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> Tech giants could be entirely banned from the EU market over "serious and repeated breaches of law," AFP reported. If this comes to pass as described, this i

> Tech giants could be entirely banned from the EU market over "serious and repeated breaches of law," AFP reported. If this comes to pass as described, this is a landslide shift in mentality. Paying fines for shady practices will no longer simply be the cost of doing business, but there's a real risk of being locked out of a major market.

OneGuy123 6y ago
What I'm afraid is that sooner or later they will ramp up these laws until Europens are by law forbidden to use these products...
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  I hope they do. That would allow EU competitors to appear and grow (at which point the GAFAMs can be let in again).
  - OneGuy123 6y ago
    You are shortsighted if you don't know what this would lead to...
jokethrowaway 6y ago
Sure, people will love the party that got Google or Facebook banned
- tester34 6y ago
  Somebody has to commit hard decisions in order to get rid of USA based overseers.
- phtrivier 6y ago
  That's the beauty of it being an EU-level regulation: each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught.
  - piker 6y ago
    Ah, yes, the "beauty" of unaccountable government action.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      Ill take it over unaccountable private action, at least there is a chance of influencing government policy. Good luck influencing Google or Facebook's policy.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      The thing is that they're not actually unaccountable. You vote for them.
      - AlphaSite 6y ago
        You only indirectly vote for the,
        oblio 6y ago
        > indirectly vote That's how representative democracy works, and it's the kind of democracy 95% of the world uses.
        AlphaSite 6y ago
        I think it’s more that there are more layers of indirection than are typical for a democratic system.
    - cataphract 6y ago
      Hardly. EU legislation generally needs a majority from the EU parliament (directly elected) and a qualified majority from the Council.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." Given that Brexit is looming, this doesn't sound very sustainable. If the people feel the EU's power is no longer legitimate, there may be consequences.
- yokaze 6y ago
  That's the point of doing it at EU level (and I think a contributing factor to Brexit): there is no party doing it, it is done via consensus on EU level. And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    > And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it. Ultimately, local politicians are the EU's decision-makers. MEPs sit as members of national political parties; the European Council are heads of national governments. Passing the buck to the EU is a weak position, and in general a mistruth. There aren't many issues divides nations in the EU from each other - most, if not all, decisions that the EU takes have divisions within nations (between the political groups), not without (between national groups). You can argue that "blame the EU" is a position that the UK government has taken successfully - continually blaming the EU for any problems that they have created themselves (sometimes blaming the EU despite incompetently avoiding the EU's clear recommendations). But, now that the UK has left the EU, they don't have anyone left to blame for their own poor planning and decisions. We'll see how that pans out.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Google is tricky, but I doubt Facebook will be missed much.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Facebook the app, maybe not so much in Europe, but WhatsApp is pretty much the defacto cross platform messaging app here that everyone uses and also Facebook's Messenger app is used quite a lot for group chats where you don't have everyone's phone numbers.
  - joelbluminator 6y ago
    Well lots of Europeans use Facebook. No one will die if you block it, but there will be somewhat of a void for many services people got used to which would be gone.
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Google would upset a lot of people, but I think quite a lot of people would be quite happy with a Facebook ban. Even quite heavy users of Facebook/Instagram seem to recognise the unhealthy effects it has on them. More likely the EU would negotiate with the companies rather than outright ban them.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hrktb 6y ago
  Amazon got suspended for a while during COVID times, people weren't rioting in the streets over it (they were still rioting over other issues, just not Amazon)
- nocturnial 6y ago
  When the privacy commission in my country acted against facebook, it retaliated by issuing a country wide ban [1]. As far as I can tell, this had no noticable effect on the political parties. I think you are overestimating the power of large tech companies to influence foreign EU democracies. There are other examples, including one involving google, where they tried to block access to certain services and expected the population to blame their government. Unless you can give me a counter example, I think it's more likely people will blame the tech company. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769 https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f...
- cuban-frisbee 6y ago
  It's not like the products will disappear. Rather they will likely be split into different companies that wields far less power. I highly doubt the average european consumer will care if whatsapp is its own company again or instagram for that matter. Likewise with the various google product groups.
Hokusai 6y ago
I agree. Spain did this with river toxic waste. Companies found that it was cheaper to leak everything into the river and pay the fine than to fix the problem. Then the law was changed, if you pollute the river you need to shut down until is fixed. That works. Rivers health improved by a lot.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  if the fine was the actual cleanup fee (which is an almost unlimited number given hor hard it is) then I think that would work too. The risk is that too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit. Companies that get environmental permits such as mines or chemical industry, should have to deposit the money required to restore the environment - even after bankruptcy.
  - kzrdude 6y ago
    Yeah there is no realistic full cleanup. Some of the pollution reaches the ocean before anyone even notices, much less brings the court process to a conclusion. So, we need to fix it before the emissions are made.
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    > too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit It didn't happened like that. And it was not a fine, big or small. It just has to shutdown operations until the problem is fixed. So, it auto-scales with the size of the factory. It works, it's proven, why not use it for tech ?
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      I meant that’s what has happened a lot in the world with e.g. mines so it’s not a perfect solution for environmental problems, because bankrupt companies are handled by the public. For tech there is obviously no environmental “cleanup” after bankruptcy.
appleflaxen 6y ago
This is a great start. If (in the US) corporations are people, then clearly corporations should face the prospect of ending their existence if they make an egregious-enough violation: the corporate death penalty.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Not how America works. Death penalty is for black people, not majority-white-owned companies
jariel 6y ago
What shady practices exactly? Buying competitors, actions which are already well regulated and overseen by the FTC? And European bodies? And then ... ? Giving away software for free? The populism is getting way out of hand. First, if there are some anti-competitive issues to address, the EU should do that, but it's hard to do in retrospect. Google / Chrome / Android is an obvious one, Apple's issue with App Store another, but Facebook / Insta / What's a much less obvious one. Second, the real underlying issue is Europe's failure to produce anything material in this landscape. They have almost no winners and are being dominated, these are the acts of system with a weak hand. If SAP and a bunch of other European companies dominated the US landscape, this legislation would be different.
throwaway2245 6y ago
> Paying fines for shady practices will no longer simply be the cost of doing business, but there's a real risk of being locked out of a major market. Yes! And that's how it should be. A fine is just a permission slip for rich people. Since e.g. Apple holds something like $200b in cash, fines are anti-competitive in this field. A small player can't afford to risk a fine; Apple can pay any level of fine, if it ultimately needs to.

