European Commission lines up Amazon and Microsoft for cloud gatekeeper status | Hacker News Reader

European Commission lines up Amazon and Microsoft for cloud gatekeeper status

theregister.com

58 pointsBender39 comments

Seems like good news - market share of AWS and Azure in EU is huge, so I naturally support efforts to kurb power of such duopoly.

But what would be practical effects of DMA on AWS? Who is the customer, who is the vendor?

The comment from a 5-year old: But Google is doing that too!

  > The spokesperson added: "We remain concerned that ignoring the growing power of Google Cloud and Gemini will tilt the market in a harmful way."

10% of Microsoft's turnover is $28b, 10% of amazon is $71b

The goal here is to make sure these companies obey the law though, which big tech companies seem to think is optional.

Really should be the turnover amount for operations originating from the EU, not worldwide.

In which case, they route it all through some subsidiary in the Cayman Islands and it magically disappears.

No, this is a deterrent against anti-consumer behaviour, and it should be meaningful.

No, that would make it even less likely that they obey the law.

Why?

The US likes to flex it's muscle by pushing other governments around on behalf of its commercial interests.

I think it's well past time for Canada to either formally pursue toes with the EU or pursue alignment with EU consumer protection legislation.

Middle powers unite!

The problem is nobody believe those company would ever hand over 10% or even 1% of their turnover to the EU.

The EU should be careful with those kind of threats because in the world that is taking shape I can really imagine MS telling them one day that none of their Windows is gonna boot tomorrow if they don't calm down. The EU at large is totally dependent on those companies so who is really fearing who?

Thankfully MS also has a policy of not trying very hard to prevent illicit distribution of their software, so the worst they can really do is brick your machine on patch Tuesday, which is just the standard risk you run every time anyway.

Like they didn’t make Apple pay /s

The final closure came in 2025: Ireland confirmed it received nearly €14.25 billion (about $15.5 billion) from the account’s final closure https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/07/15/apple-and-ireland...

Who’s on each side of the gate?

On one side, consumers. On the other, vendors.

Consumers of what? Vendors of what?

Are you sure you know what AWS is?

A vendor of web services, predominantly to enterprises & institutions.

I’m not trying to be obtuse here. For Apple it’s obvious: They’re a “gatekeeper” between software and hardware makers and iPhone users. If you want to offer your software or hardware to those users, Apple has to let your products through the gate.

If I make SSDs that aren’t the ones Amazon uses, does Amazon have to make it possible for me to use their data centers to rent those SSDs to enterprise customers via EBS?

And when everyone is a gatekeeper … no one is

What are you even trying to say?

that before long, everyone will be declared a gatekeeper, just so EU can control everything as they please.

Why shouldn't our sovereign government control things as they please? That's the whole point of sovereignty - people elect government, government makes rules.

That's not how that's supposed to work!

Democratically elected governments should have no say as to how many billions of dollars of market activity tech oligarchs are entitled to capture and redirect towards their very noble goal of winning the competition to see who can build the biggest yacht.

And, of course, building bunkers for when enough of the general population eventually catches onto and gets tired of the grift...

Some baseline needs to be a established, because small palyers can't play with the same rules of larger ones.

And it is absolutely the role of the government to regulate the market.

I believe you missed the dripping sarcasm

Eh, too many people say very similar shit in HN with a straight face. Quite a few here is quite happy to bow to their corporate masters.

I can't tell if parent was being sarcastic.

I agree, and originally that was my take, until I got to

"very noble goal of winning the competition to see who can build the biggest yacht."

The simps tend not to say the quiet part out loud

Fair enough, I concede the point. That section was too on the nose.

You can control what ENTERS your borders, not what happens outside of them. You are free to cut the cables, but not to dictate to those outside your house how to live on the other end of those cables. Else we'll all be living under the union of the rules of everyone. You sure you want that? Iran bans a lot of things you might like, as does china, and russia, and usa.

As soon as you send that data into my country, it is happening inside my borders.

You can buy magic mushrooms semi legally in the Netherlands. Doesn't mean you won't get in trouble if you send them from the Netherlands to another country.

So you DO want iran controlling what your LLC does if it is internet connected in any way (which everything is now).

Or they could just not serve Iran? But yeah, if you operate in a country you should probably follow their laws. I don't see how that's controversial

In the days of the internet "operate in a country" == "exist". Eg: [1] UK has tried to enforce its laws even onto organizations who literally exist in USA only. Their argument: you exist, internet exists, so you are still subject to us. So tell me, how can one exist today and not "operate" in every country where internet exists. And once you see that there is no way, how do you propose your logic for regulation to work, other than by everyone being subject to everyone's rules?

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c624330lg1ko

I couldn't find anything about VPNs in the link you shared.

If that is the case, I disagree with it. But if you serve the UK market, you gotta follow UK law. That doesn't seem unreasonable, does it?

I see you removed the VPN reference in your edit and it made your argument quite a bit weaker imo.

Just because 4Chan is in the US, doesn't mean they don't send their data to the UK.

As soon as they do, they are subject to UK law. Quite simple. If they don't want to be, they can stop sending their data there. See also the magic mushroom parallel from earlier.

> So tell me, how can one exist today and not "operate" in every country where internet exists

You could IP block by geo for example? Seems pretty straightforward.

So I have to actively work and expend energy to not be subject to some random whim? curious view.

It's not "some random whim", it is the law. And yes, one has to work and expend energy to follow the law frequently. I did my taxes not too long ago. Also got my drivers license before getting on the road.

Or in another, more close parallel: You do in fact have to put a fence around your construction site so you're not liable if somebody walks there and hurts themselves.

I've never worried about North Korean law because I've never been to North Korea, and I don't do business with North Korea

I do work about following Thai law because I've been to Thailand, and hope to go again

I do work about following US law because the US has a history of pursuing US law breakers - people who have never even been to the US - beyond its borders

America doesn’t just fine businesses doing businesses in American and breaking the law. It tries to extradite people who have never been to America to torture them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri

Don't do business with Iran, then you don't have a problem

If you do do business with Iran, you have to follow Iranian law

You need at least 7.5B euro turnover and 45M MAU in the EU to have a chance to qualify. It's not going to be everyone.

Ok, and what would you say is the problem, there?

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/about-dma_en

All I see is more interoperability, fairer competition, more consumer rights, etc. If you are against this sort of regulation and a rational being, I envy you because you must either be oligarch-level rich, or in a happy bubble disconnected from world-affecting current events.

Thats not how it works

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