It’s been a painful few decades for consumers having the teeth of unregulated tech titans sunk into them.
It’s not over with this bill, at least until pluralism returns in operating systems, hardware and internet protocols.
I just hope they don’t stop the pressure with this.
The act doesn’t apply to all tech companies, only to those with either a market capitalisation of more than €75bn (£64bn), or having at least 45 million users and €7.5bn annual turnover in the EU.
In effect, this means just Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft and ByteDance (owner of TikTok). The fact that five of the six are US companies has, of course, led to complaints that the pesky Europeans have it in for poor defenceless American giants. Cue violins.
The act imposes serious obligations: companies will have to allow third-party apps and app stores on their platforms; provide transparent advertising data; allow users to easily uninstall pre-installed software or apps; enable interoperability between different messaging services, social networks, and other services, allowing users to communicate seamlessly across platforms; and be more transparent about how their algorithms rank and recommend content, products and services.
It also prohibits certain practices by gatekeepers: favouring their own services over third-party ones, for example; engaging in self-preferential activities; and using private data from business users to compete against them. In other words, an end to tech business as usual.
Sweet. What the corrupt US departments couldn’t - and refused to - do.
Member that time micro$quash was in court for a decade to prove they weren’t a monopoly despite being a monopoly, and then after all that the court declared they were a monopoly? Member? And then absolutely sweet fuck-all happened and they’re still out there monoply-ing without any care or hindrance? Yeah.
US, you fucked that up royal. As usual.
I mean, we got this “choose your default browser” screen for a few years. That solved it, right?
It actually did, solve it, unironically. The concern was that Microsoft was going to de facto take over the HTML standard and make it so that you had to use Internet Explorer and proprietary Microsoft extensions if you wanted to browse the web, eliminating all competition.
Now, more than 20 years later, Internet Explorer is defunct. Microsoft’s current browser is built on Chromium, an open source engine that was created by one of its competitors. If anything it’s Google that’s now the problematic one.
This happened in 2009, when IE had a market share of 56% and declining. IE is (arguably) defunct because it sucked, not because of a one-time, court-mandated popup.
It happened in 2001, you’re off by 8 years.
Back then Chrome didn’t exist and they didn’t implement the pop up, just assigned some overview and opened some APIs.
However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor did it prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future.
The popup came in 2009.
Seems to me they continued to take actions in 2009 as a result of their loss in 2001. “Some overview” continued after the case was decided. Unless there was a subsequent court case I’m unaware of?
You remember how all the US politicians are funded by the same huge corporations and rich people who all benefit from the regulators doing nothing but pretending to care?
Remember how the politicians pander to Americans by blaming rich people for all of life’s problems and saying they’ll make them pay their fair share, but those politicians have multiple houses and blatantly conduct insider trading every day, but Americans still vote for them time after time?
I’d like to say you could just not use their products, but that means you have to replace windows with some other os, not buy a major manufacturer cell phone, or do much else 🤷
This right here. It is so far gone, and deeply entrenched into how society works at fundamental levels, that it is impossible to avoid any mega corporations and their influence on how we live (not just tech companies too).
I know that pointing fingers does nothing to help, but this really is Reagan’s fault with his so-called trickle down economics.
Remember how the politicians pander to Americans by blaming rich people for all of life’s problems and saying they’ll make them pay their fair share
That’s a minority of US politicians and you know it. Not to mention it’s a minority of a minority of those politicians that get elected.
We got exactly what we voted for and that’s the truly maddening thing.
Part of that is definitely manipulation of representation (i.e. gerrymandering) but not all of it.
Now that I think about it, Johnny Harris did a really good report about insider trading by Congress.
The comment was meant to be syndical and sarcastic.
Of course it’s not representative of the entirety.
But it does express my frustration with political hypocrisy and insider trading. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find me any politicians that haven’t engaged in that at some point, to some degree. One of the famous ones that comes to mind is Nancy pelosi, but she is not alone, and this is not particular to one party or another, they both definitely engage in it, it’s been well documented and is irrefutable.
