4 ms·
It's a matter of priorities as well. There's hardly funding to prosecute everyone that breaks any sort of law. So you aim for the big fish. Many more are "hurt"
by rb666 9y ago
It's a matter of priorities as well. There's hardly funding to prosecute everyone that breaks any sort of law. So you aim for the big fish. Many more are "hurt" by FB's practices than some random other small player. In that sense, FB is committing the larger crime.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoPicking the large foreign company is always an easy target, it can easily lead to protectionism: enforce laws on the outsiders but not the insiders. China is an extreme case of this: foreign companies must walk on egg shells while domestic companies are able to easily break laws now and ask for forgiveness later if the party decides to crackdown.
- rb666 9y agoYou add in the word "foreign" for no apparent reason. What makes you think the EU is targeting FB for being American? I see no proof of this. Size, sure, but the EU also has many regulations for the internal market. For example, we actually have net neutrality, and there's now regulations to limit roaming charges.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoThe argument they’ve made is that they are targeting FB and not their competitors. If true, it has many possible abusive implications, one of the common ones being protectionism. It might not be that, but it is a huge red flag that it could be that.
- anigbrowl 9y agoIt's easy to level accusations and then back off justifying by saying it's just a possibility.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoI did not edit my original comments where I clearly said “leads to”. If you think that meant an accusation, then that’s your right of course, but it isn’t correct to then say I was using similar language to back out of it.
- michaelmrose 9y agoIf you are going to accuse you ought probably be able to back up the argument or don't bother to waste other readers time.
- danieldk 9y agoYou are suggesting that the EU is picking on the outsiders. However, do you have any proof of that? For example, if you look at fines handed out by the EU, some of the largest ones concern companies from the EU: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/the-largest-fines-dished-out-by-the-eu-commission-facebook-google.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/the-largest-fines-dished-out... If you look at EU court decisions concerning privacy, you see that it mostly concerns European companies and government bodies (e.g. people storing their fingerprints being stored for passport applications). Those cases just don't get as much exposure in the US: https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/sites/antifraud/files/caselaw_2001_2015_en.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/sites/antifraud/files/casela... Another factor here may be that EU companies generally stick more to privacy rules, because it is easier to get sued directly by their citizens. E.g. in Germany many institutions and companies are paranoid when it comes to privacy and go out of their way to avoid lawsuits.
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- tobylane 9y agoThey are targeting companies from personal data protection-weak jurisdictions who want EU customers. To use your example, US has targeted companies from IP-protection-weak countries. Was it directly targeting China? I'd say not necessarily.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoIf they are targeting all companies in their jurisdiction, I have no problem with that.
- tobylane 9y agoThe only people suggesting anything else were anti-EU commentators. Just like the £350m a week the UK supposedly sends to the EU.