7 ms·

You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuse

You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuses to take advantage and steal from poor innocent American companies. How the mood has changed on this huh. I'm glad to see the European approach vindicated, even if at times not strong enough.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
> How the mood has changed on this huh. I don't think you're right on the timing, but a related essay: https://www.imightbewrong.org/p/why-doesnt-hitler-mcfuckface-like https://www.imightbewrong.org/p/why-doesnt-hitler-mcfuckface...
- saubeidl 1y ago
  I don't think the mood of Americans has really changed. It's just that right now only the Europeans are awake.
detaro 1y ago
[flagged]
- BoorishBears 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Then leave. Take your big, beautiful American business and walk it the fuck out of the European economic zone. It's that easy! That said... it will be awfully hard for Americans to wriggle their way out of the $125 billion annual trade deficit they run with the EU. If the US stops trading to defend "principled" economic development, then the citizens will be paying down America's debt with their income taxes. No biggie. It's only like ~$800/taxpayer/year when you run the numbers.
    - BoorishBears 1y ago
      You run a $149 Billion annual services deficit with the US. No biggie. It's only like ~$800/taxpayer/year when you run the numbers. - And can we talk about how absolutely cartoonish that is when 77% of it is digital, aka things you should have been able to build if you weren't leaking all of your top minds to power the US's service economy. The US is actively trying to self-destruct and the EU still can't seize that moment, instead tripling down on the role of toll collector, and you'll see rabid behavior the moment you call that out.
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        Make sure to tell your coroner, if you want all that written on your tombstone or recorded for posterity. I suspect it won't age well regardless.
        BoorishBears 1y ago
        > you'll see rabid behavior the moment you call that out This is probably the most rabid overreaction I've ever seen on the site, pining for some guy's death over mentioning a factual statement about a trade imbalance.
- BoorishBears 1y ago
  [flagged]
samplatt 1y ago
Er... No, sorry, I don't remember anyone saying that at all.
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago
  I very clearly do. So that's weird.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  It entirely saturates discussions about companies that rhyme with "Snapple" in my experience.
  - oblio 1y ago
    Oh, for Snapple, don't forget the Snapp Store discussions: "My grandparents have a clean iPhone for 40 years because of the Snapp Store!! Nobody should be able to install things from 3rd party Snapp Stores, they might be harmful!!"
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  Amazing. On like every thread of EU fining some US company for things such as privacy violations there's a stream of mor... er... users claiming that EU is only using that as a revenue stream to extract money from US companies because they have no homegrown businesses or similar bullshit (despite European companies being fines the same way). Hell, you can find some of the same moronic arguments on this very thread still.
  - Symbiote 1y ago
    Trump also made the claim, back when he was justifying tariffs against the EU.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      I hope EU cranks up the pressure against US because of that, using the EU Anti- Coercion Instrument as designed.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
andsoitis 1y ago
> cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuses to take advantage and steal from poor innocent American companies Spotify found in violation of EU data protection laws by Stockholm Court - https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spotify-found-in-violation-of-eu-data-protection-laws-by-stockholm-court-93CH-4077372 https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spotify-fou... Or what about Enel (Italian): https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-regulator-fines-enel-unit-79-million-euros-telemarketing-abuses-2024-02-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-regulator-fine... Or Criteo (French): https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/22/adtech-giant-criteo-his-with-revised-e40m-fine-by-french-data-privacy-body-over-gdpr-breaches/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/22/adtech-giant-criteo-his-wi... H&M (Swedish) fined for breaking GDPR over employee surveillance: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54418936 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54418936 etc.
riffraff 1y ago
5 years? I think it was last week.
lompad 1y ago
And not only are those cries wrong, reality is quite the opposite. The vast majority of fines are towards european businesses. Big Tech aren't the only ones who violate data privacy standards all the time. [0] You just don't read about those here, so people like to just assume those fines don't exist. Additionally, it helps to actually learn how the current law developed - it primarily was modeled after the german Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, which was put into law in a modern form in the 90s, long before FAANG. [0] see the tracker: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
