6 ms·

As Facebook Sweeps Across Europe, Regulators Gird for Battle

32 points by carlchenet 11y ago

jakozaur 11y ago
As a European I wish EU would fight harder to create its own tech giants, rather than fight existing ones (e.g. Facebook, Microsoft, Google). There might be some merit in better regulation privacy, data protection, natural monopolies in tech. However, so far regulations seems backwards (e.g. permissions to use cookie, VAT regulations). It would be awesome if more people at EU were a bit more tech savvy.
- tdkl 11y ago
  What would be the incentive of majority of people flocking to EU services ?
  - brador 11y ago
    Better privacy protection would pull in some users.
    - johansch 11y ago
      With an heavy emphasis on "some".
    - solve 11y ago
      Yes, your local government controlling your communication channels will result in far better privacy than some remote government who doesn't care about you controlling it. /s
      - brador 11y ago
        Better the devil you know?
        solve 11y ago
        Historically, doesn't seem to be true at all. Local law enforcement likely cares far more about prosecuting you individually and has far more means to do so, than some foreign national agency. Imagine if Twitter was based within one of those countries that had a major uprising. Would the locals still be as safe using it, as if it were based far beyond the control of their country? Not really anything unknown about this situation. There are many obvious historical incidents.
      - Sir_Substance 11y ago
        Not in the slightest bit true. The way the US bill of rights applies to non-citizens not residing in the US is complex, but considering how little the US courts care about the question, functionally we have no rights when dealing with the US government. This is the lynchpin to things like seizing people passing through US airports and holding them indefinitely in Guantanamo bay. At least my own government can't get away with treating me like a brick.
        solve 11y ago
        Parallel construction.
    - fwn 11y ago
      Depending on your threat model, the very fact that Facebook and google are non European companies IS the privacy advantage. ..on the other side most people fear tailored ads more than their omnipresent government agencies. That's why I think people will like it anyway.
  - Sir_Substance 11y ago
    better multilingual support.
- mpoloton 11y ago
  This might be the case but I don't think that is the main reason. In fact, Europe has many excellent universities. I believe one of the reasons that Europe is lacking IT giants is because investors are risk averse and they would rather invest in tangible industries. For example, in Switzerland which is ranked first in global innovation index [1] the IT industry is almost non-existing even though it has vibrant medical, food, financial industries. Another reason in my opinion is the lack (or weakness) of military industrial complex. In the US many innovations are funded directly or indirectly with public money through military contractors and projects. (DARPA, Silicon Valley [2], Internet,...). Just by looking at patent portfolio of NSA you get a taste of technology transfer with public money to private sector. 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index 2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lukasm 11y ago
  Silicon Valley won't happen in Europe for the same reason it didn't happen in New York and East Coast. It's cultural. Europe should not compete with Silicon Valley by copying what's there. Europe should work on stuff that doesn't work in US e.g. Music Industry - very hostile in US, all unicorns are in Europe (Spotify, SoundCloud)
  - adventured 11y ago
    You mean other than Pandora, which is a successful, $4 billion company that has seen a massive revenue boom: 2012: $274m 2013: $427m 2014: $920m Pandora is obviously not a unicorn because it's public, but counting Spotify as a start-up would be equally absurd, they're nine years old.
    - lukasm 11y ago
      Good exception that proves the rule. Startup industry is order or magnitude bigger in US, normalize and then compare.
- gadders 11y ago
  EU as a geographic entity, or EU as a political organisation?
- kds 11y ago
  EU is not a state with a single national mindset and identity - it's a bag of different countries with different fragmented cultures and languages. China has its Baidu and Qzone, and Russia has its Yandex and VK. All this in spite of the obvious lack of Silicon Valley analogs.
  - eonw 11y ago
    the US is a group of states that often times adopt completely different opinions, not sure your first point translates well.
jakejake 11y ago
I'm not sure what this means in Europe, but in the U.S. "Government scrutiny" often means "this company has gotten big enough that politicians can squeeze a lot of cash from it"
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
"But with that size comes responsibility." Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. If a huge U.S. retailer muscled into the EU markets and started driving mom-and-pop retailers and smaller chains out of business, I can see where the regulators would go nuts and try to stop them. It's a clash of U.S. capitalism versus European style capitalism and if they don't like the raw knock-down-drag-out American approach, it's understandable. If huge Asian car manufacturers started undercutting European makers with high quality, low cost vehicles, causing thousands of factories and parts suppliers and dealerships across the continent to go out of business, I can see how regulators would want to limit or stop the disruption. But Facebook? Just don't use it. Don't browse to facebook.com, problem solved. Nothing is affected. What am I missing here? It looks like just another shakedown of a highly successful foreign company that the regulatory bureaucracy regards as a threat of some kind. Too profitable, too entrepreneurial, too brash -- some combination of too many ick factors, I suppose. As jakozaur says, why not promote and encourage domestic competition? There are brilliant computer folks in Europe and I'm sure they can come up with a few classy, high quality alternatives to Facebook. As an American, I'd love to see some competition to FB.
- mpoloton 11y ago
  This is not a very good argument. There are many products and services that are voluntary but regulated such as tobacco and alcohol. There are many laws that are designed to protect people even against their own will. Laws such as minimum wage. The point is that notions such as privacy is not universal (at least not yet) and we should accept and respect that each region has their own value systems. I am not rejecting that their opposition is not political. In fact, Europe and US have had many similar cases such as agriculture subsidies.
- DanBC 11y ago
  > Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. Tthe problems are 1) privacy setting 2) unfair competition The EU has strict privacy and data protection rules. Facebook appears to trample those, and if they want to continue to be allowed to operate in EU they should probably have a look at whether their rules are compatible with laws of democratic nations. Facebook probably have tight internal auditing. I have no doubt that a Facebook employee using engineer access to creep on FB users would quickly lose their job. So, partly all FB has to do is demonstrate that to regulators. The rules are pretty simple: tell people what you're collecting and why you're collecting it; don't collect too much; don't keep it for too long; make sure other people don't get hold of it. That's not onerous for FB. As for unfair competition: well, I dunno. You might have a point there. I see that eg Amazon has decided to start following a more sensible tax reporting scheme so EU pressure does seem to work to change behaviour. I'm not sure if this is a French NIH problem - see also Courrier électronique, galileo, and the continuing anti-Google measures (first a competitor search engine, and then drives to force google to present alternative search engine results, etc)
kuyfiuyg 11y ago
And on it goes, the EU 'protecting' up from voluntary services... They protect the tech scene so well there are hardly any great software companies, even though the EU is (or among) the richest areas in the world, and full of technical know-how! Thank you politicians :D

