I think they should crack down even more, while endorsing decentralized alternatives, possibly some hosted by themselves.
Kind reminder for all Europeans to look-for ways to put pressure on/encourage the EU to keep supporting open source through NGI.
The EU has put a lot of money into the Fediverse, and it has been incredibly effective. This is no time to stop.
I don’t think the EU should be hosting anything else than their own communication channels, which they are of course already doing on their mastodon instance. Follow and interact with them there if you can - success is counted in interactions, even though mastodon likes are kind of meaningless in all other respects.
For the most part, decentralized alternatives have a much harder time complying. Every instance needs to comply individually, which multiplies the work. Also, sharing data between independent instances is very problematic.
I don’t see how deregulation of foreign tech companies would help EU economy.
The assumption is excessive regulation is one of the reason we don’t have a domestic tech industry
While I don’t think it’s necessary the main factor, for sure it’s partially true
If Apple, Google, Microsoft and other big tech are cautious and struggling to bring features in Europe while being compliance, I can’t imagine how an european start up could trive as their starting market here
You can’t really deregulate domestic companies only
Except all the regs these leeches are whining about only apply to them, not small startups, not because they are foreign, but because they are big. Even if the law itself does not only explicitly apply to huge companies, like the DMA that Apple is whining about, enforcement heavily skews against the big ones breaking the most laws.
And the reason they got big was not an unregulated business landscape, but tons of VC money pumped into ventures that would never have been able to simultaneously attract customers and make money. It was literally the same as the current Chinese situation with BYD, foreign country is dumping the market, killing local competition because they can afford to have a better service, because they have unlimited money.
Every single EU country had their own small social media company that was akin to MySpace. Every one of them got outcompeted by Facebook, since they had unlimited VC money. And now Facebook is one of the two notable ad companies in Europe, the other being Google, extracting all the money from the continent they possibly can, while breaking all the laws they possibly can.
Fuck them, if they have to stay, follow our laws.
Except all the regs these leeches are whining about only apply to them, not small startups, not because they are foreign, but because they are big.
That is factually wrong. Smaller outfits are exempted from some rules but you already need good legal advice to navigate these exceptions. You certainly need a lot of legal advice to navigate the remaining rules.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Please.
DMA specifically targets six big companies. DSA has most of the regs on VLOPs, which startups are not. The GDPR is not that hard to comply with, we managed with our underfunded 10 person company.
And every company needs at least one person on legal anyway, inside and outside the EU.
The GDPR is not that hard to comply with, we managed with our underfunded 10 person company.
Just to see if I understand this right. You did that without consulting a lawyer? How do you know if you got it right?
Spending one person’s wage for “legal” that went from everything from employment law to writing our ToS to GDPR.
Also, we know because of audits we got from big banks with big legal departments that would have cost us dearly if we were out of compliance.
Oh. Your company employs a qualified lawyer full-time. So it’s easy in the same way that quantum physics is easy if you pay for someone with a Master’s degree in physics. I think you seriously overestimate how many people are university graduates.
whining about only apply to them, not small startups
No, to the point blue sky, not exactly big tech, is struggling to comply, after being called out.
They said they will, it’s not even bad faith.
Contrary to common beliefs, regulations strongly favour big companies, because they have the resources to keep up with burocracy, while gatekeeping smaller companies
The problem isn’t VC money either, because American and global funds invest in European companies too, there aren’t just as many eligible ones.
Most successful start up in Europe still decide to get listen on american exchanges (see the recent klarna case) This is purely because of favorable environment lol
Fuck them, if they have to stay, follow our laws
I mean, I really don’t care, but that’s exactly how european economy remained, keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome doesn’t seem smart
And no, Volkswagen is the 10th company in the world by revenues, it’s not dumping, European manufacturers simply can’t keep the pace. The most sold EV in Europe right now is Tesla lol
You mean Bluesky, the US VC funded company?
And by struggling, you mean this? 15 million should be enough to hire a part-time consultant for like 40k a year to tell you what pages you have to have and where. Especially if you have already founded Twitter, this should be straightforward. The EU is allergic to companies not giving a fuck, and this was Bluesky not giving a fuck. And this was not an EU fine, this was a public statement of “please”.
And EU regulations usually strongly favour the consumer. GDPR compliance is easy, I know, I’ve done it personally for an adtech company of all, actually. As long as you have consent, it’s all fine, the “oh it’s so strict we can’t even do anything” crowd usually wants to do something without consent which is clearly illegal, and thus “hard to do”.
DMA does not apply to anything other than 6 big tech companies, so nothing to talk about there. The DSA only requires Bluesky to be transparent about moderation and offer a way to report illegal content. That’s it. All the strict stuff only applies once you become a VLOP, so again, only the big ones.
Where are the scary regulations killing small businesses and stifling innovation, exactly?
Most successful start up in Europe still decide to get listen on american exchanges (see the recent klarna case) This is purely because of favorable environment lol
It’s purely because the USD is the biggest trade and reserve currency of the world, so most investment also comes in the form of USD, as most investors primarily operate in USD and thus don’t have to factor in currency conversion risks. Wall Street sucks, and regulatory capture has risks of its own, but as long as the US military shoots anyone not trading in USD, we all go there to beg billionaires for money.
