6 ms·

Will the European Union ruin the internet?

67 points by poster123 8y ago

mjburgess 8y ago
NB. This is just a committee vote. It's not law yet. The overall vote is in July.
- yason 8y ago
  It particularly doesn't matter which nominal steps are still remaining, it's the general attitude. If the EU are blind to technology regardless of whether their intentions are good or bad, any such changes that might end up in the legislation are still very damaging to the internet.
JumpCrisscross 8y ago
It's somewhat amazing how, between GDPR and this, I've gone from hardcore pro-EU to moderate Euroscepticism. Curious to see if this is personal or part of something broader.
- kentrado 8y ago
  I knew this was coming. We all praised the EU when it forces its members to do the right thing. But what happens when it is a law that we don't like? What happens when it is a that serves the interests of the elite? I have the strong suspicion that the EU parliament is acutely aware of its situation. That's why they pushed for a lot of pro-consumers laws, as part of the their PR campaign to make them seem as a benevolent force of good. After people have their guard down, they can start with phase two do what politicians do best.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    I think the presence of factions, as in every parliament, is a likelier explanation for the contradictory policies.
  - laumars 8y ago
    The EU is a massive body and like any organisation sometimes the stuff they do is good and sometimes it isn't. Trying to assign some deeper hive mentality to it's inconsistencies, like you have, is really just the realm of conspiracy theories.
    - andai 8y ago
      "Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission", popularly referred to as the "unelected bureaucrats". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_procedure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_p... Sounds a bit un-democratic, no?
      - pjc50 8y ago
        Proposed is the key word here. You should have a look at how it happens in other legislatures. Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists.
        JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists But many times it's not. Any Congressman or Senator can introduce legislature onto the floor of their house. The requirement that proposals originate in the Commission is problematic. The Council, moreover, is analogous to a meeting of State Governors or Attorneys General. The only truly democratic arm of the EU is the Parliament. Its role at the end of the chain is problematic. (Contrast that with the analog in the American system, the House of Representatives, where appropriations bills are required to originate.)
        laumars 8y ago
        It's not ideal - I'll agree with you on that. But pragmatically I think it's really more of an illogical debate than one that makes any practical difference. Elected officials are still all too easily swayed by lobbyists and we see all too often that elected governments can get away with pushing unpopular legislation (UK Snoopers Charter, for example) if they want to. The problem with democracy is people vote once every few years and see that as their voice being heard. In the meantime governments are free to do whatever they want just so long as they can win back public support in the weeks leading up to the next election.
- tehabe 8y ago
  I think the GDPR is not as bad as people claim. At least it is really done against the industry and in favour of the people. Interesting will be the e privacy directive, which could mandate that websites and ad networks respect the Do Not Track settings in browsers. Which would also get rid of many cookie warnings. Anyway, now it is not the time to stay idle, it is time to call your MEP and campaign against link tax (article 11) and upload filters (article 13). https://saveyourinternet.eu/ https://saveyourinternet.eu/ After that the next fight will be when the trilogue between Commission, Council, and Parliament is done.
  - Ensorceled 8y ago
    There are very few things that can utterly destroy my small business, even forgetting to file my HST was a minor fine. GDPR is one of those things.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      GDPR cannot destroy your business, because GDPR penalties have to be proportionate. You mention forgeting to file some paperwork: here's an example of an organisation handling sensitive medical data who, by law, have to register with the regulator. They didn't register. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/u-k-healthcare-startup-cera-is-said-to-have-posted-fake-reviews https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/u-k-healt... > The U.K.’s Data Protection Act requires all organizations processing personal information to register with the U.K. data regulator. Although handling sensitive data on recent patients and those needing regular health care, Cera also failed to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office until February this year. The ICO said in a statement that it would only consider “enforcement action” if a company failed to register despite ICO advice. They didn't even get a fine. (Maximum available fine at the time: £500,000.)
  - repolfx 8y ago
    Wait, why is the metric we're using to judge legislation whether it's "against industry" and "for the people"? This sort of viewpoint will just reinforce American stereotypes that all of Europe is some French-style capitalist hating blob. Industry is people! GDPR hurts the most for small firms created and run by people who already spent years slaving away at large corporations and decided to strike out on their own, only to be squashed by huge compliance costs that Google can pay but they cannot. Also, this whole "GDPR has good intentions therefore it's good" idea that is cropping up on this thread is very problematic. We don't judge laws by their intentions but by their outcomes.
- billysielu 8y ago
  Welcome to Brexit, which is basically a 50/50 split between people who are convinced the EU is bad and people who are convinced the EU is good. :) It might be as simple as it being both.
  - andai 8y ago
