6 ms·

Good grief. All this power in the hands of a career politician, with no background in technology (she studied economics before becoming a politician). I imagin

by mikl 7y ago

Good grief. All this power in the hands of a career politician, with no background in technology (she studied economics before becoming a politician). I imagine we’ll see more ham-fisted attempts from the EU to regulate the internet in the immediate future.

pseudolus 7y ago
The deficiencies you've mentioned are real. However, given the less than impressive performance of individuals to date in the US and Europe who are allegedly qualified, she's can only be an improvement.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  What kind of ass-backwards logic is this? This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us Trump. “Qualified people aren’t cutting it, so let’s bring in somebody completely unqualified to shake things up”.
  - pseudolus 7y ago
    Saying she's unqualified is a bit of a stretch - five years as a competition commissioner shows she has some relevant experience even if she's lacking in terms of an academic and industry background.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    The problem is that pretty much the only way to be thoroughly qualified is to work for one of the companies that is about to be regulated. That is called the revolving door and it's bad. Trump is incompetent and corrupt.
  - DasIch 7y ago
    In what way is Vestager not qualified? Is there an example of an action she has taken that a more qualified person wouldn't have?
ahartmetz 7y ago
States regularly fail to reign in their own most powerful industries due to regulatory capture, so other states have to do it. It's better than nothing.
- mikl 7y ago
  EU is pretty captured, too. The copyright stuff that passed earlier this year is one massive boondoggle for the publishing industry.
  - ahartmetz 7y ago
    Sure it is, but mostly by EU companies.
d3ckard 7y ago
Yeah, because professional technologists are doing such a great job in US. Proliferation of monopolies, privacy scandals and elections meddling are primary examples of how great it’s going. Not to mention your companies are basically demanding tax breaks to actually pay tax at all. Woohoo, greatest democracy on the planet.
- ernst_klim 7y ago
  > Proliferation of monopolies, privacy scandals and elections meddling are primary examples of how great it’s going. Not to mention your companies are basically demanding tax breaks to actually pay tax at all. All of these can be found in EU, the same regulatory capture, retarded copyright laws pushed by media industry, blatant nepotism (German officials lobbying for Gazprom, Deutsche Bank bribing Russian officials buying deals by giving good positions to Russian officials' children while evading taxes) etc. The only difference is that IT is a scorched field in EU, so no regulatory capture in this domain.
paganel 7y ago
As a UE citizen I very much approve of Vestager's activity, if I'm not mistaken she's one of the main reasons why we now pay close to nothing in terms of roaming charges whenever we visit another country (which is a very, very big thing). If people like her had been more active even earlier in the internet space (think 2008-2010) maybe we wouldn't have had to deal with the current FANG oligopoly. I personally used to work for a local business directory whose data was almost instantly copied and used by the recently launched back then Google Places. There was no recourse for a company like ours back then (other then keeping our fingers crossed for the likes of Yelp in their fight against Google, which goes to say how helpless we were), so the fact that a person like Vestager now exists and has so much power to control this sort of bad behavior is all for the best.
- mikl 7y ago
  EU certainly has good marketing. They do a few very obvious nice things for the consumers, like the roaming fees, and then nobody cares much about the rest – billions wasted on prestige projects, the economic and immigration crises, the terrible agricultural politics, the malicious copyright legislation, and so on.
  - Tomte 7y ago
    > the economic and immigration crises, Yes, nobody cares. Clearly, you've never heard about Brexit. Europe and immigration might have played a little role in that debate. Or the rise of populism in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other countries. Immigration is obviously such a non-issue that the AfD or the Front National (don't know the current name off the top of my head - they renamed) have absolutely capsized in recent elections.
    - mikl 7y ago
      Generalising, of course, but a lot of people don’t really care. Yes, the discontent is slowly growing, but it’s still small minorities that really oppose EU. All of western Europe (aside from the UK) have pro-EU governments at the moment.
imafish 7y ago
She has a track record of understanding tech quite well. Cannot see the downsides of her also being an educated politician.
vixen99 7y ago
At least she's elected by the people of Europe. No, sorry, I got that wrong. As with all the other commissioners, the only ones able to initiate legislation affecting everyone in the EU, she's appointed by an elite clique who know how to deal with recalcitrant folk in Denmark, France and Ireland whose majority vote is ignored. As someone remarked ' We have no power to sack them. They don't have to account for their actions. We can't elect them but we can download a poster picture of them.'
- mikl 7y ago
  Yeah, all the power in EU is vested within unelected officials. Their so-called parliament is a farce to give EU a veneer of democracy.
- M2Ys4U 7y ago
  The European Commission is accountable to the directly-elected European Parliament. Parliament will hold hearings over the next month to scrutinise the Commissioner Designates and will then hold a vote to approve the entire college of Commissioners. And this process has, actually, resulted in unsuitable candidates being either replaced entirely or portfolios being redistributed in the past (including the last time around in 2014). Parliament can also sack the Commission at any time if it so desires. That last happened to the Santer Commission in 1999.
  - johannes1234321 7y ago
    In addition to the confirmation vote by the Parliament (which will be tough this time ... considering the president only had a single vote majority) they are also nominated by the national governments (each government a commissioner) thus the differences in countries are represented as well. This is more democratic legitimation than most ministers in most state governments have, where ministers are often appointed by the head of government without confirmation. (The EU commission is similar to a government and commissioners are similar to ministers in their role)
  - repolfx 7y ago
    The EU Parliament is much like the Supreme Soviet. It has votes. There are elections. Things are set up such that this can only change small details around the edges in ways the elites already approve of, nothing fundamental. Look at how the head of the Commission was chosen. Remember, the entire Commission reports to one person. The sub-Commissioners are theoretically (by treaty) nominated by each country but in practice the head of the Commission controls all the appointments. As Jean-Claude Juncker openly admitted, if he didn't like an appointment he'd simply reject it. He isn't meant to have this power, but claims he does and I believe him. The EU is full of things like that. So the entire Commission reports to von der Leyen. How did this woman get the job? Nobody can tell you. The decision was made in secret. No minutes of those meetings were published. No leader justified the decision. If there was a vote at all, nobody can see which countries voted for her or why. It just ... happened. Literally the only statement I've seen about what criteria was used was, "it'd be great if this time we had a woman", which came from some EU President (there are several and I forgot which one). So I guess that must have been why she got the job. Theoretically the Parliament can pick the head of the Commission. When they picked Juncker last time around, the EU went along with it and liked to claim it was getting more democratic as a result. But this time, when MEPs committed the hopelessly un-woke crime of nominating a man, their nomination was ignored. In true Soviet style, the EU Parliament got a vote ... but because MEPs didn't want the terminally incompetent von der Leyen, it had to be fixed. No problem - MEPs were presented with a vote in which von der Leyen was the only candidate they could vote for! Despite her being literally the only candidate on the voting paper, so many abstained from this farce she still got the lowest number of votes in history. So that's the EU. There are votes, there are politicians, there's a Parliament. Just that none of them matter.

