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Comment by mebazaa | Hacker News Reader

I love the DMA. But if you have to launch a long, sprawling compliance investigation the minute the law enters in force, it might mean you didn’t write it with enough precision…

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It's moreso that all major gatekeepers under investigation (note that not all Gatekeepers are under investigation - Amazon and ByteDance aren't) didn't even try to be compliant with the proposed legislation - they attempted to lobby against it, take overly literal interpretations to make the legislation seem crazy and so on and so forth.

They had 2 years to be compliant with the DMA. All of them waited until the last second and all of them have attempted some degrees of malicious compliance with it. Apple is the most outstanding horrible one, but they're all trying to avoid proper compliance as much as possible because they think it'll allow them to squeeze out just the slightest amounts of more profits.

Malicious compliance appears more focused on increasing the pain to the point that users will demand the law be overturned.

It convinced me not to buy a new Iphone because Apple is acting like a big baby.

That's because management of these companies is all based in the US, and they apparently don't understand that these tactics just don't work at all in the EU.

Their campaign is effective when people like OP say they are innocent victims of regulation which must be tossed

The presumption of innocence shouldn't be extended to trillion dollar companies. You don't get there by being wholesome.

My statement only applies to the court of public opinion, not legal courts.

What does checking whether companies actually complied with a law that's been published for years have to do with precision?

(Lack of precision tends to be a US legal weasel word actually meaning "you didn't leave us loopholes to exploit".)

A company will obey the law _exactly_ to the point it's binding. Intentionally making the boundary of law fuzzy[1] with the hope of restraining actors to its _inner_ margin is foolish; they're going to push to the absolute _outer_ margin of plausible interpretations, and find out where the line really is when they get fined.

[1]: sorry sorry sorry, predicating an entire system of law on 'I mean when I mean not what I say'

…or it means that subjects didn’t take it seriously enough or are ready to die on this hill.

Realistically, unless a law is so targeted that it's basically an act of attainder, you're going to need an investigation, and if the target of the investigation is a multinational, that investigation is going to be long and complex.

The length of the investigation is so far less than 24h, no? And how sprawling can it be, after less than 24h.

If it eventually takes two years, yeah, it will be proof somebody didn't do their homework. But it seems a bit early to tell.

Also, I guess some of the size of the investigation is correlated with the size of the company being investigated. And especially with the size of the company's legal team.

Wouldn't a compliance investigation effectively just be the evidence collection phase before a charge is filed, assuming the evidence supports it?

I wouldn't expect them to write the law and immediately charge Google, for example, based only on public knowledge and no compiled evidence.

Yes. It's basically the reply to their (in my layman's view) offensive non-compliance.

They had plenty time to figure it out and now they may reap what they sowed. Not everybody tried to play games e.g. notice how Microsoft is not a subject of this specific investigation.

This is probably also a final warning shot. I'm certain that if they "suddenly" and "on their own" find ways to "correct" their software and business practices this investigation can be closed without charges brought forward.

>But if you have to launch a long, sprawling compliance investigation the minute the law enters in force

"Trust but verify"

"Trust AND verify."

Pick your answer, but how else do you want the EU to make sure that Google is now compliant with the law if they don't check. Should they just take Google's word for it?

If you go to a concert they always check everyone's tickets at entry. You can't complain they don't let you in by taking your word for it.

Doesn't it just mean the companies affected are flaunting the law?

I think you mean flouting (ignoring or defying) the law.

Flaunting means to display or show off, like going to the beach in a bikini after working so hard to get in shape.

Wow, I've said flaunting (the law, rules, et c.) the whole time. Thanks!

You can probably continue doing so: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaunt

Well they kinda do that. "Look at what we can do, normal laws don't apply to us"

That’s flaunting their sense of impunity though, not flaunting the law itself which they didn’t draft.

Huh. Interesting. I have never heard anyone say "flouting", but I have heard "flaunting" hundreds or thousands of times. Seems the confusion has been common enough for long enough that it's correct now: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flaunt

Similar to any word really.. if enough people use it a certain way, then that is the correct way by definition.

or the law is ill-specified enough that 'complying' is impossible.

Or you wrote the law to address an obvious issue that needs immediate action

These threads have been rife with the 'teleological interpretation' explanation i.e. the law means what it's intended to mean, not what it says, and firms just have to try their best to meet those expectations.

or, y'know, it might be good to try their least, and find out where the constraints of the law are _actually_ binding in the inevitable investigation and fine, since it seems like that's an essential part of figuring out what an EU law actually requires.

Or there is a difference between RFCs and laws - and possibly between american and european law culture.

Huh? IMO it's much more indicative of the idea that the companies didn't actually make a good faith effort to comply and are trying to see what they can get away with.

Oh, is there a fast way of collecting the needed evidence instead? ;)

"I love the DMA."

It might strengthen oligopolies on mobile. And even cement them.

> It might strengthen oligopolies on mobile. And even cement them.

Can you expand on this? This is the first time I've heard this claim.

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