- Raed667 1y ago
  I was surprised to see doctors and even a bakery on the list!
  - delusional 1y ago
    One of the earliest enforcement actions was against a mailing list. If I remember it was because it CCed all the participants instead of BCCing them.
- rafaelmn 1y ago
  I went to the site and sorted by fine - I needed to go to the bottom of second list to find a non US company ? By the time I get to pages that are mostly non US companies the fines are two orders of magnitude smaller and dropping fast - do you have any aggregate view to compare ? I would not be surprised at all that indeed most of the fines were towards US companies in total amount.
  - FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
    Its because American companies are much larger than most European companies in terms of revenue. And because the impact of their infringements are much larger due to the nature of their business. If Bumfuck LLC from Sweden with maybe a 1000 customers fucks up they arent impacting millions of users, unlike when Google or Meta does things.
  - 1y ago
gdwatson 1y ago
As an American, my reservations about European privacy laws are related to jurisdiction, and none of them applies here. I welcome this decision.
jimbob45 1y ago
[flagged]
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  So in your eyes, a race to the moral and ethical bottom is the only way a society should function?
- saubeidl 1y ago
  All of these have the same root cause. American imperialism that has for too long been tolerated here. Thankfully, things are starting to change.
  - nilslindemann 1y ago
    For the records, the root cause is compound interest.
- baxtr 1y ago
  The economy is also in tatters because Germans relied too much on US and Chinese markets.
- dmantis 1y ago
  Money and economy is an instrument, not a goal. If a person lives a rat life, being constantly spied, manipulated and sold, what's the point of being richer? To buy what? The most precious thing of freedom and independence is lost already then. Without dignity it's better to die.
- watwut 1y ago
  > Also a coincidence that Trump happens to be pushing the poor innocent Germans to contribute to their own defense. Trump is literally supporting Russia.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Personally, as an American, I'd happily push our economy down the stairs to dissociate from people who espouse this sort of attitude.
apples_oranges 1y ago
Americans are still asleep at 7GMT ;)
jokoon 1y ago
Probably people who own stock in those companies
giingyui 1y ago
[dead]
123yawaworht456 1y ago
>How the mood has changed on this huh. has it? if anything, EU continues to fleece US companies with nonsensical, hastily-implemented laws and absurd fines. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=EU+DSA+twitter https://duckduckgo.com/?q=EU+DSA+twitter
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  Meta is very welcome to stop operating in EU to not be subject to their laws. Or, you know, they could just respect the law. Like other companies that operate here. Novel concept I know. And, to complement your lack of research, EU companies are subject to those laws and are frequently fined as well for those violations.
- piva00 1y ago
  Those companies choose to operate in the EU, if they don't like the legal environment they can just pack up and leave. Why do you think they don't do that? Why do you feel the need to defend companies breaking the law?
  - 123yawaworht456 1y ago
    lease an apartment spend a lot of time and money moving your things there live there for a decade the landlord shows up and informs you that you are forbidden from using the toilet between 6 PM and 8 PM, effective immediately, punishable by a fine equal to your monthly income. why? fuck you, that's why. if you don't like the legal environment you can just pack up and leave
    - piva00 1y ago
      I don't think it's a suitable analogy but you do you to try to justify companies breaking the law :) As far as I hear from the HN crowd if the company feels it's not profitable anymore they will just pack up and leave (hence why many here defend not taxing corporations), this is exactly that case: there's money to be made, they will stick around, perhaps realising that paying fines is eating into their profits and change behaviour. If they don't like it, just pack up and leave, corporations are only interested in making profits, housing is not an analogous to that as much as you might want to play that card.
phendrenad2 1y ago
No no, you misunderstand. Over here in America we have given up on fighting it and prefer to let mega-corps like Google and Meta own the advertising space. Smaller companies quickly moved to a subscription model, at least until the EU finds a way to make money illegal.
dogleash 1y ago
>You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans I remember it. I'm pretty sure it's always just been the sellouts that work for anti-consumer tech companies (and the wannabes). Sometimes they're rationalizing their career to themselves and us, othertimes they're aware and just saying whatever they think will keep the con running for as long as possible. One of the things HN serves as is a no-risk place for scrupleless software businesspeople to practice how to swindle nerds with specious arguments.

