>Fine for Meta more than tenfold from € 28 million to € 390 million. Third case on WhatsApp pending.
Starting to get into a range for the fine that makes sense. Give it another tenfold increase and I'm content.
If Europe wants more ethical tech, they should make an honest effort to create an environment that supports that. I.e., invest in their own tech industry.
However if you look at what is happening today, with everyone having a google/instagram/etc account, and the power these companies have over the competition (because of unethical tactics) it is not feasible to actually compete with them.
Legislation is needed to make *everyone* in the tech industry that operates in europe at the same (ethical) level.
This may not be directly applicable to the linked article, but I'm mainly thinking of the DMA and DSA which will go into effect in a couple of months.
We also need to legislate against walled gardens to let other technologies flourish.
Breaking down companies would also be great. YouTube has been mostly crappy but operated at a loss , only alive due to backing by the Google colossus: how do you compete against that?
previously, not sure now
Which is difficult if tech has been monopolised by US companies that break the laws, so they're addressing that for a start, as to level the playing field (both with GDPR and other regulations such as the Digital Markets Act).
The only reason the US has its tech industry is:
- lax laws for everything: from data protection to labor laws
- unlimited investor money that can sustain unprofitable businesses for decades Most of the top HN darling have never been profitable, and have been losing billions of dollars for years. The rest haven't been profitable for most of their existence
On top of that it helps to have a huge largely homogenous market
> Politicians don't hunt elephants, but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.
Along these lines, we'd have something like
> Europeans don't invent new tech, but they will regulate the tech you invented.
As a fellow European, I struggle to feel any pride or happiness about this.
There are companies (outside and inside of Europe) misusing personal data given to them and there were not enough regulations about this.
Now there is, so I'm happy.
If a random country made similar laws only for their companies I would also be happy, for the users located in this country.
It just happens to affect me and the people I know so I'm even more happy.
I'm quite happy our elected officials are putting an end to the abuse.
You see it play out with European companies too, where they exploit populations where either there's lack of regulation or where they can bribe the officials. Profit, see what you can get away with. That's just on the legal front (like this case), not the moral or ethical front.