32 points by carlchenet 11y ago

As a European I wish EU would fight harder to create its own tech giants, rather than fight existing ones (e.g. Facebook, Microsoft, Google). There might be some merit in better regulation privacy, data protection, natural monopolies in tech. However, so far regulations seems backwards (e.g. permissions to use cookie, VAT regulations). It would be awesome if more people at EU were a bit more tech savvy.

tdkl 11y ago
What would be the incentive of majority of people flocking to EU services ?
- brador 11y ago
  Better privacy protection would pull in some users.
  - johansch 11y ago
    With an heavy emphasis on "some".
  - solve 11y ago
    Yes, your local government controlling your communication channels will result in far better privacy than some remote government who doesn't care about you controlling it. /s
    - brador 11y ago
      Better the devil you know?
      - solve 11y ago
        Historically, doesn't seem to be true at all. Local law enforcement likely cares far more about prosecuting you individually and has far more means to do so, than some foreign national agency. Imagine if Twitter was based within one of those countries that had a major uprising. Would the locals still be as safe using it, as if it were based far beyond the control of their country? Not really anything unknown about this situation. There are many obvious historical incidents.
    - Sir_Substance 11y ago
      Not in the slightest bit true. The way the US bill of rights applies to non-citizens not residing in the US is complex, but considering how little the US courts care about the question, functionally we have no rights when dealing with the US government. This is the lynchpin to things like seizing people passing through US airports and holding them indefinitely in Guantanamo bay. At least my own government can't get away with treating me like a brick.
      - solve 11y ago
        Parallel construction.
  - fwn 11y ago
    Depending on your threat model, the very fact that Facebook and google are non European companies IS the privacy advantage. ..on the other side most people fear tailored ads more than their omnipresent government agencies. That's why I think people will like it anyway.
- Sir_Substance 11y ago
  better multilingual support.
mpoloton 11y ago
This might be the case but I don't think that is the main reason. In fact, Europe has many excellent universities. I believe one of the reasons that Europe is lacking IT giants is because investors are risk averse and they would rather invest in tangible industries. For example, in Switzerland which is ranked first in global innovation index [1] the IT industry is almost non-existing even though it has vibrant medical, food, financial industries. Another reason in my opinion is the lack (or weakness) of military industrial complex. In the US many innovations are funded directly or indirectly with public money through military contractors and projects. (DARPA, Silicon Valley [2], Internet,...). Just by looking at patent portfolio of NSA you get a taste of technology transfer with public money to private sector. 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index 2- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lukasm 11y ago
Silicon Valley won't happen in Europe for the same reason it didn't happen in New York and East Coast. It's cultural. Europe should not compete with Silicon Valley by copying what's there. Europe should work on stuff that doesn't work in US e.g. Music Industry - very hostile in US, all unicorns are in Europe (Spotify, SoundCloud)
- adventured 11y ago
  You mean other than Pandora, which is a successful, $4 billion company that has seen a massive revenue boom: 2012: $274m 2013: $427m 2014: $920m Pandora is obviously not a unicorn because it's public, but counting Spotify as a start-up would be equally absurd, they're nine years old.
  - lukasm 11y ago
    Good exception that proves the rule. Startup industry is order or magnitude bigger in US, normalize and then compare.
gadders 11y ago
EU as a geographic entity, or EU as a political organisation?
kds 11y ago
EU is not a state with a single national mindset and identity - it's a bag of different countries with different fragmented cultures and languages. China has its Baidu and Qzone, and Russia has its Yandex and VK. All this in spite of the obvious lack of Silicon Valley analogs.
- eonw 11y ago
  the US is a group of states that often times adopt completely different opinions, not sure your first point translates well.