If you look past one party or another, you’d see that it’s a broken system. The fact that it’s legal for our elected representatives to conduct in activities that would otherwise be illegal for the general population is outrageous, and the fact that we all know they do it and they are the only ones that can control it in police themselves is also outrageous. It’s the only self-serving career that I can think of that is completely unchecked, has unlimited benefits for only 4 years of service, and the only ones that can control it or police it is themselves.
Remember when Nokia was king? Yup, lack of regulations then. I’m not saying it’s not a coincidence, but it certainly could be. I am glad to see Nokia’s resurgence in the infrastructure area in tech though.
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Won’t someone think of the poor shareholders /s
You are right, we should tax capital gains drastically so to disincentivise speculation, and force investor to rely on dividends. This would put a stop on the crazy run for growth we are experiencing as companies try to make their market valuation go up in this unsustainable eternal race to the top.
This isn’t a ‘painful day for tech titans.’
Corporations don’t feel pain. C*Os insulate themselves from it. They’re getting steadily richer, probably making more money than you’ll ever see in your life.
This is a good day for tech consumers. That should have been the headline.
I get depressed whenever I read about those salaries. I get paid the bare minimum to pay the bills. I will never have the life those people have - not that I care about luxury, but simply not having to worry about basic necessities.
Title should be adjusted to “Tech giants no longer treated like coddled babies by EU”
Thank you EU.
*cries in British
By default big business is narcissistic. They abuse the hell out of everything (see what you made me do to be profitable?) then play the victim when the government hits back.
I was around during the IE/ Netscape war. It occurred to me back then that given the same set of opportunities, any business would likely do the same. It sucks.
Yes, which is why we have anticompetition laws. It’s just for some reason, people can’t always see competition problem when it’s technology.
Tech looks like magic to the average person. It’s even hard for tech people to definitively tell if something inappropriate is happening, unless they have access to the source. And even so, companies will hide behind the ‘trade secrets’ excuse. Most of the time we can only imagine the shenanigans happening behind the veneer of the corporate copy, because it’s what we would do, given the vast amounts of data and lack of accountability/ transparency available for exploitation.
All true, but they are also failing at simple stuff. Requiring a closed company’s format or services is a monopoly. Especially if “everyone else is doing it”. That is when regulators need to step in as it’s a market failure when there is a single vendor “everyone is using”.
Correct. I feel the regulators lost the plot when they didn’t keep up with market demands for next gen messaging, leading first to the proprietary protocols and then the proliferation of third party apps growing out of a person’s social clout. It’s sucks having to check which app someone is on before I can communicate with them. Some of us here in Asia have 10+ messaging apps on our phone, a combination of pre installed bloatware and apps installed because someone else didn’t have my one, esoteric app. Each time we are handing over more and more of our personal data, network, metadata (so they say) etc.
It was a problem before IMs on phones. Or smart phone. (Maybe not IMs because of IRC). Microsoft have been conflating monopolies with standards since forever. Not only dominating desktop operating systems, but office software on it. Using monopoly of one to get a monopoly of the other. And lets not forget what they did with browers. The EU is only body in the world dealing with the problem at all.
Phones in Asia sound even more dystopian than here in the UK. Surely you can still go LineageOS, GrapheneOS, etc?
And not just businesses. I am always horrified by how many people are obsessed with protecting the precious intellectual property of their posts on the Fediverse from “scraping”. It’s exactly the kind of “Private Property! Keep out!” thinking that gives the tech monopolies the stranglehold over their users.
It’s normal. In today’s social media it just takes more time to ask the author whether you can use what they’ve created, especially relative to clicking that repost button.
In the 00s you’d just ask and most likely get permission and also the author would be flattered. If you wouldn’t ask, though, that’d be very impolite and the author would be pissed.
Just like IRL among normal people.
I don’t think you’re quite following here.
EG have you ever heard about Power Ventures? That was a social media aggregator. You gave the website your credential for Facebook and others. It would fetch contact lists, messages, and so on, and present them in a single place. That gave you a kind of interoperability, or even a kind of federation. Obviously, Facebook didn’t like that. This kind of thing just weakens their hold on users.
You’d think users here should like this sort of thing. But it’s full here with people who passionately hate it, just as much as Facebook did. Facebook completely destroyed the company in court. The Fediverse is full of people who think that that’s exactly right.