    I enjoy many of the benefits of membership but I am troubled by the structure. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-really-run-by-unelected-bureaucrats/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-reall... A popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’. How much truth is there behind that claim? This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body. It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”. It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      "if passed" is doing a lot of work there, because the legislation has to be approved by two democratic bodies. As opposed to the UK, which has one democratic house, an unelected one, and a (mostly) rubber-stamp unelected head of state.
      - Silhouette 8y ago
        One key difference in the UK is that the elected House can always both initiate legislation and then override objections from the unelected House eventually, if it chooses to do so. While in theory the monarch could also block a law by denying royal assent, if they ever actually did that, we'd probably be a republic the following year. There are plenty of reasonable criticisms of our system of government and democratic processes, but in this respect we're clearly better off than some systems, including the EU.
  - 8y ago
- fwn 8y ago
  Supporting the GDPR shouldn't lead to supporting the EU as a whole like disapproving parts of European copyright law shouldn't lead to the disapproval of the EU as a whole. It's in the nature of the institution that is has no personality or theoretical consistency beyond a very basic legal and cultural compatibility.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  GDPR is good though. Or at least it could be. We just need them to enforce the fact that convoluted opt-out is not free consent. I think there's a chance they will.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago
  Seems to me that between GDPR (which is neutral at worst) and this, that's small negatives compared to the many positives of the EU.
- pjc50 8y ago
  The thing that the present crisis has crystallised for me, as part time Euroskeptic, is that leaving the EU does not make the EU go away. Even dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries. Would you rather have one set of rules for trade that you have to deal with, or thirty different potentially incompatible ones, not all of which are translated into English?
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries A study of American history reveals the wisdom of governments defaulting to inaction. If the country is split 50/50 on an issue, the proper thing to do is debate. Not wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates. We love to complain about gridlock in Congress but, most of the time, that is the system working as designed. Twenty-eight countries would be harder to do business with. But as it is, GDPR will be interpreted by each of the the EU's twenty-eight national regulators. A single market the EU is not. Co-ordinating twenty-eight nations to enact a treaty is a huge friction. But perhaps that is needed to counterbalance the continent's instinct for useless, often protectionist bureaucracy.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      You do realise that actually passing EU law requires ... co-ordination from all the countries via the Council of Ministers, through double-majority voting, and the approval of directly elected representatives in the EU? This is far more democratic than the secret processes of other international trade treaties like TTIP. > wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates .. which is what's happening with Brexit? I mean, the British system where a party is elected with ~40% of the votes and legislation is run through an entirely unelected upper house isn't an improvement. And don't get me started on the non-constitutional approach to devolution.
      - repolfx 8y ago
        EU Parliament, Commission and Council meet in secret when these decisions are made. No minutes are taken and these meetings often don't even appear on any agenda: they are literally the definition of secret law making. Here's an article about it: https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630 https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630
- Simon321 8y ago
  Sadly eurosceptics voted for this overwhelmingly.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  I believe that the EU overstepped their mandate pretty much at the point when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > the EU overstepped their mandate pretty much at the point when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government The Maastricht Treaty explicitly formed a supranational organization [1]. We can debate whether the expansion of the original EEC was wise. But the expansion was mandated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty
    - AllegedAlec 8y ago
      Let me rephrase: I believe that the EU overstepped what ought to have been their mandate when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government. > The Maastricht Treaty explicitly formed a supranational organization Their is not entirely the case though. The EU is able to deliver some pretty severe penalties to member states not complying with EU mandates laws and regulations.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  GDPR is almost certainly net positive and mostly just gives teeth to privacy laws that already existed in many EU countries. But these new proposals are just absurd.
- kitd 8y ago
  (Continental) Europeans have always tended to put individual rights over the needs of business. GDPR falls into this mindset quite neatly and is thus reasonable. This new copyright law though seems quite a departure. TBH a law that is practically speaking unenforceable is not a law. I'm surprised it has been allowed to get this far.
- mickronome 8y ago
  Skeptics in the committee could have stopped this if I counted correctly, but they rather use it as bait to create more skeptics than to implement their own policies. While it could get ratified into law, at this point it seems out of character of the EU in general. It might have been intended as a shot across the bow towards search engines, and to get a bargaining chips for some other legislation or initive that also somehow includes the search engines. But whether it's ratified or not, a lot of damage has already been done, as this is just too easily made into very plausible EU-skeptic newbites even though some of the skeptic representatives had a hand in it. I'm not a particular fan of several aspects of EU, but when the alternatives looks mostly the same old tired nationalistic yearnings if they are thought out at all, I'll take the EU any day.