by mikl 7y ago

pseudolus 7y ago

The deficiencies you've mentioned are real. However, given the less than impressive performance of individuals to date in the US and Europe who are allegedly qualified, she's can only be an improvement.

cycrutchfield 7y ago
What kind of ass-backwards logic is this? This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us Trump. “Qualified people aren’t cutting it, so let’s bring in somebody completely unqualified to shake things up”.
- pseudolus 7y ago
  Saying she's unqualified is a bit of a stretch - five years as a competition commissioner shows she has some relevant experience even if she's lacking in terms of an academic and industry background.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  The problem is that pretty much the only way to be thoroughly qualified is to work for one of the companies that is about to be regulated. That is called the revolving door and it's bad. Trump is incompetent and corrupt.
- DasIch 7y ago
  In what way is Vestager not qualified? Is there an example of an action she has taken that a more qualified person wouldn't have?

ahartmetz 7y ago

States regularly fail to reign in their own most powerful industries due to regulatory capture, so other states have to do it. It's better than nothing.

mikl 7y ago
EU is pretty captured, too. The copyright stuff that passed earlier this year is one massive boondoggle for the publishing industry.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  Sure it is, but mostly by EU companies.

d3ckard 7y ago

Yeah, because professional technologists are doing such a great job in US. Proliferation of monopolies, privacy scandals and elections meddling are primary examples of how great it’s going. Not to mention your companies are basically demanding tax breaks to actually pay tax at all. Woohoo, greatest democracy on the planet.

ernst_klim 7y ago
> Proliferation of monopolies, privacy scandals and elections meddling are primary examples of how great it’s going. Not to mention your companies are basically demanding tax breaks to actually pay tax at all. All of these can be found in EU, the same regulatory capture, retarded copyright laws pushed by media industry, blatant nepotism (German officials lobbying for Gazprom, Deutsche Bank bribing Russian officials buying deals by giving good positions to Russian officials' children while evading taxes) etc. The only difference is that IT is a scorched field in EU, so no regulatory capture in this domain.

