At this point it is pretty clear that the EU politicians are targeting big-tech simply for being American.
Pretty sad we're not focusing instead on the reasons why Europe is under-represented in the big-tech scene.
Pretty sad we're not focusing instead on the reasons why Europe is under-represented in the big-tech scene.
Do you have an example of anti-American discrimination?
The fact that $1000+ purchases are only covered for a year in the US for example is kind of a joke (in the EU it's 2 years)
EG: the 14 base model is $1999 before tax in apple.com and e1832 before tax in my euw state
For the record, an iPhone 13 Pro costs EUR 951 before taxes in France, which means it's 7% more expensive than the US. However with taxes it's USD 1,303, which is probably quite a bit more than any after-tax price in the US.
You do know that this is not how that story went, right? The popular version of the story you mention is just wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau...
The point being, in EU you'd be expected to know hot coffee is hot, and get nothing for pouring it over yourself. At best you'd be looking at medical expenses (loss of income is covered by state).
My understanding is the jury decided that the primary issues was that the warning was not large enough on the cup, and that's why they awarded damages.
I can't really understand being served a cup of hot coffee and complaining that you were not warned that it was hot. Coffee is a hot drink. There’s a natural limit at how hot it can be at 100 degrees, so I don’t really understand ‘too hot.’ What did you expect? You must have known it would be between 0 and 100 degrees and acted accordingly.
Subsequent lawsuits have re-inforced that the coffee was served at a reasonable temperature, and the temperature is the same as served at Starbucks, and recommended by independent coffee groups. My understanding is that McDonald's serve at the same temperature today.
I think the idea that the coffee was 'too hot' is a bit weird and a bit of a myth.
As I say the temperature they served coffee at hasn’t changed and has actually been tested to be ok in subsequent lawsuits in multiple countries. It’s the same temperature as served by other companies.
McDonalds weren’t required to change the temperature as the outcome but they did increase the size of the warning.
And at the end of the day how can any temperature of coffee be too hot? It’s a hot drink. It’s never going to be more than 100. Assume it could be that hot. Other hot drinks like tea have to be made with boiling water so are always served that hot.
I think a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to this story that McDonald's must be at fault, but when you look into the details that's not really the case. She even admitted she was at fault and she just wanted someone to pay her medical bills.
People often get cough up in definitions of what is or isn't monopoly or what free market is, on HN. And its even often argued in USA politics. In EU its far less. What is important is the perceived result (Apple, Google, Facebook have enormous power over daily lives of people) and how people feel (weather something is fair of not). And many inside EU myself included think that
> Google, Apple, Facebook or Amazon
are abusing their market position, that they are doing shady stuff to limit competition, starting to use more and more dark patterns, avoiding taxes (taxes are higher in EU so people are more pissed if somebody is "getting away with it") and generally don't trust them.
So politicians (that want to score points with people) are doing what people want.
Another thing is, that some of this companies are starting to become so powerful that they are starting to worry politicians themselves. So politicians are "defending their turf", by smacking the upstarts when they can. (This is happening in USA as well )
Unlike politicians whose first interest is getting elected and second getting reelected with any other concern at a huge distance away.
There are plenty of places with week governments in the world, where global multinationals are above the law (look at Africa, some south America).
If corporations get big enough, this might start happening in more developed world as well.
I perhaps notice it more because I live in small country (Slovenia) whose entire national budget is lower than any one of the FANG's. This is one of the reason I support EU despite it's many shortcomings.
Apple have abused their hardware position to artificially restrict and abuse devs via their app store.
Facebook - Do we really need to do this? Facilitating genocide and election interference both don't fly over here.
Amazon - Being a market place and a seller on said marketplace is a no no. Using your customers data from your market place to undercut them and run them out of business is again a no no.
A monopoly on their own product is an incoherent market definition that isn't flying anywhere.
> Amazon - Being a market place and a seller on said marketplace is a no no. Using your customers data from your market place to undercut them and run them out of business is again a no no.
Every single retail store in the EU (and the rest of the world) does that. Completely normal. That's what store brands are.
Apple has created their own hardware platform(s) and it has a healthy competition for it. There are rules to be on it and they are mostly for the benefit of the consumer.
Facebook is simply a forum. If facilitating communication facilitates genocide and election interference it's people who are the problem, not Facebook. Besides, TV & Radio are much bigger facilitators for genocide and election interference and nobody attacks both.
Amazon - any physical retailer is both a market place and sells its own competing products crated using said customer data. Just visit any supermarket.
Oh now you've done it, there goes my tea and a keyboard. That was wildly funny, thank you. For a moment there I thought you were serious.
Just talking about Search: I've been using it daily for over 20 years now, I couldn't live without it and I know no better search engine, even though I would switch in a heart beat.
Not finding value in Google's offerings is not what it is about: it is about abuse of monopolistic power, and Google is very guilty of that.
While not exactly fan of Google pushing their other offerings, I still have to find someone who doesn't do that on their own properties. Even our office landlord keeps pushing us to rent some more parking spaces.
But that does not make it a monopoly and the very fact that those other offerings are unsuccessful shows that this behavior is not that problematic.
I am willing to put up with it if this means preventing yet another competition stifling, consumer harming, incumbent favoring - regulation.