- jpz 8y ago
  The EU is acting as a cartel. It is unhealthy.
madshiva 8y ago
Internet is already ruined
integricho 8y ago
Not before the USA, that's for sure.
tehabe 8y ago
The problem is that industry has been involved in EU politics for decades, they have their people and lobbyists well in place and they are able to make the politicians believe that they not only represent the industry but also the consumers/users and the creators. Of course this is not true. For example Netopia which is sponsored by the film and music industry and the Premier League says consumers are diverse and that is why EU wide licensing is a bad idea. An organisation of the picture industry claims directly to speak for photographers, even though they are their suppliers But it works, politicians of all parties argue that those copyright regulations will help creatives and creators, that those people need platforms to present their art is not important, they are supposed to go to the old players (gatekeepers). P.S. Platform company are also not speaking for creators and creatives. I think HN is full of links to articles about how YouTube isn't listening to the creatives who use their site. And how YouTube is changing the site to make is worse.
- DanBC 8y ago
  This law, especially article 11 which people are talking about in this thrread provide protection to the creators. Here they're talking about letting the content creators retain their rights, and that copyright protections cannot be used to prevent publication in other places. > 2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall leave intact and shall in no way affect any rights provided for in Union law to authors and other rightholders, in respect of the works and other subject -matter incorporated in a press publication. Th e rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked against those authors and other rightholders and, in particular, may not deprive them of their right to exploit their works and other subject -matter independently from the press publication in which they are incorporated. When a work or other subject -matter is incorporated in a press publication on the basis of a non- exclusive licence, the rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked to prohibit the use by other authorised users. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked to prohibit the use of works or other subject -matter whose protection has expired.
  - tehabe 8y ago
    Article 11 is about a new right for publishers. It could potentially make an infringement to post a link to a news article on Twitter, the paragraph you posted is a limitation to that right, because it says that authors can do that what everybody always could have done. This new right was "tested" in Spain and Germany. In Spain news sites lost 15% of their traffic. Bigger site were hit less hard because people knew them and got to them directly. In Germany they gave Google essentially a license for free because Google didn't want to pay and because the publishers couldn't lose the traffic from Google. But smaller companies than Google and start-ups had to pay, putting them at clear disadvantage. Also the scheme costed around 10 million euros in legal fees had almost no income for the publishers. A Massive failure. But they passed it anyway yesterday.
baxtr 8y ago
I think this proposed law is completely absurd. People who obviously don’t understand how the internet works have created it. For those not familiar. There are two main points that are quite harmful: #1 Mandatory filtering of uploaded user content. This is to prevent possible copyright infringement. There are two things that will happen: the large companies will generate upload filter mechanism that won’t work perfectly so they will deny many uploads. Smaller companies won’t be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for killing innovation and supporting large monopolies #2 Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content. This is to prevent google and the like to profit from publishers content without “paying” for it. This is totally absurd. Again, two things will happen: large corporations will stop linking to publishers site (see how google Spain stopped their news offering) and second everybody posting links online publically will become an outlaw. The whole thing is nuts. Please, if you live in the EU, call your MEP about this. @senficon is leading the fight on this.
- teamhappy 8y ago
  > Smaller companies won’t be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for killing innovation and supporting large monopolies The law explicitly states that the size of the company, the amount of data that is uploaded and the availability, cost and effectiveness of the measures should be taken into account. I don't understand how you call call this completely absurd considering that sites like Twitch and YouTube are already doing it. > Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content. The "link tax" has nothing whatsoever to do with linking. If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications you now have to obtain a license to do so. That's all there is to it.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications you now have to obtain a license to do so Suppose someone posts a Der Spiegel article. I read it and quote a sentence in a comment. Y Combinator must now (a) reach out to Der Spiegel, (b) negotiate a fee agreement with them, (c) monitor my quoting of Der Spiegel content, (d) remit international payments to Der Spiegel and still (e) subject itself to other risks and requirements the fee agreement and EU compliance costs entail? (I'm ignoring questions around whether including the article's title itself requires fee remittance.) That's what is being proposed and that is dumb.
amarant 8y ago
as a european: where is a comprehensive list of our representatives? Given that I live in european country X, who do I contact about this? such a list would be immensely useful for spreading around to friends and acquaintances! (and for personal usage too, ofc)
- paublyrne 8y ago
  http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- axir 8y ago