thaumasiotes 1y ago

> How the mood has changed on this huh. I don't think you're right on the timing, but a related essay: https://www.imightbewrong.org/p/why-doesnt-hitler-mcfuckface-like https://www.imightbewrong.org/p/why-doesnt-hitler-mcfuckface...

saubeidl 1y ago
I don't think the mood of Americans has really changed. It's just that right now only the Europeans are awake.

detaro 1y ago

[flagged]

BoorishBears 1y ago
[flagged]
- bigyabai 1y ago
  Then leave. Take your big, beautiful American business and walk it the fuck out of the European economic zone. It's that easy! That said... it will be awfully hard for Americans to wriggle their way out of the $125 billion annual trade deficit they run with the EU. If the US stops trading to defend "principled" economic development, then the citizens will be paying down America's debt with their income taxes. No biggie. It's only like ~$800/taxpayer/year when you run the numbers.
  - BoorishBears 1y ago
    You run a $149 Billion annual services deficit with the US. No biggie. It's only like ~$800/taxpayer/year when you run the numbers. - And can we talk about how absolutely cartoonish that is when 77% of it is digital, aka things you should have been able to build if you weren't leaking all of your top minds to power the US's service economy. The US is actively trying to self-destruct and the EU still can't seize that moment, instead tripling down on the role of toll collector, and you'll see rabid behavior the moment you call that out.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Make sure to tell your coroner, if you want all that written on your tombstone or recorded for posterity. I suspect it won't age well regardless.
      - BoorishBears 1y ago
        > you'll see rabid behavior the moment you call that out This is probably the most rabid overreaction I've ever seen on the site, pining for some guy's death over mentioning a factual statement about a trade imbalance.
BoorishBears 1y ago
[flagged]

samplatt 1y ago

Er... No, sorry, I don't remember anyone saying that at all.

snickerdoodle12 1y ago
I very clearly do. So that's weird.
bigyabai 1y ago
It entirely saturates discussions about companies that rhyme with "Snapple" in my experience.
- oblio 1y ago
  Oh, for Snapple, don't forget the Snapp Store discussions: "My grandparents have a clean iPhone for 40 years because of the Snapp Store!! Nobody should be able to install things from 3rd party Snapp Stores, they might be harmful!!"
surgical_fire 1y ago
Amazing. On like every thread of EU fining some US company for things such as privacy violations there's a stream of mor... er... users claiming that EU is only using that as a revenue stream to extract money from US companies because they have no homegrown businesses or similar bullshit (despite European companies being fines the same way). Hell, you can find some of the same moronic arguments on this very thread still.
- Symbiote 1y ago
  Trump also made the claim, back when he was justifying tariffs against the EU.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    I hope EU cranks up the pressure against US because of that, using the EU Anti- Coercion Instrument as designed.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

andsoitis 1y ago

> cries from the Americans that this was just the Europeans finding excuses to take advantage and steal from poor innocent American companies Spotify found in violation of EU data protection laws by Stockholm Court - https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spotify-found-in-violation-of-eu-data-protection-laws-by-stockholm-court-93CH-4077372 https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/spotify-fou... Or what about Enel (Italian): https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-regulator-fines-enel-unit-79-million-euros-telemarketing-abuses-2024-02-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/italy-regulator-fine... Or Criteo (French): https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/22/adtech-giant-criteo-his-with-revised-e40m-fine-by-french-data-privacy-body-over-gdpr-breaches/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/22/adtech-giant-criteo-his-wi... H&M (Swedish) fined for breaking GDPR over employee surveillance: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54418936 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54418936 etc.

riffraff 1y ago

5 years? I think it was last week.

lompad 1y ago

And not only are those cries wrong, reality is quite the opposite. The vast majority of fines are towards european businesses. Big Tech aren't the only ones who violate data privacy standards all the time. [0] You just don't read about those here, so people like to just assume those fines don't exist. Additionally, it helps to actually learn how the current law developed - it primarily was modeled after the german Bundesdatenschutzgesetz, which was put into law in a modern form in the 90s, long before FAANG. [0] see the tracker: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/

