7 ms·

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but how on earth did the EU pass a regulation[0] with such far-reaching implications? First Apple opening up to third-party app sto

by magnio 3y ago

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but how on earth did the EU pass a regulation[0] with such far-reaching implications? First Apple opening up to third-party app stores and RCS, now Microsoft giving users a bit more leeway. How come none of the big tech lobby against it in the EU? If it survives the waves of appeals, the DMA will probably change the entire technology landscape in the near future. Not that I'm complaining of course, but still, quite a surreal moment. [0]: https://www.engadget.com/eu-confirms-the-six-tech-giants-subject-to-its-strict-new-competition-laws-161917822.html https://www.engadget.com/eu-confirms-the-six-tech-giants-sub... The 6 companies are Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, ByteDance, and Microsoft.

waythenewsgoes 3y ago
I would imagine they did lobby against this, likely fighting tooth and nail legally. However I do not think the EU is as easily swayed, especially as EU regulators are generally skeptical of the business practices of large US multinationals. IMO, and possibly objectively, the EU is generally more pro-competition and pro-privacy, it is also much harder to buy out politicians due to the parties being really fragmented and it would appear more difficult to unilaterally impose the will of these corps on their citizens.
- microtonal 3y ago
  especially as EU regulators are generally skeptical of the business practices of large US multinationals The singling out of US multinationals is a bit of a myth, it's just more visible to us tech people and since the revenues are larger, the fines also tend to be larger. But they also fined Daimler, Scania, DAF, Philips, Volvo, Deutsche Bank, etc. http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/EU-GOOGLE-ANTITRUST/0H0012Y9L1DV/index.html http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/EU-GOOGLE-...
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  > and pro-privacy Are we talking about the same EU that is currently attempting to ban encryption?
  - cydodon 3y ago
    "The" EU is not a monolithic thing, there are liberal and conservative factions. Depending on the topic the resulting consensus can move quite a bit on that spectrum...
  - sveme 3y ago
    That's been put down by the EU parliament. But yes, the EU is definitely not a single entity with a single position on things.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    Unfortunately, yes. Despite that, they haven't yet passed anything that undermines encryption and they've passed plenty that helps protect privacy.
dimtion 3y ago
It is called the Brussels Effect[0] Put simply, given how large the EU market is, and how strong its regulation is, it is cheaper for companies to comply, even outside of the market. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
- SkiFire13 3y ago
  This explains why they comply to the EU regulations even in the USA, but not why they don't try to lobby more in the EU to avoid those regulations in the first place.
  - deafpolygon 3y ago
    One reason is that there are more hands in the cookie jar in the EU. Less so in the US.
timeon 3y ago
It is also happening in EU. It just bit harder than in 2-party system.
BlarfMcFlarf 3y ago
Because while corruption* is still rampant in the EU, it’s not at least directly protected by the constitution like in the USA, so occasionally some legislation that benefits normal folks over megacorporations manages to sneak through. *also known as lobbying with so much money you can buy millions of times as much “free” speech as everyone else.
- realusername 3y ago
  And additionally, the large tech corporations are not from to EU and they contribute very little to the EU relative to their size with their tax reduction schemes as well. The tech companies don't have much bargaining power in the EU because of that.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  I don’t think any sane reading of the constitution makes lobbying protected. It is the current judicial interpretation, but that could certainly change in the future (more so than many other aspects of the constitution IMO).
- weinzierl 3y ago
  It's not about "benefits normal folks" at all, but about keeping foreign competition at arms length while fostering EU companies.
  - alkonaut 3y ago
    That must be why I have one-click filed my taxes on my phone for the last 15 years while TurboTax et.al. prevents the same thing in the US. Foreign competition.
- ahartmetz 3y ago
  IMO it's quite simple - lobbying works best at home. Most governments serve the interests of local industries more than they should, and Silicon Valley is quite obviously not in the EU. Apart from not employing many people and not paying a lot of taxes(!), some of SV companies' values are a little alien to Europeans. Influencing a not completely corrupted government is not as simple as money in - laws out. That would work equally well everywhere.
switch007 3y ago
Perhaps they agreed to overlook some tax evasion or something
zerr 3y ago
Btw, Microsoft seems to be circumventing US/EU sanctions. While traveling to eastern Europe, the fresh installation of Edge has yandex (pootin-linked company) as the default search engine, and also proposes other similarly shady websites like mailru.
- severino 3y ago
  I don't think there is any EU sanction related to Yandex. I could always access it (with my default ISP settings, no VPN nor anything like that) and I don't know of anybody who couldn't, at least from inside the EU.
  - zerr 3y ago
    I mean the deal Microsoft has with yandex to have it as the default search engine.
vbeeaz 3y ago
Because the EU does not have a tech sector, so they can pass any tech regulations without any fear for blowback.
- BurningPenguin 3y ago
  Dude, we don't live in the middle ages. We have a tech sector. ASML, SAP, Infineon, Nokia, Dassault Systèmes and so on.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  If you're using a processor that was manufactured in the last decade, it was built using machines that the entire world depends upon that are only designed and produced in the EU.
rollulus 3y ago
Re: “not lobbying”: Google, Meta and Apple are in the top 10 by budget: https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/ https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/
thefz 3y ago
> How come none of the big tech lobby against it in the EU? Because believe it or not, corporations are legally people and are required to obey the law. Not above the law, like in the US. Lobby all you want, but weigh the cost of having an entire market worth millions of people denied to your business. Comply or GTFO.
chakintosh 3y ago
> lobby There is no such thing in the EU. You can't just waltz into the European parliament and lobby (read: bribe) your way into regulations that favor you like it's the case in the USA. Once the parliament votes on something, it's done.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Sarcasm?
- majewsky 3y ago
  > Once the parliament votes on something, it's done. The Council and the Commission would like to have a word with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_trilogue_meeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_trilogue_meeting
lemper 3y ago
> how come? eu seem to care about its citizens it seems. so, it might be dumbfounding for citizens of nations with government who give zero fucks about its own citizens. > lobbying in other countries, it is called bribery. most of the time, it's illegal.
PoignardAzur 3y ago
> How come none of the big tech lobby against it in the EU? Because lobbying isn't equivalent to corruption and doesn't automatically get you the laws you want. The European Commission had a three months comment period in 2020 where various interest groups (FAANGs, non-profits, media groups, open-source giants like Mozilla, etc) all submitted their position (which IIRC usually boiled down to "yeah, regulating is awesome, please regulate everyone but me!"). It submitted its report in December 2020, at which point most of the key points were already decided. No doubt interest groups sent a lot of people to lobbies in the following years to discuss details and push in one direction or another, but by then the commission and parliament had a pretty good idea what they wanted the final law to look like anyway.