  These links might be of interest to contact MEPs about this issue: https://changecopyright.org/en-US/ https://changecopyright.org/en-US/ https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/ https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/ https://act.openmedia.org/savethelink-call https://act.openmedia.org/savethelink-call https://edri.org/next-steps-copyright-directive-article-13/ https://edri.org/next-steps-copyright-directive-article-13/ https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/not-giving-up/ https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/not-giving-up/
- pieter_mj 8y ago
  Please note that this was voted at the committee-stage, it will be voted upon in plenary (the full parliament) in july. Not every country is represented in these committees and as such you might not have a representative and you'll have to look for the parties to find an equivalent from another country. IMO, this is also glaring hole in the design of EU's democratic structures, because the chance of other-countries representatives answering to your questions is practically zero, while at the same time them being subject to corporate lobbying from whatever country. the legal affairs committee : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html the votes on "copyright in the digital single market" (pdf) : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee-result-roll-call-votes-20062018.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee-...
vfc1 8y ago
What is happening here to the internet is what as happened to any other sector that was innovative at the time. Bureaucrats who have a complete disconnect with what they are legislating but that somehow need to keep justifying their own job existence, will go ahead and vote regulations one after another even if they are unnecessary or harmful. Bureaucracies will keep themselves alive by inventing new rules constantly and the EU is no different. GDPR was not that bad though, it was about making sure that our personal information is not being sold to third parties like HR companies that provide services like telling companies your sexual orientation and other things of that nature. GDPR was about telling the consumer what is being done with their data and about transparency, so at least it was for the people. But this link tax is beyond absurd, and the content upload copyright infringement is only enforceable by the biggest companies. In practice, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud will implement this on their cloud services and probably charge for it directly or indirectly to SaaS companies, and there will be a couple of years of a grey zone period where the law will not be actively enforced.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Bureaucracies will keep themselves alive by inventing new rules constantly and the EU is no different The flaw in the EU's design appears to be how easy it is for the EU to enact new legislation versus the public's ability to stall that process through hearings or a court.
- scoom 8y ago
  > GDPR was about telling the consumer what is being done with their data and about transparency, so at least it was for the people. If you say so. Seems to be more about threatening small players with risks well beyond anything reasonable. Their intention doesn't mesh well with the law as created. I'd say the biggest outcome is the number of services the EU has lost from the GDPR.
  - laumars 8y ago
    The GDPR hasn't been used to threaten any smaller players. Many small players got paranoid because the GDPR allowed for large financial penalties in severe cases and against major players; but that's not the same as proactively threatening small players. The biggest problem with the GDPR is the FUD that surrounded it. How often is it that people are charged to the maximum effect of the law? Yet for some bizarre reason that's exactly what people thought would happen against every small operation once GDPR came into effect.
anoncoward111 8y ago
So this is how the internet dies. Repeatedly stabbed by the ignorant minions of the old elite corporations.
blorenz 8y ago
Maybe instead of altering the Internet globally, the EU should be regulated to modified browser clients that expose hooks into EU mandated policies like GDPR, link tax and elimination of memes? Address the problem where it is being consumed in the EU instead of pushing the solution upstream where it would feed many different branches.
miguelrochefort 8y ago
I thought the USA would, but Net Neutrality was fortunately repealed.
DanBC 8y ago
Seeing the number of people using the phrase "link tax" in here is fucking baffling. This is a propaganda phrase that doesn't reflect what the law actually says. If you think the law establishes a link tax you should be able to link to the article that does so.
merricksb 8y ago
Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442
Yetanfou 8y ago
I'd say it should be possible to circumvent the 'snippet tax' (which is what the 'link tax' really seems to come down to) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of a snippet. It would be a good project for some student looking for a real-world application of natural language processing. A quick-and-dirty solution is already at hand: feed the snippet to a translation engine, translate it through a chain of one or two well-supported languages to end up with the original language again. Here's how it would look, using the first sentence of this text on Google Translate: English -> German: "Ich würde sagen, dass es möglich sein sollte, die "Snippet-Steuer" (auf die die "Link-Steuer" tatsächlich zu kommen scheint) zu umgehen, indem Sie eine generierte Zusammenfassung des verknüpften Artikels anstelle eines Snippets verwenden." German -> French: "Je dirais qu'il devrait être possible de contourner la "taxe de snippet" (que la "taxe sur les liens" semble en fait arriver) en utilisant un résumé généré de l'article lié au lieu d'un extrait." French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet tax" (which the "tax on links" actually seems to arrive at) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt." Close, but not identical. Using different translation engines gives results which differ more from the original text at the cost of accuracy, e.g. feeding the French text to Bing Translate renders the following in 'English': (Bing) French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet Fee " (which the "tax on the links" actually seems to happen) using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt." Not perfect but certainly usable.