OneGuy123 6y ago

What I'm afraid is that sooner or later they will ramp up these laws until Europens are by law forbidden to use these products...

BlueTemplar 6y ago
I hope they do. That would allow EU competitors to appear and grow (at which point the GAFAMs can be let in again).
- OneGuy123 6y ago
  You are shortsighted if you don't know what this would lead to...

jokethrowaway 6y ago

Sure, people will love the party that got Google or Facebook banned

tester34 6y ago
Somebody has to commit hard decisions in order to get rid of USA based overseers.
phtrivier 6y ago
That's the beauty of it being an EU-level regulation: each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." That being said, of course Google and FB are never going to be banned in the EU. They'll lobby to death to get the regulation to be "reasonable", and they'll mostly comply because they want their part of the advertising market, and they'll pay the fines when they get caught.
- piker 6y ago
  Ah, yes, the "beauty" of unaccountable government action.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Ill take it over unaccountable private action, at least there is a chance of influencing government policy. Good luck influencing Google or Facebook's policy.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    The thing is that they're not actually unaccountable. You vote for them.
    - AlphaSite 6y ago
      You only indirectly vote for the,
      - oblio 6y ago
        > indirectly vote That's how representative democracy works, and it's the kind of democracy 95% of the world uses.
        AlphaSite 6y ago
        I think it’s more that there are more layers of indirection than are typical for a democratic system.
  - cataphract 6y ago
    Hardly. EU legislation generally needs a majority from the EU parliament (directly elected) and a qualified majority from the Council.
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  > each national party can plausibly deny being "the party that got Facebook banned", and pretends it's "because of those technocrats in Brussels." Given that Brexit is looming, this doesn't sound very sustainable. If the people feel the EU's power is no longer legitimate, there may be consequences.
yokaze 6y ago
That's the point of doing it at EU level (and I think a contributing factor to Brexit): there is no party doing it, it is done via consensus on EU level. And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > And on the local level, the politicians blame the EU for it. Ultimately, local politicians are the EU's decision-makers. MEPs sit as members of national political parties; the European Council are heads of national governments. Passing the buck to the EU is a weak position, and in general a mistruth. There aren't many issues divides nations in the EU from each other - most, if not all, decisions that the EU takes have divisions within nations (between the political groups), not without (between national groups). You can argue that "blame the EU" is a position that the UK government has taken successfully - continually blaming the EU for any problems that they have created themselves (sometimes blaming the EU despite incompetently avoiding the EU's clear recommendations). But, now that the UK has left the EU, they don't have anyone left to blame for their own poor planning and decisions. We'll see how that pans out.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Google is tricky, but I doubt Facebook will be missed much.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  Facebook the app, maybe not so much in Europe, but WhatsApp is pretty much the defacto cross platform messaging app here that everyone uses and also Facebook's Messenger app is used quite a lot for group chats where you don't have everyone's phone numbers.
- joelbluminator 6y ago
  Well lots of Europeans use Facebook. No one will die if you block it, but there will be somewhat of a void for many services people got used to which would be gone.
nicoburns 6y ago
Google would upset a lot of people, but I think quite a lot of people would be quite happy with a Facebook ban. Even quite heavy users of Facebook/Instagram seem to recognise the unhealthy effects it has on them. More likely the EU would negotiate with the companies rather than outright ban them.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hrktb 6y ago
Amazon got suspended for a while during COVID times, people weren't rioting in the streets over it (they were still rioting over other issues, just not Amazon)
nocturnial 6y ago
When the privacy commission in my country acted against facebook, it retaliated by issuing a country wide ban [1]. As far as I can tell, this had no noticable effect on the political parties. I think you are overestimating the power of large tech companies to influence foreign EU democracies. There are other examples, including one involving google, where they tried to block access to certain services and expected the population to blame their government. Unless you can give me a counter example, I think it's more likely people will blame the tech company. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f769 https://www.ft.com/content/9c9bf084-994f-11e5-95c7-d47aa298f...
cuban-frisbee 6y ago
It's not like the products will disappear. Rather they will likely be split into different companies that wields far less power. I highly doubt the average european consumer will care if whatsapp is its own company again or instagram for that matter. Likewise with the various google product groups.

