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As explained in the judgement, being well-known is irrelevant. This is not about consumer protection, but about brand protection.
You are right that the decision has the potential to confuse consumers. However, that is on Open AI, they should have consulted trademark lawyers earlier, and should have rebranded after shifting from open AI to commercial AI.
Open AI has an independent descriptive meaning as composite term. You would practically trademark a whole class of products, not only a brand name.
In contrast, open text is not descriptive in the sense of being a category of things. Therefore there is no risk that competitors would run into trademark issues by just describing their products.
Also, trademark decisions are always contextual to their time. Today’s meaning of ‘open’ in the context of software and data was not even coined in 1991, at that time people used ‘free software’ as term. Today I am not sure if ‘open text’ could still be trademarked.
The app is open source, and it doesn't do that.
I agree that governments should minimize collection of their citizen's data. I just don't see where it is supposed to happen in this case.
They have this information anyway if you have an EU passport or an identity card. The government app allows you to share selected properties of these documents with third parties.
You receive permission to use and modify a piece of software under conditions set by the creator. It is a license, not a gift. If you don’t like the conditions, use something else or create your own thing.
I will never understand these complaints. Not only do you want stuff for free, you also want to impose your preferred usage conditions on the creator. Where does this entitlement come from?
booking.com is in NL, and Spotify in SE. Both outcompeted quite some US competitors.
I would add Hetzner as an example that EU labor laws are no obstacle to being competitive with US companies.
The harm was not done to the readers of the AI generated response, but to the defamed companies.
And yes, it is ok to remove choice if the existence of that choice violates other person’s rights.
Google can continue offering that choice if they make sure nobody is defamed.
The ones who were defamed are companies, and the ones who don’t check the AI generated response are their potential customers which won’t buy from them.
It is obvious that the defamed companies are the ones having a problem, not the ignorant viewers.
Why should those companies not hold Google liable for that outcome?
Just like 1.3 million global road traffic deaths per year are the price society pays for having cars, and believing that people should still be able to freely own and drive cars doesn’t make someone a “car absolutist”.
Car traffic is heavily regulated to reduce the harm being done by cars/drivers.
In German law, any contract, including bets, is void if it is “sittenwidrig”. For example, if your wager in a bet is to become one’ slave in case you lose, this bet is void.
It's ok if they pay their taxes in shares, in case they ran out of money.
Lagarde is not a convicted criminal. She was convicted for negligence, but this is not a criminal conviction.
The regulation is enforced if someone uses it as title, e.g “Diplom-Ingenieur Max Mustermann”. I am not aware of a court ruling for any other kind of use.
That being said, in Germany there is no official degree named Diplom-Ingenieur Softwareentwicklung, it is always Diplom-Informatiker. Also, the Expression “Softwareingenieur” is not used, the straightforward translation of software engineer would be either Informatiker (emphasizing the degree) or Softwareentwickler (emphasizing the skill).
This is no legal advice: As far as I know, the regulation is strictly about German titles, so putting “software engineer” in your LinkedIn CV is out of scope of this law.
It's different with services. If you close a mobile phone contract and use it for spamming, the supplier can cancel your contract.
It was not a flawed idea, but flawed execution. The law should have mandated to adhere to the user's "do not track" setting in the browser.
That being said, it was very early regulation in this field, and more recent approaches are already better, e.g., GDPR, DMA.
As part of a smalltalk training, we had to go out and approach strangers in the public. I entered a tram to try my luck. As soon as as I sat down, someone else started to talk to me, and we had a nice conversation. I didn't even need to break the ice myself. So I can (anecdotally) confirm that people can perceive if you want to connect or rather want to be left alone.