67 points by poster123 8y ago

mjburgess 8y ago

NB. This is just a committee vote. It's not law yet. The overall vote is in July.

yason 8y ago
It particularly doesn't matter which nominal steps are still remaining, it's the general attitude. If the EU are blind to technology regardless of whether their intentions are good or bad, any such changes that might end up in the legislation are still very damaging to the internet.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

It's somewhat amazing how, between GDPR and this, I've gone from hardcore pro-EU to moderate Euroscepticism. Curious to see if this is personal or part of something broader.

kentrado 8y ago
I knew this was coming. We all praised the EU when it forces its members to do the right thing. But what happens when it is a law that we don't like? What happens when it is a that serves the interests of the elite? I have the strong suspicion that the EU parliament is acutely aware of its situation. That's why they pushed for a lot of pro-consumers laws, as part of the their PR campaign to make them seem as a benevolent force of good. After people have their guard down, they can start with phase two do what politicians do best.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  I think the presence of factions, as in every parliament, is a likelier explanation for the contradictory policies.
- laumars 8y ago
  The EU is a massive body and like any organisation sometimes the stuff they do is good and sometimes it isn't. Trying to assign some deeper hive mentality to it's inconsistencies, like you have, is really just the realm of conspiracy theories.
  - andai 8y ago
    "Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission", popularly referred to as the "unelected bureaucrats". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_procedure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_legislative_p... Sounds a bit un-democratic, no?
    - pjc50 8y ago
      Proposed is the key word here. You should have a look at how it happens in other legislatures. Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists.
      - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > Sometimes in the American system the initial text-writing is done entirely by lobbyists But many times it's not. Any Congressman or Senator can introduce legislature onto the floor of their house. The requirement that proposals originate in the Commission is problematic. The Council, moreover, is analogous to a meeting of State Governors or Attorneys General. The only truly democratic arm of the EU is the Parliament. Its role at the end of the chain is problematic. (Contrast that with the analog in the American system, the House of Representatives, where appropriations bills are required to originate.)
        laumars 8y ago
        It's not ideal - I'll agree with you on that. But pragmatically I think it's really more of an illogical debate than one that makes any practical difference. Elected officials are still all too easily swayed by lobbyists and we see all too often that elected governments can get away with pushing unpopular legislation (UK Snoopers Charter, for example) if they want to. The problem with democracy is people vote once every few years and see that as their voice being heard. In the meantime governments are free to do whatever they want just so long as they can win back public support in the weeks leading up to the next election.
tehabe 8y ago
I think the GDPR is not as bad as people claim. At least it is really done against the industry and in favour of the people. Interesting will be the e privacy directive, which could mandate that websites and ad networks respect the Do Not Track settings in browsers. Which would also get rid of many cookie warnings. Anyway, now it is not the time to stay idle, it is time to call your MEP and campaign against link tax (article 11) and upload filters (article 13). https://saveyourinternet.eu/ https://saveyourinternet.eu/ After that the next fight will be when the trilogue between Commission, Council, and Parliament is done.
- Ensorceled 8y ago
  There are very few things that can utterly destroy my small business, even forgetting to file my HST was a minor fine. GDPR is one of those things.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    GDPR cannot destroy your business, because GDPR penalties have to be proportionate. You mention forgeting to file some paperwork: here's an example of an organisation handling sensitive medical data who, by law, have to register with the regulator. They didn't register. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/u-k-healthcare-startup-cera-is-said-to-have-posted-fake-reviews https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-26/u-k-healt... > The U.K.’s Data Protection Act requires all organizations processing personal information to register with the U.K. data regulator. Although handling sensitive data on recent patients and those needing regular health care, Cera also failed to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office until February this year. The ICO said in a statement that it would only consider “enforcement action” if a company failed to register despite ICO advice. They didn't even get a fine. (Maximum available fine at the time: £500,000.)
- repolfx 8y ago
  Wait, why is the metric we're using to judge legislation whether it's "against industry" and "for the people"? This sort of viewpoint will just reinforce American stereotypes that all of Europe is some French-style capitalist hating blob. Industry is people! GDPR hurts the most for small firms created and run by people who already spent years slaving away at large corporations and decided to strike out on their own, only to be squashed by huge compliance costs that Google can pay but they cannot. Also, this whole "GDPR has good intentions therefore it's good" idea that is cropping up on this thread is very problematic. We don't judge laws by their intentions but by their outcomes.
billysielu 8y ago
Welcome to Brexit, which is basically a 50/50 split between people who are convinced the EU is bad and people who are convinced the EU is good. :) It might be as simple as it being both.
- andai 8y ago