by magnio 3y ago

waythenewsgoes 3y ago

I would imagine they did lobby against this, likely fighting tooth and nail legally. However I do not think the EU is as easily swayed, especially as EU regulators are generally skeptical of the business practices of large US multinationals. IMO, and possibly objectively, the EU is generally more pro-competition and pro-privacy, it is also much harder to buy out politicians due to the parties being really fragmented and it would appear more difficult to unilaterally impose the will of these corps on their citizens.

microtonal 3y ago
especially as EU regulators are generally skeptical of the business practices of large US multinationals The singling out of US multinationals is a bit of a myth, it's just more visible to us tech people and since the revenues are larger, the fines also tend to be larger. But they also fined Daimler, Scania, DAF, Philips, Volvo, Deutsche Bank, etc. http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/EU-GOOGLE-ANTITRUST/0H0012Y9L1DV/index.html http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/editorcharts/EU-GOOGLE-...
dmitrygr 3y ago
> and pro-privacy Are we talking about the same EU that is currently attempting to ban encryption?
- cydodon 3y ago
  "The" EU is not a monolithic thing, there are liberal and conservative factions. Depending on the topic the resulting consensus can move quite a bit on that spectrum...
- sveme 3y ago
  That's been put down by the EU parliament. But yes, the EU is definitely not a single entity with a single position on things.
- Sakos 3y ago
  Unfortunately, yes. Despite that, they haven't yet passed anything that undermines encryption and they've passed plenty that helps protect privacy.

dimtion 3y ago

It is called the Brussels Effect[0] Put simply, given how large the EU market is, and how strong its regulation is, it is cheaper for companies to comply, even outside of the market. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect

SkiFire13 3y ago
This explains why they comply to the EU regulations even in the USA, but not why they don't try to lobby more in the EU to avoid those regulations in the first place.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  One reason is that there are more hands in the cookie jar in the EU. Less so in the US.

timeon 3y ago

It is also happening in EU. It just bit harder than in 2-party system.

