EU lawmakers pass strict new rules affecting big U.S. tech

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-23/eu-lawmakers-pass-strict-new-rules-affecting-big-u-s-tech

by 1cvmask • 5 years ago

98 78 5 years ago

1cvmask2• 5 years ago

These are the main points of the draft law.

Lawmakers voted to approve measures in the draft Digital Markets Act that could mean:

A company’s messaging or social media app is interoperable, to prevent users feeling forced to use one or the other because that’s where their friends are

A ban on behavioral targeting of ads to minors

Fines of as much as 20% of a company’s global annual sales for breaches for the law

Companies identified as “gatekeepers” and therefore set to be accountable under the DMA include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Booking.com, and could later hit online marketplaces Zalando and Alibaba.

yodsanklai• 5 years ago

A company’s messaging or social media app is interoperable, to prevent users feeling forced to use one or the other because that’s where their friends are

Am I wrong or is this revolutionary?

nathanaldensr2• 5 years ago

Well, it would be if there's actual enforcement. But if GDPR is anything to go by, it'll just be words on a page.

1cvmask2• 5 years ago

I agree. How do you draw the line. Does Slack have to integrate with Tinder or Whatsapp? And then there is the security issue of end-to-end encryption and the lowest common denominator. Basically the most insecure messaging app will be the attack vector. And there is no chance to have some form of security through obscurity if you are say a targeted journalist.

herunan• 5 years ago

Totally behind the interoperable thing, but where do you draw the line? Anything from dating apps to property buying apps have messaging in them.

nicoburns3• 5 years ago

I think the plan is to do it similar to anti-competition laws: if your market share is large enough and/or your company is significant to society then you'll have to comply. If you're small then you'll get a pass.

np-• 5 years ago

I am pretty sure this just means that messaging companies will need to provide a publicly accessible API. There won’t be any mandate to actually implement this interoperability beyond that, but of course someone could write an open source client that uses all these newly exposed APIs to make a unified chat app with Tinder, Slack, and WhatsApp all in one place. But the tech companies themselves aren’t being forced to work with each other, the ask from the tech company side is actually relatively small.

fmajid2• 5 years ago

The rules apply to significant platforms based on a market cap threshold. And not just American ones, Booking.com is European (Dutch).

How they are going to deal with the practicalities of fighting spam remains to be seen.

tantalor• 5 years ago

It only applies to "gatekeepers"

Companies identified as “gatekeepers” and therefore set to be accountable under the DMA include Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Booking.com, and could later hit online marketplaces Zalando and Alibaba.

BurningFrog• 5 years ago

Vague sweeping rules combined with gigantic fines smells like taxation by another name.

me_me_me• 5 years ago

yeah cuz everything we did in past worked out so well

sbacic• 5 years ago

A company’s messaging or social media app is interoperable, to prevent users feeling forced to use one or the other because that’s where their friends are

Does this mean what I think it means? That we can finally say goodbye to half a dozen different chat apps and just have one (like Pidgin in the good old days)?

gmueckl2• 5 years ago

Pidgin likely won't have a big comeback. The messaging service providers can still tie them to their own proprietary clients. They would only be forced to forward messages between their servers as I understand it.

I'm not sure which messenger platforms even need to follow this requirement (e.g. is Signal big enough to have to open up?). Also, there's a few fun open questions like how to uphold end to end encryption or how to exclude spammy messaging services from the network.

Abishek_Muthian2• 5 years ago

It's likely that it means messaging apps from the same brand should be interoperable i.e. Messenger message should reach WhatsApp and vice-versa but it needn't reach Signal, Telegram.

Fun fact, I had an interoperable network between leading chat apps Messenger <-> Telegram <-> Viber <-> LINE back in 2017 on top of which we ran a privacy focused dating platform[1]. It was built using bot APIs of these platforms.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeuL8_Qinhs

varispeed• 5 years ago

A ban on behavioral targeting of ads to minors

That's interesting - if it is harmful to minors, how it isn't when someone turns 18? I believe it should be banned across the board.

lm284692• 5 years ago

if it is harmful to minors, how it isn't when someone turns 18?

Same as for alcohol or tobacco, at some point society assumes you're mature enough to make your own decisions. Obviously it varies from individual to individual but we had to chose a date and in most countries it's between 16 and 21.

politician• 5 years ago

A company’s messaging or social media app is interoperable, to prevent users feeling forced to use one or the other because that’s where their friends are.

The EU is doing the real work to make the metaverse happen.

Vinnl5• 5 years ago

Note: this sounds like it's law now, but that's not the case.

I'm not an expert on EU legislation, but as I understand it, a commission (i.e. subset of the members) of the European Parliament (directly elected by EU citizens) voted on what they want their position to be when they, as representatives of the wider Parliament, negotiate with the European Council (leaders of the EU member state governments) on what the Digital Markets Act should end up looking like. Before that, however, the wider Parliament will also need to vote on that, which will happen half December.