  I enjoy many of the benefits of membership but I am troubled by the structure. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-really-run-by-unelected-bureaucrats/ http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/21/is-the-eu-reall... A popular claim by many supporters of the Leave campaign is that the EU is run by ‘unelected bureaucrats’. How much truth is there behind that claim? This claim mainly refers to the EU Commission: the EU’s executive body. It is true that the Commission President and the individual Commissioners are not directly elected by the peoples of Europe. So, in that sense, we cannot “throw the scoundrels out”. It is also true that under the provisions of the EU treaty, the Commission has the sole right to propose EU legislation, which, if passed, is then binding on all the EU member states and the citizens of these member states.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    "if passed" is doing a lot of work there, because the legislation has to be approved by two democratic bodies. As opposed to the UK, which has one democratic house, an unelected one, and a (mostly) rubber-stamp unelected head of state.
    - Silhouette 8y ago
      One key difference in the UK is that the elected House can always both initiate legislation and then override objections from the unelected House eventually, if it chooses to do so. While in theory the monarch could also block a law by denying royal assent, if they ever actually did that, we'd probably be a republic the following year. There are plenty of reasonable criticisms of our system of government and democratic processes, but in this respect we're clearly better off than some systems, including the EU.
- 8y ago
fwn 8y ago
Supporting the GDPR shouldn't lead to supporting the EU as a whole like disapproving parts of European copyright law shouldn't lead to the disapproval of the EU as a whole. It's in the nature of the institution that is has no personality or theoretical consistency beyond a very basic legal and cultural compatibility.
IshKebab 8y ago
GDPR is good though. Or at least it could be. We just need them to enforce the fact that convoluted opt-out is not free consent. I think there's a chance they will.
fwdpropaganda 8y ago
Seems to me that between GDPR (which is neutral at worst) and this, that's small negatives compared to the many positives of the EU.
pjc50 8y ago
The thing that the present crisis has crystallised for me, as part time Euroskeptic, is that leaving the EU does not make the EU go away. Even dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries. Would you rather have one set of rules for trade that you have to deal with, or thirty different potentially incompatible ones, not all of which are translated into English?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > dismantling it entirely leaves you with 30ish different countries A study of American history reveals the wisdom of governments defaulting to inaction. If the country is split 50/50 on an issue, the proper thing to do is debate. Not wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates. We love to complain about gridlock in Congress but, most of the time, that is the system working as designed. Twenty-eight countries would be harder to do business with. But as it is, GDPR will be interpreted by each of the the EU's twenty-eight national regulators. A single market the EU is not. Co-ordinating twenty-eight nations to enact a treaty is a huge friction. But perhaps that is needed to counterbalance the continent's instinct for useless, often protectionist bureaucracy.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    You do realise that actually passing EU law requires ... co-ordination from all the countries via the Council of Ministers, through double-majority voting, and the approval of directly elected representatives in the EU? This is far more democratic than the secret processes of other international trade treaties like TTIP. > wait until it's 51/49 and then pass a law half the population hates .. which is what's happening with Brexit? I mean, the British system where a party is elected with ~40% of the votes and legislation is run through an entirely unelected upper house isn't an improvement. And don't get me started on the non-constitutional approach to devolution.
    - repolfx 8y ago
      EU Parliament, Commission and Council meet in secret when these decisions are made. No minutes are taken and these meetings often don't even appear on any agenda: they are literally the definition of secret law making. Here's an article about it: https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630 https://euobserver.com/institutional/136630
Simon321 8y ago
Sadly eurosceptics voted for this overwhelmingly.
AllegedAlec 8y ago
I believe that the EU overstepped their mandate pretty much at the point when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > the EU overstepped their mandate pretty much at the point when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government The Maastricht Treaty explicitly formed a supranational organization [1]. We can debate whether the expansion of the original EEC was wise. But the expansion was mandated. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    Let me rephrase: I believe that the EU overstepped what ought to have been their mandate when they went from industry regulation (ECSC, etc) to a super-governmental government. > The Maastricht Treaty explicitly formed a supranational organization Their is not entirely the case though. The EU is able to deliver some pretty severe penalties to member states not complying with EU mandates laws and regulations.
Sharlin 8y ago
GDPR is almost certainly net positive and mostly just gives teeth to privacy laws that already existed in many EU countries. But these new proposals are just absurd.
kitd 8y ago
(Continental) Europeans have always tended to put individual rights over the needs of business. GDPR falls into this mindset quite neatly and is thus reasonable. This new copyright law though seems quite a departure. TBH a law that is practically speaking unenforceable is not a law. I'm surprised it has been allowed to get this far.
mickronome 8y ago
Skeptics in the committee could have stopped this if I counted correctly, but they rather use it as bait to create more skeptics than to implement their own policies. While it could get ratified into law, at this point it seems out of character of the EU in general. It might have been intended as a shot across the bow towards search engines, and to get a bargaining chips for some other legislation or initive that also somehow includes the search engines. But whether it's ratified or not, a lot of damage has already been done, as this is just too easily made into very plausible EU-skeptic newbites even though some of the skeptic representatives had a hand in it. I'm not a particular fan of several aspects of EU, but when the alternatives looks mostly the same old tired nationalistic yearnings if they are thought out at all, I'll take the EU any day.
jpz 8y ago
The EU is acting as a cartel. It is unhealthy.