BlarfMcFlarf 3y ago

Because while corruption* is still rampant in the EU, it’s not at least directly protected by the constitution like in the USA, so occasionally some legislation that benefits normal folks over megacorporations manages to sneak through. *also known as lobbying with so much money you can buy millions of times as much “free” speech as everyone else.

realusername 3y ago
And additionally, the large tech corporations are not from to EU and they contribute very little to the EU relative to their size with their tax reduction schemes as well. The tech companies don't have much bargaining power in the EU because of that.
pfannkuchen 3y ago
I don’t think any sane reading of the constitution makes lobbying protected. It is the current judicial interpretation, but that could certainly change in the future (more so than many other aspects of the constitution IMO).
weinzierl 3y ago
It's not about "benefits normal folks" at all, but about keeping foreign competition at arms length while fostering EU companies.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  That must be why I have one-click filed my taxes on my phone for the last 15 years while TurboTax et.al. prevents the same thing in the US. Foreign competition.
ahartmetz 3y ago
IMO it's quite simple - lobbying works best at home. Most governments serve the interests of local industries more than they should, and Silicon Valley is quite obviously not in the EU. Apart from not employing many people and not paying a lot of taxes(!), some of SV companies' values are a little alien to Europeans. Influencing a not completely corrupted government is not as simple as money in - laws out. That would work equally well everywhere.

switch007 3y ago

Perhaps they agreed to overlook some tax evasion or something

zerr 3y ago

Btw, Microsoft seems to be circumventing US/EU sanctions. While traveling to eastern Europe, the fresh installation of Edge has yandex (pootin-linked company) as the default search engine, and also proposes other similarly shady websites like mailru.

severino 3y ago
I don't think there is any EU sanction related to Yandex. I could always access it (with my default ISP settings, no VPN nor anything like that) and I don't know of anybody who couldn't, at least from inside the EU.
- zerr 3y ago
  I mean the deal Microsoft has with yandex to have it as the default search engine.

vbeeaz 3y ago

Because the EU does not have a tech sector, so they can pass any tech regulations without any fear for blowback.

BurningPenguin 3y ago
Dude, we don't live in the middle ages. We have a tech sector. ASML, SAP, Infineon, Nokia, Dassault Systèmes and so on.
heavyset_go 3y ago
If you're using a processor that was manufactured in the last decade, it was built using machines that the entire world depends upon that are only designed and produced in the EU.

rollulus 3y ago

Re: “not lobbying”: Google, Meta and Apple are in the top 10 by budget: https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/ https://www.lobbyfacts.eu/

thefz 3y ago

> How come none of the big tech lobby against it in the EU? Because believe it or not, corporations are legally people and are required to obey the law. Not above the law, like in the US. Lobby all you want, but weigh the cost of having an entire market worth millions of people denied to your business. Comply or GTFO.

chakintosh 3y ago

> lobby There is no such thing in the EU. You can't just waltz into the European parliament and lobby (read: bribe) your way into regulations that favor you like it's the case in the USA. Once the parliament votes on something, it's done.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Sarcasm?
majewsky 3y ago
> Once the parliament votes on something, it's done. The Council and the Commission would like to have a word with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_trilogue_meeting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_trilogue_meeting

lemper 3y ago

> how come? eu seem to care about its citizens it seems. so, it might be dumbfounding for citizens of nations with government who give zero fucks about its own citizens. > lobbying in other countries, it is called bribery. most of the time, it's illegal.

PoignardAzur 3y ago

> How come none of the big tech lobby against it in the EU? Because lobbying isn't equivalent to corruption and doesn't automatically get you the laws you want. The European Commission had a three months comment period in 2020 where various interest groups (FAANGs, non-profits, media groups, open-source giants like Mozilla, etc) all submitted their position (which IIRC usually boiled down to "yeah, regulating is awesome, please regulate everyone but me!"). It submitted its report in December 2020, at which point most of the key points were already decided. No doubt interest groups sent a lot of people to lobbies in the following years to discuss details and push in one direction or another, but by then the commission and parliament had a pretty good idea what they wanted the final law to look like anyway.