paganel 7y ago

As a UE citizen I very much approve of Vestager's activity, if I'm not mistaken she's one of the main reasons why we now pay close to nothing in terms of roaming charges whenever we visit another country (which is a very, very big thing). If people like her had been more active even earlier in the internet space (think 2008-2010) maybe we wouldn't have had to deal with the current FANG oligopoly. I personally used to work for a local business directory whose data was almost instantly copied and used by the recently launched back then Google Places. There was no recourse for a company like ours back then (other then keeping our fingers crossed for the likes of Yelp in their fight against Google, which goes to say how helpless we were), so the fact that a person like Vestager now exists and has so much power to control this sort of bad behavior is all for the best.

mikl 7y ago
EU certainly has good marketing. They do a few very obvious nice things for the consumers, like the roaming fees, and then nobody cares much about the rest – billions wasted on prestige projects, the economic and immigration crises, the terrible agricultural politics, the malicious copyright legislation, and so on.
- Tomte 7y ago
  > the economic and immigration crises, Yes, nobody cares. Clearly, you've never heard about Brexit. Europe and immigration might have played a little role in that debate. Or the rise of populism in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other countries. Immigration is obviously such a non-issue that the AfD or the Front National (don't know the current name off the top of my head - they renamed) have absolutely capsized in recent elections.
  - mikl 7y ago
    Generalising, of course, but a lot of people don’t really care. Yes, the discontent is slowly growing, but it’s still small minorities that really oppose EU. All of western Europe (aside from the UK) have pro-EU governments at the moment.

imafish 7y ago

She has a track record of understanding tech quite well. Cannot see the downsides of her also being an educated politician.

vixen99 7y ago

At least she's elected by the people of Europe. No, sorry, I got that wrong. As with all the other commissioners, the only ones able to initiate legislation affecting everyone in the EU, she's appointed by an elite clique who know how to deal with recalcitrant folk in Denmark, France and Ireland whose majority vote is ignored. As someone remarked ' We have no power to sack them. They don't have to account for their actions. We can't elect them but we can download a poster picture of them.'

mikl 7y ago
Yeah, all the power in EU is vested within unelected officials. Their so-called parliament is a farce to give EU a veneer of democracy.
M2Ys4U 7y ago
The European Commission is accountable to the directly-elected European Parliament. Parliament will hold hearings over the next month to scrutinise the Commissioner Designates and will then hold a vote to approve the entire college of Commissioners. And this process has, actually, resulted in unsuitable candidates being either replaced entirely or portfolios being redistributed in the past (including the last time around in 2014). Parliament can also sack the Commission at any time if it so desires. That last happened to the Santer Commission in 1999.
- johannes1234321 7y ago
  In addition to the confirmation vote by the Parliament (which will be tough this time ... considering the president only had a single vote majority) they are also nominated by the national governments (each government a commissioner) thus the differences in countries are represented as well. This is more democratic legitimation than most ministers in most state governments have, where ministers are often appointed by the head of government without confirmation. (The EU commission is similar to a government and commissioners are similar to ministers in their role)
- repolfx 7y ago
  The EU Parliament is much like the Supreme Soviet. It has votes. There are elections. Things are set up such that this can only change small details around the edges in ways the elites already approve of, nothing fundamental. Look at how the head of the Commission was chosen. Remember, the entire Commission reports to one person. The sub-Commissioners are theoretically (by treaty) nominated by each country but in practice the head of the Commission controls all the appointments. As Jean-Claude Juncker openly admitted, if he didn't like an appointment he'd simply reject it. He isn't meant to have this power, but claims he does and I believe him. The EU is full of things like that. So the entire Commission reports to von der Leyen. How did this woman get the job? Nobody can tell you. The decision was made in secret. No minutes of those meetings were published. No leader justified the decision. If there was a vote at all, nobody can see which countries voted for her or why. It just ... happened. Literally the only statement I've seen about what criteria was used was, "it'd be great if this time we had a woman", which came from some EU President (there are several and I forgot which one). So I guess that must have been why she got the job. Theoretically the Parliament can pick the head of the Commission. When they picked Juncker last time around, the EU went along with it and liked to claim it was getting more democratic as a result. But this time, when MEPs committed the hopelessly un-woke crime of nominating a man, their nomination was ignored. In true Soviet style, the EU Parliament got a vote ... but because MEPs didn't want the terminally incompetent von der Leyen, it had to be fixed. No problem - MEPs were presented with a vote in which von der Leyen was the only candidate they could vote for! Despite her being literally the only candidate on the voting paper, so many abstained from this farce she still got the lowest number of votes in history. So that's the EU. There are votes, there are politicians, there's a Parliament. Just that none of them matter.