6 ms·

I don't understand meta's statement that this handicaps american businesses while allows European and Chinese companies to operate under different standards.

pjc50 1y ago
The measures apply by size, not by country of origin. It happens that the companies over the threshold are American. So their statement is basically untrue, but that's politics these days.
- robin_reala 1y ago
  There are a couple of companies in the list[1] (of seven) that aren’t US-based. ByteDance are Chinese and Booking are EU (NL). [1] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
  - phatfish 1y ago
    Booking Holdings which Wikipedia has as the parent of booking.com seems to be US owned.
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      Yes. Booking Holdings Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, listed on the Nasdaq with principal executive offices in Connecticut. See SEC filing: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e58-3de2-41a6-a9fd-eb45b863b1e2.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e5...
    - xeromal 1y ago
      Had no idea booking.com was american. I always assumed it was euro-based.
      - dagw 1y ago
        Booking.com was founded in the Netherlands and is still headquartered there, but was bought by a US company (Priceline) well over a decade ago.
        xeromal 1y ago
        That makes sense. It just didn't have the energy of an American company and I say that as one. I love booking.com
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - c0n5pir4cy 1y ago
    Probably also important to note, is that ByteDance and TikTok are also currently being investigated by the European Commission. Although for different reasons under the Digital Services Act - so it's not like they are targeting US companies specifically with the law. Also the commission is known to fine European entities all the time for various reasons, one of the recent ones I can think of is Pierre Cardin and it's partners for restricting cross border European sales.
- xvector 1y ago
  Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this law when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be covered. The DMA is gerrymandered to exclude domestic businesses. Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. > EU are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing monopolistic practices. Users are free to just not buy iOS devices. Users are free to just not use Meta services. There is no monopoly here. This is all much ado about nothing. No real-world user is meaningfully harmed by the current state of Apple App Store/Meta Ads, but plenty will be harmed once spyware/piracy sideloading becomes common. Many small businesses will collapse due to ineffective advertisement (large businesses will love it though - it becomes a winner-take-all market).
  - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
    I'm curious, what is your preferred financial regime? EU are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing monopolistic practices. Do you find that wrong in general? Perhaps you prefer an industro-fascist regime where businesses are not bound by any tailored laws? Pretty sure there would already be alternative iOS app stores under such a regime - government controls (IPR system, computer security laws) seem necessary to enable these sorts of tech monopolies.
  - mhitza 1y ago
    > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. If that would be the case, the EU could be drowning in money by being more aggressive with GDPR enforcement and follow-through.
    - Yeul 1y ago
      500 million sounds like a lot but that is just a drop in the ocean for first world nation states. The Netherlands has a yearly budget of 300 billion for example.
  - piva00 1y ago
    > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. The EU's budget is massive, no shortfall is covered by these fines since to collect them it takes another massive legal battle, that's just bullshit being regurgitated on the internet (especially on this forum). If that was the case the EU would be issuing GDPR fines all over the place to cover shortfalls, it doesn't happen in reality. > Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this law when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be covered. Spotify does not behave like the most similar category covered by the DMA: video sharing like YouTube. Spotify does not hold exclusive access to the content and the audience, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and other players have almost the same catalogue as Spotify has so users are free to move between those services without penalty. Now try moving from YouTube to a competitor, a completely different beast. The DMA exists to counter an imbalance in the power these massive tech companies have in detriment to competition, it's quite a simple prerogative, Spotify doesn't hold at all the same power as YouTube has, or Google Search, or any other platform under the DMA.
onli 1y ago
It's not completely unwarranted. According to the article, Facebook was fined for their model of asking for pay or accept tracking. Which is exactly what almost all publishers do, e.g. all big German newspapers. It's absolutely clear that this is against the law - they could show ads, but can't invade the users privacy for that, so no tracking ads - but they do it anyway and got away with it in various decisions. And now Facebook gets a huge fine for the same behaviour. Which is good in a way, maybe it will lead to a behaviour correction also for the smaller publishers. But it's of course not an equal treatment. Apple on the other hand completely deserves its fine, without a question. They got clear rules and did everything to circumvent them. The Apple's Core Technology Fee was obviously illegal. Don't know why they expected to get away with that, there wasn't even a minimal chance of that working. Idiots.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  Big German newspapers do not need to comply under DMA. The EU focusses, rightfully, on EU macro dynamics with these laws, not how smaller outlets work. This is very much reasonable. When a platform is big, it has bigger impact, but also bigger budgets to hire legal help and bigger budgets to stay compliant. This is well established in accounting where there exists different rules depending on size (in many jurisdictions)
  - fp64 1y ago
    What’s another example of different rules depending on size? “Content Moderation” I think? Anything outside the DMA? I think small companies get some exceptions for documentation requirements?
    - agos 1y ago
      in my part of Europe there are tons: companies over a certain size might have different rules for layoffs, have to have union representatives, must pay for safety courses for the employees, must employ a certain percentage of people with disabilities...
    - tossandthrow 1y ago

pjc50 1y ago

The measures apply by size, not by country of origin. It happens that the companies over the threshold are American. So their statement is basically untrue, but that's politics these days.