Aha, okay, I agree it’s not.
Good. Get rid of proprietary messaging apps and unfettered access to our data. Bring back standards.
yeah, interoperability should work to encourage development
It would be amazing if even a small portion of EU fines for big tech companies went to supporting open source alternatives.
In the Linux world, we are seeing right now how much things like Valve putting a bit of money into Linux, Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund giving €1m to the Gnome foundation, etc, is improving things massively. Funding helps. Developers/designers/etc like being paid.
Imagine if even 1% of these big tech fines went into a pot that an independent body chooses open projects to invest in. It’d be huge.
Open source has a sustainability problem in terms of funding, developers, and burnout. To me it seems we have a relatively easy and politically palatable solution.
Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund giving €1m to the Gnome foundation
Why, in Germany of all countries they should have supported KDE. Granted, it’s already doing fine, but then Gnome’s problem is not with lack of money.
Probably because Gnome is used in more businesses and Gnome is pretty good at implementing accessibility features, which was one of the main conditions of the grant.
And it’s not a big deal, KDE is already getting a lot of support, and the work Gnome is doing is going to be an open, cross-desktop framework. It benefits KDE too.
and Gnome is pretty good at implementing accessibility features, which was one of the main conditions of the grant.
At the same time yes and … they are very unorthodox in their understanding of what makes things more accessible.
Not making their DE yet another Windows clone does not mean it’s inaccessible.
I get it, you clearly have a personal issue with Gnome. Just don’t use it then. There’s no need to be upset about an amazing open source project getting support and improving the accessibility stack for the entire Linux desktop.
I use FVWM with 2-pixel solid borders and no window titlebars or buttons or panels, except for one FvwmButtons instance with digital clock, all keyboard-controlled. EDIT: … so I obviously don’t prefer Windows
The issues with Gnome are that it’s resource-heavy and inconsistent in UX, and setting it up is PITA.
Cinnamon as its fork is much better.
I use FVWM with 2-pixel solid borders and no window titlebars or buttons or panels, except for one FvwmButtons instance with digital clock, all keyboard-controlled. EDIT: … so I obviously don’t prefer Windows
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The issues with Gnome are that it’s resource-heavy
No it isn’t. Stop making shit up.
inconsistent in UX
Gnome is easily the most consistent DE out there. By far. Honestly, by far and away the most consistent. Even MacOS is less consistent, and that’s saying something.
and setting it up is PITA.
? Install it and it’s done. I change a couple of keyboard shortcuts too but that’s unnecessary.
Cinnamon as its fork is much better.
So a Windows UX clone. Not everything has to be yet another Windows clone. What happened to you not preferring Windows UX lol
No it isn’t. Stop making shit up.
I’ve even seen benchmarks. In my own experience it’s slow where default KDE5 is fast. I didn’t dig why, because I’m not going to use a full-fledged DE over my cozy FVWM setup anyway.
Also accusing better people than you of lying is impolite.
Gnome is easily the most consistent DE out there. By far. Honestly, by far and away the most consistent. Even MacOS is less consistent, and that’s saying something.
I already guessed that’s your opinion, but OK. “Even”? It’s the same horror as MacOS.
So a Windows UX clone. Not everything has to be yet another Windows clone. What happened to you not preferring Windows UX lol
It can look like Gnome 3 UX clone too, and that’s how it looked when I used it. Just more consistent and usable.
Anyway, there’s such a thing as ergonomics. It’s not really subjective, it can be measured in clicks and keystrokes, with accounting for mistakes and searching for elements of UI. Gnome devs are clearly ignorant of it.
MacOS and Gnome are sometimes worse than even modern Windows in that regard.
BTW, about Windows - w2k and xp were very good in terms of ergonomics.
This headline implies that EUs moves are agressive and brutal while they arent. Breaking up monopolies is an ordinary step of keeping the market competitive.
It should be ordinary. But it isn’t. Which means the market stagnants as competition basically stops. Like how Microsoft basically closed IE development when IE “won” the browser market by achieving monopoly.
I wonder why it isn’t titled from consumer’s perspective.
oh no
