On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/on-dma-eve-google-whines-apple-sounds-alarms-and-tiktok-wants-out/

by donatzsky • 2 years ago

85 91 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

jrepinc• 2 years ago

If only we could get rid of all of them, That would be awesome. The less GAFAM/BigTech feudalist the better.

Razengan• 2 years ago

Let's get rid of all the things they produced too. No iPhones, no Android, no Google Search. Let's go back to 1983.

ralphstodomingo• 2 years ago

I don't think the tech advances these companies made were irrevocably tied to the anti-competition practices. If anything, if we made it easier and cheaper for anyone to build on top of the things already existing, we could have had much more.

cangeroo• 2 years ago

Absolutely.

But they also monopolized the market and prevented alternatives.

DMA is about fair markets.

Without Google, Apple, or Tiktok, we'd have other platforms. Maybe fairer platforms? It's not like there'd be zero innovation in every category without those companies.

bigbillheck• 2 years ago

Let's go back to 1983

When exactly do you think google was founded?

jjulius2• 2 years ago

No iPhones, no Android, no Google Search.

You know what? That actually sounds pretty cool.

Edit: I'm hardly one to care about karma, but it's funny that I'm getting downvoted just for thinking that that idea is neat. Differences of opinion are okay, no? If there's something you don't like about something I say, I'm open to feedback rather than silent disapproval. :)

After all, what's so terrible about thinking that life without smartphones and Google Search wouldn't be so bad? Haven't a sizeable chunk of us posting here lived without those three things even existing for a good chunk of our lives?

MiguelX4132• 2 years ago

I unironically advocate for this.

smhenderson3• 2 years ago

I don't know, it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies.

I am absolutely not surprised by the whining and am in no way giving these companies a pass. Something absolutely must be done to better protect user data and privacy.

But babies and bath water come to mind when I read comments like yours.

rapnie• 2 years ago

It is a bit tangential, but this article [0] by Baldur Bjarnason sheds a light on the EU's perspective in crafting regulations such as the DMA, and how that seems to be largely misunderstood by the big US tech companies.

[0] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...

hobs• 2 years ago

Nah, there's no reason to accept terrible behavior from people just because they also do some good, the more we push back and frankly punish large companies in real terms the more likely we are to get a peaceable arrangement.

Google and Apple are not thinking "ah let's figure out how to work with these people to make a sustainable system" they are thinking what the most extractive operation they can get away with is, they do not deserve our regard because we also got blinky toys.

sph• 2 years ago

Companies are not people. We do not need to "remember their contributions and innovations." Their valuation today is because of those contributions, so they got their rewards, profit and then some.

Commission a statue for them if you want. What is this parasocial relationship some people have with fiscal entities?

rglullis2• 2 years ago

What I want is for us to reward companies for what they produced, not by what they managed to squeeze out of customers after getting big.

Apple was revitalized by the iPod and later the iPhone? Great, let them sell as many iPods and iPhones as they possibly can. But when they sell it, do not let them keep control of everything. If they are saying the only they can make money is by keeping the iPhone closed and being the gatekeeper of the app store, it means that they are not really making money on the device, so we shouldn't be rewarding them.

Google search was incredible? Ad sense let publishers earn money online? Great. Then let's reward them for that instead of letting them take 60-70% of the ad publishing market.

Does Facebook want to innovate on the communication space by developing an application on XMPP? When was it even working with Google Talk? Amazing, let's reward them for that instead of letting close things down and please let's not them have WhatsApp to feed their endless appetite for user data.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos2• 2 years ago

Google and apple have helped ruin society by developing the smartphone. They might have occasionally done something useful but I am convinced they are a net detriment. All their products are about surveillance and control. The positive might be them making some tools they use to do that available for others to use.

runeofdoom• 2 years ago

it's not as if they have done nothing that benefits society, that we all use daily, forgetting how much of it would not be possible without the contributions and innovation from these companies.