robin_reala 1y ago
There are a couple of companies in the list[1] (of seven) that aren’t US-based. ByteDance are Chinese and Booking are EU (NL). [1] https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/gatekeepers_en
- phatfish 1y ago
  Booking Holdings which Wikipedia has as the parent of booking.com seems to be US owned.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    Yes. Booking Holdings Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, listed on the Nasdaq with principal executive offices in Connecticut. See SEC filing: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e58-3de2-41a6-a9fd-eb45b863b1e2.pdf https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001075531/87dc4e5...
  - xeromal 1y ago
    Had no idea booking.com was american. I always assumed it was euro-based.
    - dagw 1y ago
      Booking.com was founded in the Netherlands and is still headquartered there, but was bought by a US company (Priceline) well over a decade ago.
      - xeromal 1y ago
        That makes sense. It just didn't have the energy of an American company and I say that as one. I love booking.com
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- c0n5pir4cy 1y ago
  Probably also important to note, is that ByteDance and TikTok are also currently being investigated by the European Commission. Although for different reasons under the Digital Services Act - so it's not like they are targeting US companies specifically with the law. Also the commission is known to fine European entities all the time for various reasons, one of the recent ones I can think of is Pierre Cardin and it's partners for restricting cross border European sales.
xvector 1y ago
Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this law when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be covered. The DMA is gerrymandered to exclude domestic businesses. Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. > EU are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing monopolistic practices. Users are free to just not buy iOS devices. Users are free to just not use Meta services. There is no monopoly here. This is all much ado about nothing. No real-world user is meaningfully harmed by the current state of Apple App Store/Meta Ads, but plenty will be harmed once spyware/piracy sideloading becomes common. Many small businesses will collapse due to ineffective advertisement (large businesses will love it though - it becomes a winner-take-all market).
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  I'm curious, what is your preferred financial regime? EU are basically enforcing market capitalism by disallowing monopolistic practices. Do you find that wrong in general? Perhaps you prefer an industro-fascist regime where businesses are not bound by any tailored laws? Pretty sure there would already be alternative iOS app stores under such a regime - government controls (IPR system, computer security laws) seem necessary to enable these sorts of tech monopolies.
- mhitza 1y ago
  > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. If that would be the case, the EU could be drowning in money by being more aggressive with GDPR enforcement and follow-through.
  - Yeul 1y ago
    500 million sounds like a lot but that is just a drop in the ocean for first world nation states. The Netherlands has a yearly budget of 300 billion for example.
- piva00 1y ago
  > Whenever the EU faces budget shortfalls, they know they can just make up some bullshit law and fine US tech. The EU's budget is massive, no shortfall is covered by these fines since to collect them it takes another massive legal battle, that's just bullshit being regurgitated on the internet (especially on this forum). If that was the case the EU would be issuing GDPR fines all over the place to cover shortfalls, it doesn't happen in reality. > Spotify conveniently falls outside of the scope of this law when any artist would tell you it should absolutely be covered. Spotify does not behave like the most similar category covered by the DMA: video sharing like YouTube. Spotify does not hold exclusive access to the content and the audience, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and other players have almost the same catalogue as Spotify has so users are free to move between those services without penalty. Now try moving from YouTube to a competitor, a completely different beast. The DMA exists to counter an imbalance in the power these massive tech companies have in detriment to competition, it's quite a simple prerogative, Spotify doesn't hold at all the same power as YouTube has, or Google Search, or any other platform under the DMA.

onli 1y ago

It's not completely unwarranted. According to the article, Facebook was fined for their model of asking for pay or accept tracking. Which is exactly what almost all publishers do, e.g. all big German newspapers. It's absolutely clear that this is against the law - they could show ads, but can't invade the users privacy for that, so no tracking ads - but they do it anyway and got away with it in various decisions. And now Facebook gets a huge fine for the same behaviour. Which is good in a way, maybe it will lead to a behaviour correction also for the smaller publishers. But it's of course not an equal treatment. Apple on the other hand completely deserves its fine, without a question. They got clear rules and did everything to circumvent them. The Apple's Core Technology Fee was obviously illegal. Don't know why they expected to get away with that, there wasn't even a minimal chance of that working. Idiots.

tossandthrow 1y ago
Big German newspapers do not need to comply under DMA. The EU focusses, rightfully, on EU macro dynamics with these laws, not how smaller outlets work. This is very much reasonable. When a platform is big, it has bigger impact, but also bigger budgets to hire legal help and bigger budgets to stay compliant. This is well established in accounting where there exists different rules depending on size (in many jurisdictions)
- fp64 1y ago
  What’s another example of different rules depending on size? “Content Moderation” I think? Anything outside the DMA? I think small companies get some exceptions for documentation requirements?
  - agos 1y ago
    in my part of Europe there are tons: companies over a certain size might have different rules for layoffs, have to have union representatives, must pay for safety courses for the employees, must employ a certain percentage of people with disabilities...
  - tossandthrow 1y ago