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In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by

by pgeorgi 11y ago

In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by the European Commission for Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_at_by_date http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fusea... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html Currently that covers: something about pay-TV in UK/Ireland, Qualcomm, a bunch of European cargo train operators, a pan-European retail food packaging cartel, something about a Bulgarian Energy Holding, German car heating and climate control vendors, Amazon, SkyTeam. Of these, two are American (Qualcomm, Amazon), one has a US company involved (Delta Airlines as part of SkyTeam), everything else is EU internal. That doesn't look like coercion against another country ("always the USA") to me. I guess there are two reasons why the media is mostly covering the cases where US companies are involved: First, the big tech companies are mostly American. Being big brings you on the radar of both regulators (everywhere) and the media covering the industry. Second, EU tech media takes cues from US tech media. When the US media report on something (such as a potential problem for the international business of their local industry), EU tech media pick it up. Up until today I haven't heard about the retail food packaging cartel, but with a €115M penalty that must have been a bigger issue. But why should HN (and related media) cover that? They're no household names, so it's also not covered in the general press. But I'm quite certain that the trade press of the retail food industry will cover this in great detail.

weddpros 11y ago
They're trying hard to make me believe you too. But please note that it's not just anti-trust cases, but also privacy cases / right to be forgotten / partnerships with newspapers / etc... When the NSA scandal was everywhere in the press, Orange (french telecom operator, former public company) said there was no need for the french administration to spy on them because they were already cooperating outside the judiciary system everyday. Yet the headlines were not about the French administration spying on its citizens, but about the NSA and the risks you take by using Facebook. That's so pathetic. Now the French government has passed a law to make it easier to spy on its own citizens. And the UK is following not far behind.
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  You may have noticed that the US media was comparably silent about US agencies. German media is relatively silent on German involvement (but reported on the US and France). That's just what the media needs to do to keep getting interviews with high ranking politicians. I doubt that the approach is to try to hurt the US, but to limit the impact on domestic relations to public officials. As for Facebook, that's one of the things that users _can_ do something about (however little the impact of such action is). If there were a French Facebook, the same could apply there as well - but besides Daily Motion (which is public by default), what is there in France where people could adapt their behavior?

by pgeorgi 11y ago

weddpros 11y ago

They're trying hard to make me believe you too. But please note that it's not just anti-trust cases, but also privacy cases / right to be forgotten / partnerships with newspapers / etc... When the NSA scandal was everywhere in the press, Orange (french telecom operator, former public company) said there was no need for the french administration to spy on them because they were already cooperating outside the judiciary system everyday. Yet the headlines were not about the French administration spying on its citizens, but about the NSA and the risks you take by using Facebook. That's so pathetic. Now the French government has passed a law to make it easier to spy on its own citizens. And the UK is following not far behind.

pgeorgi 11y ago
You may have noticed that the US media was comparably silent about US agencies. German media is relatively silent on German involvement (but reported on the US and France). That's just what the media needs to do to keep getting interviews with high ranking politicians. I doubt that the approach is to try to hurt the US, but to limit the impact on domestic relations to public officials. As for Facebook, that's one of the things that users _can_ do something about (however little the impact of such action is). If there were a French Facebook, the same could apply there as well - but besides Daily Motion (which is public by default), what is there in France where people could adapt their behavior?