Hokusai 6y ago

I agree. Spain did this with river toxic waste. Companies found that it was cheaper to leak everything into the river and pay the fine than to fix the problem. Then the law was changed, if you pollute the river you need to shut down until is fixed. That works. Rivers health improved by a lot.

alkonaut 6y ago
if the fine was the actual cleanup fee (which is an almost unlimited number given hor hard it is) then I think that would work too. The risk is that too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit. Companies that get environmental permits such as mines or chemical industry, should have to deposit the money required to restore the environment - even after bankruptcy.
- kzrdude 6y ago
  Yeah there is no realistic full cleanup. Some of the pollution reaches the ocean before anyone even notices, much less brings the court process to a conclusion. So, we need to fix it before the emissions are made.
- Hokusai 6y ago
  > too large fines are bankruptcy events so companies gamble on polluting and then shut down after making a few years of profit It didn't happened like that. And it was not a fine, big or small. It just has to shutdown operations until the problem is fixed. So, it auto-scales with the size of the factory. It works, it's proven, why not use it for tech ?
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    I meant that’s what has happened a lot in the world with e.g. mines so it’s not a perfect solution for environmental problems, because bankrupt companies are handled by the public. For tech there is obviously no environmental “cleanup” after bankruptcy.

appleflaxen 6y ago

This is a great start. If (in the US) corporations are people, then clearly corporations should face the prospect of ending their existence if they make an egregious-enough violation: the corporate death penalty.

whimsicalism 6y ago
Not how America works. Death penalty is for black people, not majority-white-owned companies

jariel 6y ago

What shady practices exactly? Buying competitors, actions which are already well regulated and overseen by the FTC? And European bodies? And then ... ? Giving away software for free? The populism is getting way out of hand. First, if there are some anti-competitive issues to address, the EU should do that, but it's hard to do in retrospect. Google / Chrome / Android is an obvious one, Apple's issue with App Store another, but Facebook / Insta / What's a much less obvious one. Second, the real underlying issue is Europe's failure to produce anything material in this landscape. They have almost no winners and are being dominated, these are the acts of system with a weak hand. If SAP and a bunch of other European companies dominated the US landscape, this legislation would be different.

throwaway2245 6y ago

> Paying fines for shady practices will no longer simply be the cost of doing business, but there's a real risk of being locked out of a major market. Yes! And that's how it should be. A fine is just a permission slip for rich people. Since e.g. Apple holds something like $200b in cash, fines are anti-competitive in this field. A small player can't afford to risk a fine; Apple can pay any level of fine, if it ultimately needs to.