Europe passes sweeping antitrust laws targeting America's Big Tech After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the European Parliament on Tuesday passed the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, teeing up a showdown between the continent and US tech giants. With the two sets of laws approved, the measures move to the European Council for passage. If green-lit, as is expected over …
The EU have a way of patiently gathering evidence for several years, then building their legal case for a while longer, before pouncing.
Meanwhile the dot-coms will continue illegal as ever.
Let us hope that when it finally falls, the scale of the EU hatchet will horrify even the richest and greediest twonks in the world.
They have to actually win the case too. Remember when the EU cracked down on Ireland's generous tax treatment for Apple? Fought that for years, forced Apple to put the money in escrow, only to see it overturned.
They'll only strike fear into the hearts of tech companies if they WIN some fat GDPR judgments. Likewise for this new bill, by the time they investigate and collect information, go to court, and have a decision it will be a decade from now. Facebook could be bankrupt by then (hey, a man can dream!) in which case good luck collecting anything from their carcass.
"Facebook could be bankrupt by then (hey, a man can dream!) in which case good luck collecting anything from their carcass."
Or, more likely, have morphed into a "new entity" which will make all the right PR noises while denying any relationship with "old Facebook" and therefore no responsibility for any wrong doing or fines incurred.
> If the [European] Commission lacks the necessary resources and in-house expertise to ensure compliance,
Just make sure that the fines which will (inevitably) be handed out are large enough to cover the cost of enforcement.
That would include staffing the relevant regulatory offices and paying for the in-house lawyers to create the "bite"
And if there is money left over, then just put that against all the unpaid taxes from those companies.
Fines are fones, and taxes are taxes. Fines are not applied against owed taxes, ever. Fines are always in addition to taxes, and that's the way it should be, otherwise big biz would work out a way to have fines cover their taxes, and theb consider the fines as cost of doing business.
If fines don't hurt, fines don't matter.
"Just make sure that the fines which will (inevitably) be handed out are large enough to cover the cost of enforcement."
I'm in two minds about that. In the case of huge companies breaking the law in way that may affect millions of people, it sounds like a good idea. In the case of general upholding of the law, as a basic principle, not so much. Can you imagine the fine for littering if that had to go towards the total cost of policing such that policing became cost-neutral? Every time the cops get a pay-rise, "productivity" would have to increase to cover the increased running costs. No thanks :-)
From the article -- 'The DSA "sets clear obligations for digital service providers, such as social media or marketplaces, to tackle the spread of illegal content, online disinformation and other societal risks," according to a statement issued by the EU Parliament.'
And who decides what is "disinformation and other societal risks"? Why, the same people who created the rules in the first place. Which means that this rule will be used to shut down politically inconvenient speech sooner, not later. Never in history have the people who censored been the good guys. The answer to bad speech is always more speech, never less. This is because the truth can survive the most vicious attack thrown against it, whereas the lie needs a strong fortress of propaganda and censorship to protect it. This rule will quickly be used to hide truths politicians do not want known.
We don't have to look too far to see where the endgame of such regulations can lead. By your logic, it's the Russian people's fault that they keep re-electing the same corrupt people who then restrict what information they are allowed to hear - e.g. by restricting TV to only showing pro-Russia "news", where Putin is a hero for freeing Ukrainians from the tyranny of Nazism, etc., etc.
The argument that people can simply elect a different government only holds where there is actually choice, and where the people actually have the information to be able to make that choice. Once one side holds the keys to controlling that information, they are only one step away from engineering their re-election.
"The courts interpret and enforce the law. Who writes the laws? Politicians in most cases"
But laws, especially these days, seem to be very woolly and grey such that no one really knowns what is or isn't illegal until it's tested in court. At which point the judge(s) and/or jury get to decide how the law actually works. Well, in theory. There's always the highly paid lawyers funded by deep pocketed $big_Corp who will appeal and appeal and appeal before eventually settling out of court, leaving us back where we started with a woolly and grey law, unproven in court.
"who decides what is "disinformation and other societal risks"? "
The EU is far more clued in to this than you would think. For example it's initiating action against its own members (at various stages, Hungary, Poland, Malta... ) for not upholding democratic norms, part of which is the about the government control of media.
The people writing these rules in Brussels are aware of the risks, and are, I hope, working on remedies not only with respect to the tech giants, but also with respect to the governments of individual countries, some of which, as you point out, will try and twist the new laws to their advantage.
You can side with the megacorps or the governments.
If you don't like either, you at least have a chance to change the governments. The megacorps don't care about you.
If you're worried about censorship, the megacorps have been doing that for years.
At this point I trust the EU more Ihan trust Suckerberg and his friends.
It is only once we have a dialogue of equals that we will be able to get the respect the EU deserves
...that's a really damning statement. One party is a legally recognized collective of national governments, the other is a loose association of large private companies.
The EU should not be treating these entities as equals. They should be treating them as "do as your damn well told or we fine you into oblivion."
However one feels about the EU in general it's absurd we have reached a place where it sees itself as the junior position in a negotiation with a private enterprise. That's just not how laws ought to work.
"They should be treating them as "do as your damn well told or we fine you into oblivion.""
Ideally, and in any other sphere, maybe. But the data behemoths could effectively shut down such a swathe of businesses in any nation state that states have to tread very carefully when 'negotiating'.
They seem to be able to knock up laws and rules to control us, the general tax paying public, at the blink of an eye.
Nothing to stop them doing the same for the big companies. Jail for the top people who run these places if they try to blackmail a nation state or states by any means involving tech.
What is the purpose of entities like the UN, EU etc. if they are not dealing with this ? Sorry, rhetorical question. Most are bloody talking shops that suck billions out of the taxpayers while creating more red tape for them while studiously ignoring the parasites.
As an aside, if one of these behemoths did shut down services it would soon wake people up to what the rest of us have been aware of for years. The fallout would be spectacular, people would wake up to reality and whoever did it would hopefully be shafted out of existence.
For decades the UK gov has been trying to get people to work from home for environmental reasons. Most people were not interested until Covid forced the issue. Now huge numbers are happy with it so sometimes it takes external action to force an issue.
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