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Comment by xienze | Hacker News Reader

The problem I have with the way the EU doles out these punishments is that they like to spring them on tech companies after years and years of radio silence and then suddenly it’s “hey TikTok, we just determined you’ve been breaking the law for years, pay us a couple billion please.”

Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.” If TikTok continues to operate in the same manner despite a warning, sure, throw the book at them. Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years. Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.

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Its never really like this.

Tiktok spend a lot of money talking to EU regulators. They know shits coming down the track because these directives have to be put into law by eu members. that takes time.

> Doesn’t help the impression that they’re running a non-EU tech company shakedown campaign.

But thats not the point, companies shouldn't be doing stuff they know is harmful. Thats literally the point of regulation.

> Like, where were they years ago saying “hey TikTok, we think your design is addictive and probably illegal, you need to change or face penalties.”

That is basically what happened today. No penalties have been issued at this point.

Also Commission had sent various requests for information to TikTok in 2023 before they opened these proceedings in early 2024 (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...) - this didn't come out of the blue.

> Otherwise it just seems like the EU waits for years and years until a company is a big enough player and then retroactively decides they’ve been breaking the law for years.

Lol. It's never like this.

These companies are given plenty of warnings and deadlines. After years and years of ignoring them these companies get slapped with a fine and start playing the victim.

BTW at this point DSA has been in effect for three years

Fines on US tech companies bring in more money to the EU than the EU's entire tech industry combined.

Haha you may be right.

But instead you may see it as a discount on the money these companies are making from European citizens.

You answered it yourself. They can't extract billions if the company is still small.

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