-
| ma...
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| One of the resolutions that I frequently make competitive
| high school debaters debate about is a proposal for the EU to
| federalize and form the united states of Europe. Honestly,
| the EU really should try this. African leaders are also
| trying to form a United States of Africa, and I wouldn't be
| surprised if something like it happens by the 2030s or
| 2040s...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Europe
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_Africa
| bryan_w wrote:
| China brings the labor, Africa brings the materials.
| usr1106 wrote:
| US bureaucracy is not any better than EU. Have you dealt with
| the FDA, FAA or SEC?
|
| The difference is that the EU tries to protect people in
| different aspects like social rights or privacy. The US does
| not offer similar protection, so in some sectors you don't hit
| the bureaucracy.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The US started as a fresh new country with minimal state and
| unbridled capitalism and became the largest state in the
| world. There are still a few remnants of the old days (like
| all that capital $$$) but it basically become an Europe with
| expensive healthcare, expensive universities and tons of
| social issues.
| aneutron wrote:
| ASML says hi from the Netherlands
| bsedlm wrote:
| But does ASML build anything? or is their business just
| owning the "IP" (though, granted knowing this things is not
| trivial, and it's even more difficult given their closedness)
| aneutron wrote:
| As far as publicly available information goes, everything,
| including their HQ and Manufacturing, happens in Veldhoven
| in the Netherlands.
| anoncake wrote:
| Yeah, China. The _other_ land of the free.
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