4 ms·

To me, these fines feel really arbitrary, and like the EU taxing US tech giants "through other means". What's the clearest evidence I am wrong?

igorkraw 5y ago
Usually the burden of proof is with those making the accusations
richwater 5y ago
Why do you think EU tech companies are nonexistent?
- laurent92 5y ago
  Because they have mild success only. DailyMotion is great as #2, but Youtube is about 1000x bigger. Other startups exist, but are far from Apple-style success. Who would let any company own a campus anyway.
  - bildung 5y ago
    If "tech giant" equals "web advertising platform", then sure. But there are quite a few big physical tech companies within the EU. Bosch and Facebook have about the same revenue, for example. ZF Friedrichshafen, a company noone has heard of, has double the revenue of Youtube.
    - frockington1 5y ago
      I wouldn't call making dishwashers tech. I'm not disparaging, I love how quiet my Bosch is, but I would classify it as an industrial company not a technology company
      - borodi 5y ago
        You should probably read more about the other things Bosch does i.e the entire automotive part of it.
      - valenceelectron 5y ago
        They do more than that, e.g. IoT and PaaS stuff: https://developer.bosch-iot-suite.com/ https://developer.bosch-iot-suite.com/ Also, when googling I found this: https://tpl.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20201006_Bosch-Data-Strategy_UniStgt_public.pdf https://tpl.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/wp-content/uploads/2... Don't know how successful these endeavors are.
      - bildung 5y ago
        Bosch is quite big, they are also a major supplier of the things e.g. a Tesla is made off, e.g. of the hardware behind the self driving functionality. And health tech like germ detection.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  ARM Holdings.
  - mritun 5y ago
    ARM holdings is owned by a Japanese fund and being sold to a US corporation. European salaries are paltry in comparison to US and the businesses are either stagnant (Bosch) or dying off except for a few successful ones that are being sold off to either Chinese conglomerates (Volvo) or USA/Japan (ARM holdings)
bildung 5y ago
It's actually pretty easy to see the pattern, isn't it? The US tech giants' business models most often are based on data usage that is inherently incompatible with GDPR (Most are esssentially advertisers). And apparently most of these companies continued that practice despite the GDPR. Most EU tech giants are B2B and mostly don't have this problem in the first place.
- mpweiher 5y ago
  Yes, in the EU a company whose business model is violating its users' privacy rights (and those existed pre GDPR) would never have gotten off the ground.
  - jefftk 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteo ?
PedroBatista 5y ago
The evidence that you're wrong starts by the fact you already started from the "We" are the winners and "They" are the losers, so "They" are playing dirty and "We" are the real victims here. If you haven't read the investigation documents and ruling ( as I didn't ), the most we can do is having a hunch and googling Amazon's past and track record in everything from business tactics to employee policies, I think no one is surprised they have problems with the law. And speaking of law, each place has their own laws, customs and views on how society should look.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  It's fascinating to see someone make up a strawman version of yourself, and then proceed to tear it down! It more sad when that is the highest rated comment.
mpweiher 5y ago
The EU's focus on data protection, particularly the German view, which is to a large extent that which now prevails at the EU level (though the others were very similar), predates the existence of these tech companies. By a huge amount. In Germany, it is considered a "Grundrecht", a "basic right" of constitutional rank. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenschutz#Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenschutz#Deutschland

igorkraw 5y ago

Usually the burden of proof is with those making the accusations

richwater 5y ago

Why do you think EU tech companies are nonexistent?

laurent92 5y ago
Because they have mild success only. DailyMotion is great as #2, but Youtube is about 1000x bigger. Other startups exist, but are far from Apple-style success. Who would let any company own a campus anyway.
- bildung 5y ago
  If "tech giant" equals "web advertising platform", then sure. But there are quite a few big physical tech companies within the EU. Bosch and Facebook have about the same revenue, for example. ZF Friedrichshafen, a company noone has heard of, has double the revenue of Youtube.
  - frockington1 5y ago
    I wouldn't call making dishwashers tech. I'm not disparaging, I love how quiet my Bosch is, but I would classify it as an industrial company not a technology company
    - borodi 5y ago
      You should probably read more about the other things Bosch does i.e the entire automotive part of it.
    - valenceelectron 5y ago
      They do more than that, e.g. IoT and PaaS stuff: https://developer.bosch-iot-suite.com/ https://developer.bosch-iot-suite.com/ Also, when googling I found this: https://tpl.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20201006_Bosch-Data-Strategy_UniStgt_public.pdf https://tpl.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/wp-content/uploads/2... Don't know how successful these endeavors are.
    - bildung 5y ago
      Bosch is quite big, they are also a major supplier of the things e.g. a Tesla is made off, e.g. of the hardware behind the self driving functionality. And health tech like germ detection.
denton-scratch 5y ago
ARM Holdings.
- mritun 5y ago
  ARM holdings is owned by a Japanese fund and being sold to a US corporation. European salaries are paltry in comparison to US and the businesses are either stagnant (Bosch) or dying off except for a few successful ones that are being sold off to either Chinese conglomerates (Volvo) or USA/Japan (ARM holdings)

bildung 5y ago

It's actually pretty easy to see the pattern, isn't it? The US tech giants' business models most often are based on data usage that is inherently incompatible with GDPR (Most are esssentially advertisers). And apparently most of these companies continued that practice despite the GDPR. Most EU tech giants are B2B and mostly don't have this problem in the first place.

mpweiher 5y ago
Yes, in the EU a company whose business model is violating its users' privacy rights (and those existed pre GDPR) would never have gotten off the ground.
- jefftk 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteo ?

PedroBatista 5y ago

The evidence that you're wrong starts by the fact you already started from the "We" are the winners and "They" are the losers, so "They" are playing dirty and "We" are the real victims here. If you haven't read the investigation documents and ruling ( as I didn't ), the most we can do is having a hunch and googling Amazon's past and track record in everything from business tactics to employee policies, I think no one is surprised they have problems with the law. And speaking of law, each place has their own laws, customs and views on how society should look.

BurningFrog 5y ago
It's fascinating to see someone make up a strawman version of yourself, and then proceed to tear it down! It more sad when that is the highest rated comment.

mpweiher 5y ago

The EU's focus on data protection, particularly the German view, which is to a large extent that which now prevails at the EU level (though the others were very similar), predates the existence of these tech companies. By a huge amount. In Germany, it is considered a "Grundrecht", a "basic right" of constitutional rank. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenschutz#Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datenschutz#Deutschland