Perhaps I'm parsing this wrong, but it sounds a lot like "past successes are a license for future abuses." Which is not something I think we should, or can, allow.

moritonal• 2 years ago

I think it's a mistake to think that someone we use every day is by default beneficial to society? There are countless examples of the public discovering a thing, and the government then having to spend countless decades getting them to stop doing it in the interest of public health (both rightly and wrongly in different scenarios).

Sure Instagram is great for discovery of events, but we came from a world where local bars would list those events on their own sites for free. Now the data is locked behind Insta, or FB which I consider a real step backwards for true discovery.

rchaud• 2 years ago

Big Tech depends on you buying their hardware (iOS/Android/Mac/Windows) to pull you into their 'ecosystem of services': messaging, payments, streaming video and of course, targeted advertisements.

We need some kind of ecosystem-agnostic hardware vendor that provides/supports:

- a Linux-based GUI OS with minimal telemetry

- Web Apps unencumbered by the whims of monopolistic browser vendors

- a RISC-V desktop-class processor (one day...)

- repairable, swappable components

- some sort of local LLM interface for those who need it

Fairphone, Framework laptops and the to-be-released MNT Pocket Reform 7" laptopnprobably come closest to this, minus the RISC-V.

gessha4• 2 years ago

Please consider investing either time or funds in your Linux distro of choice.

Desktop Linux has made progress over the years in being a great substitute for Win/Mac thanks to webappification and Win/Mac emulation.

Mobile Linux still needs a lot of work on both hardware and software. Ubuntu Touch, Phosh, PostmarketOS, etc need every bit of help.

realusername• 2 years ago

Phone manufacturers should be forced to open the bootloader with reasonable hardware documentation so users can install alternatives, the insane situation that we have now is created by this very issue.

nocsi• 2 years ago

Kinda surprising how much power the EU can exert on tech companies.. and the rest of the world. But now we get one of my favorite classes of vulnerabilities: data format interoperability. Where every vendor implements things to specs, but the specs aren’t clear cut. Anyways, EU sure is asking a lot these days, and these companies are happy to oblige

madsbuch• 2 years ago

Can you elaborate on why you think the EU is asking a lot?

I think we are in this phase where we realise that we are increasingly dependent on infrastructure and that we need to regulate it in order for it to be in line with the societal values.

This has happened several times before: Roads, train tracks, phone communications, etc. And it will probably continue on happening in the future.

In the same time we are also deregulating. As a consequence Postnord (postal service operating in Denmark and Sweden) has been relieved from obligations and regulations as we don't send too many letters more - they are more free to price themselves and can act in the market.

pmlnr• 2 years ago

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...

bryanrasmussen2• 2 years ago

Kinda surprising how much power the EU can exert on tech companies.

The EU represents one sixth of the global economy - why do you find its power surprising?

PoignardAzur• 2 years ago

I'm always a little amused when someone who's presumably American gets upset about the concept of extraterritorial laws. The US gets to decide who every other country in the world is allowed to do business with (and they're dead serious about enforcing it, including arresting sanction breakers outside US soil), but other countries having laws that US companies must abide by? The audacity!

bilekas3• 2 years ago

such as options to choose an alternative default contactless payment method other than Apple's—could introduce new threats, like malware or malicious code used to scam users, that Apple can't promise to protect against.

What's so wild about this is when large companies DO lose your data, the best they offer is an apology and a message saying : "We take privacy very seriously"

The companies are not being asked to take on extra risk. They're being asked to reduce the gatekeeping.

Some critics of the DMA, including ITIF, have urged countries to "carefully consider the full implications before copying the EU’s digital regulatory system," warning of potentially burdensome restrictions possibly hampering innovation and distorting competition.

Because more competition always leads to less innovation ? /s

The arguments against this are ridiculous. Especially coming from companies who like to "Move fast and break things". I guess they forgot the "once it doesn't hurt our monopolozation".

I love living in the EU.

zilti• 2 years ago

that Apple can't promise to protect against.