(And as for how the other big EU institution, the European Commission (which functions like the government, and has a representative of each member country chosen by that country's government), is involved, I think they were the one to originally propose the Digital Markets Act?)

Source: general vague knowledge, and this tweet by a member of the negotiating commission: https://twitter.com/kimvsparrentak/status/146308360186886963... Corrections welcome.

M2Ys4U3• 5 years ago

The European Commission is the EU's executive body. The President of the European Commission (PotEC) is nominated by the European Council[0] and then elected by the directly-elected European Parliament. The Member States (other than the one from which the PotEC came) then nominate Commissioners who are assigned portfolios from the PotEC and are approved en-bloc by the European Parliament.[1] Commissioners aren't members of the European Parliament.

You're right the DMA isn't law yet, it's only party-way through second step of the process, the Ordinary Legislative Procedure.

The Ordinary legislative Procedure works something like this:

1. The Commission adopts a Proposal for a legislative act (i.e. a Directive or Regulation)

2. The European Parliament considers the proposal in committees (with a nominated lead committee), and then in plenary. This will almost certainly involve amending the text of the proposal.

3. If approved by the European Parliament, the proposal then moves to the Council of the European Union (not to be confused with the European Council, mentioned above, or the Council of Europe, which is not an EU body.[2]). This Council is made up of representatives (often ministers) from each of the member states, but not the heads of state and government.

4. If the Council has suggested amendments to the text then these can either be accepted by the European Parliament or a process known as "trialogue" happens, where there are negotiations between Parliament, Council and Commission.

5. Once the institutions have agreed on the final text, the act is published in the Official Journal of the European Union and becomes law.

[0] The body comprising the heads of state and government of the EU's member states

[1] But only after Parliament holds confirmation hearings. These can - and have - led to portfolios being re-assigned or to member states withdrawing their candidates and replacing them with somebody more acceptable to Parliament.

[2] Somebody really needs to do something about these names as it's confusing AF. Although generally the Council of the European Union is referred to as just "the Council".

rsynnott• 5 years ago

Although generally the Council of the European Union is referred to as just "the Council".

I mean, I'm not sure that _helps_.

Vinnl5• 5 years ago

Aaargh, even knowing about the clusterfuck that is the three councils, I still mixed them up >.< Thanks for the additions.

Also, I'd point out that there's still a step 6: once the law has been adopted by the EU, it doesn't come into effect until the countries have incorporated into their own laws, for which I think they have two years?

quotemstr• 5 years ago

I wonder what it'll take to get companies to just pull out of Europe entirely rather than comply with increasingly onerous demands.

robotmay• 5 years ago

It'd be interesting to see. At the moment Europe is largely dominated by the US tech industry (bar a few notable exceptions, like Spotify). One of them leaving would open a nice big gap for new/existing EU alternatives to compete in.

MisterBastahrd• 5 years ago

You really think they'd pull out and allow someone willing to play by a couple of rules to grow to be big enough to threaten the rest of their space? Giving up China is one thing. Yeah, it has a billion people but it's also a giant pain in the ass given the sheer amount of meddling that country's government involves itself with. But Europe? None of these companies can maintain the sort of quasi-monopolies they have without Europe.

an9n• 5 years ago

Me too - let's figure it out and make it happen!

thunkshift1• 5 years ago

My 2c - big companies pulling out of Europe would be a welcome opportunity and not a crisis for eu

machiaweliczny• 5 years ago

In PL we have/had alternative for every big Co. Even Apple alternative that got killed by Siemens. And it's 40M country. I would love some space and capital here.

nodamage• 5 years ago

Are these the same lawmakers that want to ban encryption and backdoor every secure messaging app?

hobbes78• 5 years ago

Maybe this is a way to achieve that?

"So, for the different apps to be interoperable, no encryption is allowed"

Again, I would prefer the market to sort it out without interference from politicians.

Vinnl5• 5 years ago

Given the size of the EU, I'm pretty sure it's not.

jmpman• 5 years ago

So, could Apple just bifurcate their iMessage platform into an EU version and a rest of the world version, and then let the interoperability be only on the EU version? Basically downgrade the EU version to be equal to SMS.

If there no longer a competitive advantage in having a differentiated platform in the EU, then let others spend the resources on that service.

SonicTheSith• 5 years ago

Apple could ignore doing that to iMessage simce nobody uses it in Europe, Whatsapp, telegram, signal and facebook messenger have about 95% of the messeging market in europe. Add Line, Kakaotalk and wechat and you got 90%< of world wide mobile communications excluding the US.

leadingthenet• 5 years ago

Apple could ignore doing that to iMessage simce nobody uses it in Europe

I use it.

EU lawmakers pass strict new rules affecting big U.S. tech

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