madshiva 8y ago

Internet is already ruined

integricho 8y ago

Not before the USA, that's for sure.

tehabe 8y ago

The problem is that industry has been involved in EU politics for decades, they have their people and lobbyists well in place and they are able to make the politicians believe that they not only represent the industry but also the consumers/users and the creators. Of course this is not true. For example Netopia which is sponsored by the film and music industry and the Premier League says consumers are diverse and that is why EU wide licensing is a bad idea. An organisation of the picture industry claims directly to speak for photographers, even though they are their suppliers But it works, politicians of all parties argue that those copyright regulations will help creatives and creators, that those people need platforms to present their art is not important, they are supposed to go to the old players (gatekeepers). P.S. Platform company are also not speaking for creators and creatives. I think HN is full of links to articles about how YouTube isn't listening to the creatives who use their site. And how YouTube is changing the site to make is worse.

DanBC 8y ago
This law, especially article 11 which people are talking about in this thrread provide protection to the creators. Here they're talking about letting the content creators retain their rights, and that copyright protections cannot be used to prevent publication in other places. > 2. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 shall leave intact and shall in no way affect any rights provided for in Union law to authors and other rightholders, in respect of the works and other subject -matter incorporated in a press publication. Th e rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked against those authors and other rightholders and, in particular, may not deprive them of their right to exploit their works and other subject -matter independently from the press publication in which they are incorporated. When a work or other subject -matter is incorporated in a press publication on the basis of a non- exclusive licence, the rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked to prohibit the use by other authorised users. The rights referred to in paragraph 1 may not be invoked to prohibit the use of works or other subject -matter whose protection has expired.
- tehabe 8y ago
  Article 11 is about a new right for publishers. It could potentially make an infringement to post a link to a news article on Twitter, the paragraph you posted is a limitation to that right, because it says that authors can do that what everybody always could have done. This new right was "tested" in Spain and Germany. In Spain news sites lost 15% of their traffic. Bigger site were hit less hard because people knew them and got to them directly. In Germany they gave Google essentially a license for free because Google didn't want to pay and because the publishers couldn't lose the traffic from Google. But smaller companies than Google and start-ups had to pay, putting them at clear disadvantage. Also the scheme costed around 10 million euros in legal fees had almost no income for the publishers. A Massive failure. But they passed it anyway yesterday.

baxtr 8y ago

I think this proposed law is completely absurd. People who obviously don’t understand how the internet works have created it. For those not familiar. There are two main points that are quite harmful: #1 Mandatory filtering of uploaded user content. This is to prevent possible copyright infringement. There are two things that will happen: the large companies will generate upload filter mechanism that won’t work perfectly so they will deny many uploads. Smaller companies won’t be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for killing innovation and supporting large monopolies #2 Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content. This is to prevent google and the like to profit from publishers content without “paying” for it. This is totally absurd. Again, two things will happen: large corporations will stop linking to publishers site (see how google Spain stopped their news offering) and second everybody posting links online publically will become an outlaw. The whole thing is nuts. Please, if you live in the EU, call your MEP about this. @senficon is leading the fight on this.

teamhappy 8y ago
> Smaller companies won’t be able sustain an upload functionality. Thanks for killing innovation and supporting large monopolies The law explicitly states that the size of the company, the amount of data that is uploaded and the availability, cost and effectiveness of the measures should be taken into account. I don't understand how you call call this completely absurd considering that sites like Twitch and YouTube are already doing it. > Link Tax: publishers want to be compensated if you link to their content. The "link tax" has nothing whatsoever to do with linking. If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications you now have to obtain a license to do so. That's all there is to it.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > If you run a commercial site that publishes snippets of press publications you now have to obtain a license to do so Suppose someone posts a Der Spiegel article. I read it and quote a sentence in a comment. Y Combinator must now (a) reach out to Der Spiegel, (b) negotiate a fee agreement with them, (c) monitor my quoting of Der Spiegel content, (d) remit international payments to Der Spiegel and still (e) subject itself to other risks and requirements the fee agreement and EU compliance costs entail? (I'm ignoring questions around whether including the article's title itself requires fee remittance.) That's what is being proposed and that is dumb.