And that is always such a patronising, stupid argument. Apple is not my dad. Apple is a hardware and OS provider and should serve me. It is not their responsibility.

zamadatix• 2 years ago

While I'm fully on the side of the DMA in this case #2 is a genuine concern to have and was stated fairly enough, not something deserving a sarcastic reply. If companies feel large scale success will lead to being over regulated then you start losing more competition out of an intent to force more competition.

klabb3• 2 years ago

"These protections," Apple's blog said, "help reduce some of the privacy and security risks to iOS users in the EU," but "Apple has less ability to address other risks—including apps that contain scams, fraud, and abuse, or that expose users to illicit, objectionable, or harmful content."

Let me bring out my violin for all you poor unknowing Europeans, whose lives are about to be ruined for eternity. You may not know it, but you have been enjoying a life of happiness and innocence, not because the world is peaceful, but because of a mysterious protector in the shadows, standing outside your window in the rain, thanklessly defending you against the horrors of the world, such as.. objectionable content. The gates of hell are about to open, and there’s nothing you can do! All I want you to know, dear user, is that a whatever happens, don’t blame Apple Incorporated. They fought until the very end, for the right to protect you.

gessha4• 2 years ago

whose lives are about to be ruined for eternity

By what exactly?

objectionable content?

What are you talking about? Do you even know what the DMA is about?

noirscape• 2 years ago

It's also not like Apple does a good job preventing scams on the app store to begin with. John Oliver ran an LWT piece just last week about Pig Butchering scams[0], which involved fake stock trading apps, with fake bought reviews, being used in... you guessed it, the iOS App Store.

It's just such a nakedly bad argument because Apple already does a garbage job at maintaining the App Store against these supposed external threats.

[0]: A "long con" scam, where the victim (the "pig") is lulled into a false sense of trust for an online stranger (making them fat and ready to for slaughter) and then convinced to spend large sums of money on dubious trading platforms ("being butchered") at a vulnerable moment. https://youtu.be/pLPpl2ISKTg

jjulius2• 2 years ago

... when large companies DO lose your data...

At the risk of getting off-topic and/or being pedantic, is it really "losing" data? Usually the data remains on their servers and is duplicated to another location rather than the sole copy being moved from one spot to another.

bilekas3• 2 years ago

Pedantic is good, but I guess they have lost control of the data, it's out of their hands.

"Inadvertently duplicated your data to some nefarious actors" might be better.

dumpsterdiver• 2 years ago

They lose control of it, yes.

addicted• 2 years ago

I love living in the EU.

While I do envy you this, it’s not for the EU’s digital rules.

Why is that? It’s because the rest of the world will inevitable copy the EU rules within a few years like happened with the GDPR.

So I'm not concerned about missing out on EU digital rules without living in the EU.

I do, however, greatly miss the EU food regulations. It’s astonishing how foods that my wife and I are allergic to in the U.S. are completely ok with us when traveling in the EU. A friend that is absolutely unable to tolerate gluten/wheat in the U.S. had absolutely no problem scarfing down pasta in Italy and croissants in France. The U.S. at least appears nowhere near implementing EU like food rules anytime soon and I genuinely envy you for that.

itopaloglu832• 2 years ago

Maybe a stupid question. Why isn’t there any gatekeeper from the EU region? They are quite industrialized and have a strong economy.

scarface_742• 2 years ago

Shouldn’t Spotify at least be a gatekeeper? Can I publish a song on Spotify and ask listeners to donate to me directly or have a link to buy my merchandise?

djxfade• 2 years ago

Yes, actually you can. As an artist on Spotify you can add a PayPal donation link directly in your artist profile, and you can integrate Shopify merch directly as well.

https://spotify.link/kfll23o7LHb

Even linking specific products with specific releases. I only wish they supported more vendors than Shopify. But they state the feature is currently in beta.

landosaari• 2 years ago

From details elsewhere [0], Dutch company booking.com could be added.

There are probably more that did not make the first round:

Spotify - Sweden

OLX - Netherlands

Ryanair - Ireland

Are some possibilities for the next round.

[0] https://open-web-advocacy.org/blog/the-digital-markets-act-i...

tempodox• 2 years ago

Those reactions are good. They mean the DMA has the potential to actually change things for the better.

On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out

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