Spoke to some EU lawyers recently at a policy meetup and this is pretty consistent with their prevailing sensibilities: target and dilute power that is being held over consumers.
Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I need to move to the EU...
Shit's great here
Well I took like a 60% pay cut after moving to Germany. Fascism is spreading. There's a big war with a nuclear armed power within blast/wind radius. Health insurance isn't cheap.
But there's definitely some good things like being able to click "no" just as easily as clicking "yes" to cookie bamners
Take me with you? I'm not much for looks but I cook well
Same... same.
I hope it spreads and influences other countries. Despite what people think about EU's regulations, I do think they care more for their citizens than many governments.
Not the first time I see it on Lemmy but I’m really glad it’s getting traction. I expect a lot from the DMA
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The package of laws will also pave the way for more competition in some of the areas most guarded by the tech firms, including Apple Wallet and Google Pay.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is the second big package of EU laws to hit tech firms in two months and defines a series of obligations that gatekeepers need to comply with, including not participating in anti-competitive practices.
The DMA aims to undo the gatekeeper or controlling position that large tech companies have commanded in the last 10 years and gives the European Commission the power to conduct market investigations and design remedies if the firms fall out of line.
Brussels intends the laws to open the door to more competition, allowing startups to compete with the giants on a level playing field for the first time.
The tech companies – including Apple, Google and Amazon – have six months to comply with a full list of dos and don’ts under the new laws, after which they could be fined up to 10% of their turnover.
The laws will initially apply to six companies: Alphabet (which owns Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (the owner of TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and Microsoft.
The original article contains 575 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Great! Does that mean that we will be able to message people via WhatsApp without needing to have it installed? (Via some kind of api)
Yes, that's the goal, there was a great blog post from one of the KDE guys about a meeting people from the Neochat, Matrix and XMPP projects where invited to to explain the benefits of interoperability between chat apps and that part actually made it into the law now!
Shit, sometimes I just love EU.
With a focus on "sometimes" but yea, it's certainly better than most in many cases!
Yeah their headlines are always great or terrible. “EU requires iPhones to use usb c” “eu is trying to ban encryption” “eu requires devices to have repairable batteries”
I think this is a possibility.
Side loading AND USBC on the iPhone? Almost makes it a good phone
I mean what's left compared to the average android phone?
A LOT, but side loading is definitely a good start.
Big tech companies will be barred from monetising information about phone users, prohibiting them from using the data they collect from apps on a phone to build up a detailed picture of individual consumer behaviours for advertisers.
Does anyone know if this also applies to banks that monetize from your purchase and transaction history and sell your profile to advertisers?
Or do banks have the EU by the balls in a way that tech companies don't?
So much confusion about this... But I understand, it is confusing.
GDPR was about privacy and does apply to banks. Banks can't gather or process personal data without consent: https://americandeposits.com/gdpr-affect-bank/
This new regulation is specifically about Big Tech. It regulates companies that control significant parts of market and block smaller companies from entering it. This has nothing to do with banks.
The tech companies – including Apple, Google and Amazon – have six months to comply with a full list of dos and don’ts under the new laws, after which they could be fined up to 10% of their turnover. In Meta’s case, this would be 10% of $120bn (£95bn).
6 months from what day?
From yesterday I believe.
Just theoretical, maybe one of the gatekeepers do their calc and decide: okay we are out of Europe because our greedy business model doesn't work without a gate.
Europe would be better for it, right? And a competitor can release a product that does follow regulations
Yeah we already see this with alternatives to security tools like cloudflare and akamai. EU companies don't trust US companies due to NSL laws in the US, so there's alternatives inthre EU.
Oh no!