Raed667 1y ago
I was surprised to see doctors and even a bakery on the list!
- delusional 1y ago
  One of the earliest enforcement actions was against a mailing list. If I remember it was because it CCed all the participants instead of BCCing them.
rafaelmn 1y ago
I went to the site and sorted by fine - I needed to go to the bottom of second list to find a non US company ? By the time I get to pages that are mostly non US companies the fines are two orders of magnitude smaller and dropping fast - do you have any aggregate view to compare ? I would not be surprised at all that indeed most of the fines were towards US companies in total amount.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
  Its because American companies are much larger than most European companies in terms of revenue. And because the impact of their infringements are much larger due to the nature of their business. If Bumfuck LLC from Sweden with maybe a 1000 customers fucks up they arent impacting millions of users, unlike when Google or Meta does things.
- 1y ago

gdwatson 1y ago

As an American, my reservations about European privacy laws are related to jurisdiction, and none of them applies here. I welcome this decision.

jimbob45 1y ago

[flagged]

hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
So in your eyes, a race to the moral and ethical bottom is the only way a society should function?
saubeidl 1y ago
All of these have the same root cause. American imperialism that has for too long been tolerated here. Thankfully, things are starting to change.
- nilslindemann 1y ago
  For the records, the root cause is compound interest.
baxtr 1y ago
The economy is also in tatters because Germans relied too much on US and Chinese markets.
dmantis 1y ago
Money and economy is an instrument, not a goal. If a person lives a rat life, being constantly spied, manipulated and sold, what's the point of being richer? To buy what? The most precious thing of freedom and independence is lost already then. Without dignity it's better to die.
watwut 1y ago
> Also a coincidence that Trump happens to be pushing the poor innocent Germans to contribute to their own defense. Trump is literally supporting Russia.
MangoToupe 1y ago
Personally, as an American, I'd happily push our economy down the stairs to dissociate from people who espouse this sort of attitude.

apples_oranges 1y ago

Americans are still asleep at 7GMT ;)

jokoon 1y ago

Probably people who own stock in those companies

giingyui 1y ago

[dead]

123yawaworht456 1y ago

>How the mood has changed on this huh. has it? if anything, EU continues to fleece US companies with nonsensical, hastily-implemented laws and absurd fines. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=EU+DSA+twitter https://duckduckgo.com/?q=EU+DSA+twitter

surgical_fire 1y ago
Meta is very welcome to stop operating in EU to not be subject to their laws. Or, you know, they could just respect the law. Like other companies that operate here. Novel concept I know. And, to complement your lack of research, EU companies are subject to those laws and are frequently fined as well for those violations.
piva00 1y ago
Those companies choose to operate in the EU, if they don't like the legal environment they can just pack up and leave. Why do you think they don't do that? Why do you feel the need to defend companies breaking the law?
- 123yawaworht456 1y ago
  lease an apartment spend a lot of time and money moving your things there live there for a decade the landlord shows up and informs you that you are forbidden from using the toilet between 6 PM and 8 PM, effective immediately, punishable by a fine equal to your monthly income. why? fuck you, that's why. if you don't like the legal environment you can just pack up and leave
  - piva00 1y ago
    I don't think it's a suitable analogy but you do you to try to justify companies breaking the law :) As far as I hear from the HN crowd if the company feels it's not profitable anymore they will just pack up and leave (hence why many here defend not taxing corporations), this is exactly that case: there's money to be made, they will stick around, perhaps realising that paying fines is eating into their profits and change behaviour. If they don't like it, just pack up and leave, corporations are only interested in making profits, housing is not an analogous to that as much as you might want to play that card.

phendrenad2 1y ago

No no, you misunderstand. Over here in America we have given up on fighting it and prefer to let mega-corps like Google and Meta own the advertising space. Smaller companies quickly moved to a subscription model, at least until the EU finds a way to make money illegal.

dogleash 1y ago

>You guys remember how 5+ years ago, an headline like this on HN would invariably prompt cries from the Americans I remember it. I'm pretty sure it's always just been the sellouts that work for anti-consumer tech companies (and the wannabes). Sometimes they're rationalizing their career to themselves and us, othertimes they're aware and just saying whatever they think will keep the con running for as long as possible. One of the things HN serves as is a no-risk place for scrupleless software businesspeople to practice how to swindle nerds with specious arguments.