And no, Volkswagen is the 10th company in the world by revenues, it’s not dumping
Who’s talking about Volkswagen? I meant BYD.
The most sold EV in Europe right now is Tesla lol
The car manufacturer several times smaller than the local incumbents, thriving in the EU because of a good product? Where are the scary regulations scaring them off?
I see your point and in the end I don’t know, but I doubt it has that much of an impact.
There’s a lot of regulation to consider, but much of it surely increases competition and chances for others.
Like portability of personal data, or blocking those giants buying EU companies, or having to follow EU consumer-friendly laws and protection.
What regulations do you think are the biggest negative factors?
I fucking hope not
Regulate more.
I work for a university in Europe. Why the fuck do I need several Microsoft apps on my phone just to use email. At worst they should use European solutions, at best the university should be independent hosting their own services.
I think this should be guaranteed on the legislative level. European public institutions cannot keep sending this much data off to American companies, and I should not be forced to install American apps on my phone. I have no reason to trust them.
If we want a European industry, support European solutions based on European values.
Doubling down on what we’re already doing is supposed to lead to a totally different result?
No.
Don’t.
This article is so beyond unhinged. Still upvoted because a supposedly reputable US paper putting something like this out is news in itself. It feels like reading the Soviet Pravda.
Silicon Valley and the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, have a strained relationship. Regulators in Brussels blame American tech giants for everything from the struggles of European startups to teenage depression. American tech firms whinge that they are targeted by jealous Europeans.
So mocking the point of one side while regurgitating the other verbatim is what passes for journalism in the US now? No, dear author, the EU does not blame tech giants “for everything”, they blame them for blatantly breaking the law.
The previous commission policed America’s tech giants in various ways. It blocked takeovers it saw as anti-competitive, such as Amazon’s attempt to buy iRobot, a maker of robo-vacuums. And it introduced a thicket of new laws, including the Digital Services Act (DSA), to regulate social media, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to keep tech firms from competing unfairly, and the Artificial Intelligence Act, to govern the use of the emerging technology. Rule-breakers can be hit with fines which, in the case of the DMA, can reach a tenth or more of the firm’s global revenue.
So having actual fines and laws that apply to everyone is discriminatory to US companies. I guess having a functional justice system is foreign to them.
The new commission may do more of the same. Henna Virkkunen, a Finn, has been put in charge of tech. People in her team say they expect continuity, though the emphasis may shift from writing new laws to enforcing existing ones. Reining in big tech still seems popular with voters.
So admittedly, nothing will change. But!
Yet changing circumstances may require a new approach. One difference is that economic growth is back in focus. Last year Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s returning president, asked Mario Draghi, a former head of the European Central Bank, to write a report on the continent’s waning competitiveness. The resulting tome pointed to Europe’s weakness in tech as a cause of its woes. Some recommendations that could also benefit American tech giants, including cutting red tape and boosting access to cloud infrastructure for Europe’s startups, were mentioned in the instructions Mrs von der Leyen issued to the new commissioners.
Some wishful thinking where if von der Leyen says “please make it easier to comply for European startups” means you don’t have to follow the laws any more if you are a big US company.
Even more important is the re-election of Donald Trump
Cat’s out of the bag. BTW, it’s not a re-election, it’s an election, the incumbent was Biden. But keep celebrating, ghouls.
X allegedly failed to comply with a number of DSA rules, such as providing data access for researchers. A decision will probably be made in the new year and could result in a fine of up to 6% of the firm’s global revenue. In September J.D. Vance, the incoming vice-president, seemed to suggest that America should withdraw support for nato in retaliation for European action against X.
This is so brain-dead that it’s laughable. Europe is very well able to defend its territory by itself. What it is not able to do is defend the Western world’s interests across the world by itself. If Trump crashes NATO because of X, Americans will indeed get transported back to the “great 50s”, except not the American 50s, but the German 50s. The US is built on global trade, and crashing that would only hurt the US.
US paper
The Economist is a British publication.
Yet changing circumstances may require a new approach. One difference is that economic growth is back in focus. Last year Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s returning president, asked Mario Draghi, a former head of the European Central Bank, to write a report on the continent’s waning competitiveness. The resulting tome pointed to Europe’s weakness in tech as a cause of its woes.
Heavier regulation might not help, but as I have repeatedly commented before, I believe that the dominant difference between the EU and US on large, business-to-consumer tech companies, the reason that the US has had more startup tech companies that grew to become giants, is not heavy regulation in the EU, but rather market fragmentation in the EU.
The EU has companies that make tech products. What it doesn’t have a lot of is large business-to-consumer tech companies that started in the EU.
A lot of those large business-to-consumer tech companies have large fixed costs, and small variable costs. Whether Google has one customer or a billion customers, they still have to pay their engineers to create their products; that’s a fixed cost. They just need more servers as they scale up. For a company with large fixed costs, being small is really bad, as you still have the large fixed costs, but you don’t have the revenue from many customers. That means that scaling up quickly is important. The US has a comparatively-homogenous market, so it’s easier to quickly go from zero to a fairly saturated domestic market.
The report mentioned in the above quote from the article that Draghi put out also mentioned market fragmentation as an issue.