amarant 8y ago

as a european: where is a comprehensive list of our representatives? Given that I live in european country X, who do I contact about this? such a list would be immensely useful for spreading around to friends and acquaintances! (and for personal usage too, ofc)

paublyrne 8y ago
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
axir 8y ago
These links might be of interest to contact MEPs about this issue: https://changecopyright.org/en-US/ https://changecopyright.org/en-US/ https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/ https://www.saveyourinternet.eu/ https://act.openmedia.org/savethelink-call https://act.openmedia.org/savethelink-call https://edri.org/next-steps-copyright-directive-article-13/ https://edri.org/next-steps-copyright-directive-article-13/ https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/not-giving-up/ https://juliareda.eu/2018/06/not-giving-up/
pieter_mj 8y ago
Please note that this was voted at the committee-stage, it will be voted upon in plenary (the full parliament) in july. Not every country is represented in these committees and as such you might not have a representative and you'll have to look for the parties to find an equivalent from another country. IMO, this is also glaring hole in the design of EU's democratic structures, because the chance of other-countries representatives answering to your questions is practically zero, while at the same time them being subject to corporate lobbying from whatever country. the legal affairs committee : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/juri/home.html the votes on "copyright in the digital single market" (pdf) : http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee-result-roll-call-votes-20062018.pdf http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/149721/juri-committee-...

vfc1 8y ago

What is happening here to the internet is what as happened to any other sector that was innovative at the time. Bureaucrats who have a complete disconnect with what they are legislating but that somehow need to keep justifying their own job existence, will go ahead and vote regulations one after another even if they are unnecessary or harmful. Bureaucracies will keep themselves alive by inventing new rules constantly and the EU is no different. GDPR was not that bad though, it was about making sure that our personal information is not being sold to third parties like HR companies that provide services like telling companies your sexual orientation and other things of that nature. GDPR was about telling the consumer what is being done with their data and about transparency, so at least it was for the people. But this link tax is beyond absurd, and the content upload copyright infringement is only enforceable by the biggest companies. In practice, Amazon S3 and Google Cloud will implement this on their cloud services and probably charge for it directly or indirectly to SaaS companies, and there will be a couple of years of a grey zone period where the law will not be actively enforced.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Bureaucracies will keep themselves alive by inventing new rules constantly and the EU is no different The flaw in the EU's design appears to be how easy it is for the EU to enact new legislation versus the public's ability to stall that process through hearings or a court.
scoom 8y ago
> GDPR was about telling the consumer what is being done with their data and about transparency, so at least it was for the people. If you say so. Seems to be more about threatening small players with risks well beyond anything reasonable. Their intention doesn't mesh well with the law as created. I'd say the biggest outcome is the number of services the EU has lost from the GDPR.
- laumars 8y ago
  The GDPR hasn't been used to threaten any smaller players. Many small players got paranoid because the GDPR allowed for large financial penalties in severe cases and against major players; but that's not the same as proactively threatening small players. The biggest problem with the GDPR is the FUD that surrounded it. How often is it that people are charged to the maximum effect of the law? Yet for some bizarre reason that's exactly what people thought would happen against every small operation once GDPR came into effect.

anoncoward111 8y ago

So this is how the internet dies. Repeatedly stabbed by the ignorant minions of the old elite corporations.

blorenz 8y ago

Maybe instead of altering the Internet globally, the EU should be regulated to modified browser clients that expose hooks into EU mandated policies like GDPR, link tax and elimination of memes? Address the problem where it is being consumed in the EU instead of pushing the solution upstream where it would feed many different branches.

miguelrochefort 8y ago

I thought the USA would, but Net Neutrality was fortunately repealed.

DanBC 8y ago

Seeing the number of people using the phrase "link tax" in here is fucking baffling. This is a propaganda phrase that doesn't reflect what the law actually says. If you think the law establishes a link tax you should be able to link to the article that does so.

merricksb 8y ago

Discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17354442

Yetanfou 8y ago

I'd say it should be possible to circumvent the 'snippet tax' (which is what the 'link tax' really seems to come down to) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of a snippet. It would be a good project for some student looking for a real-world application of natural language processing. A quick-and-dirty solution is already at hand: feed the snippet to a translation engine, translate it through a chain of one or two well-supported languages to end up with the original language again. Here's how it would look, using the first sentence of this text on Google Translate: English -> German: "Ich würde sagen, dass es möglich sein sollte, die "Snippet-Steuer" (auf die die "Link-Steuer" tatsächlich zu kommen scheint) zu umgehen, indem Sie eine generierte Zusammenfassung des verknüpften Artikels anstelle eines Snippets verwenden." German -> French: "Je dirais qu'il devrait être possible de contourner la "taxe de snippet" (que la "taxe sur les liens" semble en fait arriver) en utilisant un résumé généré de l'article lié au lieu d'un extrait." French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet tax" (which the "tax on links" actually seems to arrive at) by using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt." Close, but not identical. Using different translation engines gives results which differ more from the original text at the cost of accuracy, e.g. feeding the French text to Bing Translate renders the following in 'English': (Bing) French -> English: "I would say that it should be possible to bypass the "snippet Fee " (which the "tax on the links" actually seems to happen) using a generated summary of the linked article instead of an excerpt." Not perfect but certainly usable.