jakejake 11y ago

I'm not sure what this means in Europe, but in the U.S. "Government scrutiny" often means "this company has gotten big enough that politicians can squeeze a lot of cash from it"

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

"But with that size comes responsibility." Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. If a huge U.S. retailer muscled into the EU markets and started driving mom-and-pop retailers and smaller chains out of business, I can see where the regulators would go nuts and try to stop them. It's a clash of U.S. capitalism versus European style capitalism and if they don't like the raw knock-down-drag-out American approach, it's understandable. If huge Asian car manufacturers started undercutting European makers with high quality, low cost vehicles, causing thousands of factories and parts suppliers and dealerships across the continent to go out of business, I can see how regulators would want to limit or stop the disruption. But Facebook? Just don't use it. Don't browse to facebook.com, problem solved. Nothing is affected. What am I missing here? It looks like just another shakedown of a highly successful foreign company that the regulatory bureaucracy regards as a threat of some kind. Too profitable, too entrepreneurial, too brash -- some combination of too many ick factors, I suppose. As jakozaur says, why not promote and encourage domestic competition? There are brilliant computer folks in Europe and I'm sure they can come up with a few classy, high quality alternatives to Facebook. As an American, I'd love to see some competition to FB.

mpoloton 11y ago
This is not a very good argument. There are many products and services that are voluntary but regulated such as tobacco and alcohol. There are many laws that are designed to protect people even against their own will. Laws such as minimum wage. The point is that notions such as privacy is not universal (at least not yet) and we should accept and respect that each region has their own value systems. I am not rejecting that their opposition is not political. In fact, Europe and US have had many similar cases such as agriculture subsidies.
DanBC 11y ago
> Why would European regulators even care about Facebook? It's a completely voluntary service and anyone's free to create an alternative. It's non-essential. Tthe problems are 1) privacy setting 2) unfair competition The EU has strict privacy and data protection rules. Facebook appears to trample those, and if they want to continue to be allowed to operate in EU they should probably have a look at whether their rules are compatible with laws of democratic nations. Facebook probably have tight internal auditing. I have no doubt that a Facebook employee using engineer access to creep on FB users would quickly lose their job. So, partly all FB has to do is demonstrate that to regulators. The rules are pretty simple: tell people what you're collecting and why you're collecting it; don't collect too much; don't keep it for too long; make sure other people don't get hold of it. That's not onerous for FB. As for unfair competition: well, I dunno. You might have a point there. I see that eg Amazon has decided to start following a more sensible tax reporting scheme so EU pressure does seem to work to change behaviour. I'm not sure if this is a French NIH problem - see also Courrier électronique, galileo, and the continuing anti-Google measures (first a competitor search engine, and then drives to force google to present alternative search engine results, etc)

kuyfiuyg 11y ago

And on it goes, the EU 'protecting' up from voluntary services... They protect the tech scene so well there are hardly any great software companies, even though the EU is (or among) the richest areas in the world, and full of technical know-how! Thank you politicians :D