Funny. If your site drops dramatically on Google's search results, or if YouTube/Facebook bans your account for reasons, tough luck. They are a corporation and can do whatever they want without resorting to any sort of internal consistency.
But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.
>Funny. If your site drops dramatically on Google's search results, or if YouTube/Facebook bans your account for reasons, tough luck. They are a corporation and can do whatever they want without resorting to any sort of internal consistency.
That's not really relevant to the parent's observation that Facebook is likely arguing that they're being singled out in an environment where their practices are so rampant as to be standard.
>But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.
"accountable to the public interest" is an incredibly disingenuous way to say "enforce their laws". The difference matters in this context because the counter argument would be "why is the law being enforced predominantly against a handful of American companies instead of the industry at large?"
Either it is enforced against Facebook first, and Facebook complains "Why don't all of the the small fries have to do it yet" and if it is enforced against the small fries, they will say, "Why doesn't Facebook have to do it yet"?
And the answer is, the justice department will probably enforce the law in the way that the expect to have the best effect for themselves. It is not necessary to wait until you are sued before you become legally compliant?
When a government agency (think IRS or FAA) decides on a specific interpretation of a law, rule or regulation, they donβt go after a random guy to prosecute. They publish an opinion, a guideline, or interpretation and a compliance deadline. The industry is given a choice to comply or present an alternative interpretation (through courts, lobbyists or legislative representatives).
Itβs one thing if one company out of a hundred doesnβt comply, and somewhat different when the standard industry practice goes against new interpretation.
Selective encorcement is more typical of countries with weak judicial systems and endemic corruption, where βfriendsβ of the current government get compassionate understanding, but everybody else is subject to the strict rule of the law.
Europe hews to somewhat different legal and administrative philosophies from the US, and I don't think the EU is any more corrupt than the US, arguably less so. This subject is discussed very well in a favorite little book, Adversarial Legalism by Robert Kagan.
I don't think corruption is the worry so much here, it's the erosion of the rule of law when regulators and courts are seen to bask in the popularity of enforcing the law against certain high-profile targets, especially when the perception is that this target has been particularly zealously pursued, instead of dryly and boringly applying the law equally to everybody without passion.
That erosion is not corruption on its own, but can lead to it.
Facebook, being huge and hugely invasive, is among those doing the most damage to EU citizen privacy with their collection, so it makes plenty of sense to focus on them.
> It'd be more like vigorously investigating a kidnapping case in a wealthy, high-profile neighborhood while ignoring kidnappings in other places.
I don't see the point of this sort of "but johnny did it too" line of argument. So authorities are looking into a report of widespread abuse. Where's the relevance of not advertising how they may or may not look into other small-scale and lower-profile cases? In fact, aren't resources better spent by going after the single largest and more eggregious source of abuse that has a global reach and has been continuously abusing its position for over a decade?
By all means name all the social media sites that are breaking the law on this scale and the EU is ignoring. I'll be sure to contact my local ombudsman.
You can simply use Google and check the facts out for yourself, it's common knowledge (children even learn this data in school in the EU). There were no sources in the comment I replied to either. Someone also replied with one of these sources. How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?
I was explaining why your comment was likely downvoted, it's clearly not common knowledge (hence the downvotes) and the fact someone else provided sources for you doen't absolve your comment from lacking them.
> How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?
You don't have to be from the US for your post to sound US centric. It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems." argument which is found everywhere online, especially on sites with a large proportion of US users (like HN).
> the fact someone else provided sources for you doen't absolve your comment from lacking them
The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.
> It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems."
Actually my comment says the exact opposite, it says that at least the western part of the EU is less corrupt than the US. Do you realize that I said the west [of EU], not the west as in the US? You're the one who is thinking US-centric after all, thinking that when someone says "the west" they mean the US even though it's in a sentence that talks about parts of EU, this possibility didn't even occur to me - that's how foreign it is to me.
> The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.
Read it again. It stated much less confidence in those baseless claims, inviting sourced rebuttal. You claimed to be "obviously" right without any sources, and apparently you were not.
Edit: also, complaining about downvotes, especially without even trying to admit mistake is considered as a bad behavior here.
That kind of hand-wavy stuff doesn't fly here. If you're going to make a claim like "EU Countries are more corrupt than the US", YOU have to provide a credible source for that claim.
From their technical methodology note[1], they require their data sources to account for "state capture" and the usage of "public office for private gain". Take that as you wish, and feel free to look further at their sources[2]; however, I'd assume from that statement that they do account for lobbying and donations.
The US is not unique. If you see something happening here, it is almost always happening in other western countries, and acting like we are the only to have a problem does a disservice to worldwide development.
> I wonder if the index treats lobbying and donation millions to support elections as corruption. Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.
Lobbying has nothing to do with donating money, and lobbying elected representatives is definitely not illegal in most democracies.
> I explicitly wrote "lobbying AND donation". Please don't twist conversation into debates about semantics: it's not helpful.
Yes, and you said that both are illegal in most "other" counties. Except lobbying isn't illegal in any healthy democracy, including in Europe. Donating "millions of dollars" isn't really legal in the US either.
Lobbying as a term in the US is pretty synonymous with donating money. If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation
> Lobbying as a term in the US is pretty synonymous with donating money.
This is flat-out untrue, and repeating this incorrect meme ad nauseum simply makes it harder to address actual problems when they arise. Lobbying is simply the process of petitioning elected officials. It's a necessary part of any functioning democracy, or else there's no fundamental feedback loop connecting elected officials to their constituents in between elections.
> If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation
Corporate entities are prohibited from donating money to campaigns, whether or not a quid pro quo is implied.
What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money. You can throw dictionary definitions around all you want but it doesn't change how it's commonly used.
The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.
As to your second part about corporate entities being prohibited from donating money to campaigns, excuse me while I set up a PAC to donate funds to a senator who is aware that I donate to the PAC and that I would really appreciate it if I got a tax break.
What the law intends != what is actually happening
> The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.
Yes, and just as we ignore people who dismiss evolution because "it's just a theory", we should take the same attitude towards people who conflate lobbbying and campaign contributions, because they clearly don't understand how the democratic process works, and acting on their demands is actively harmful.
> What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money.
Yes, and the "common vernacular" is wrong and actively harmful. The two things are completely unrelated, and perpetuating the conflation makes it harder to understand what's actually going on.
If you think something is broken, you actually have to understand how it's broken in order to fix it. There's no virtue in going out of your way to make it more difficult for people to understand how things work. That's how you end up with people wasting time advocating "reforms" that span the range from "well-intentioned but redundant and/or ineffective" to "completely self-contradictory and nonsensical".
Yeah, but in context, is the claim of being less corrupt being made about pan-EU institutions, or does it extend to the countries making up the union? The relevancy of individual country statistic depends of that distinction.
Yeah but the great-GP's statement is incorrect if he means the European Union as it is now, so he logically must mean something else, e.g. EU before the 2004/2007 enlargement (he might not know that it happened, the most corrupt countries joined during those and thus moved the average) etc. He also might've meant the EU as in the organization itself which is a completely different meaning with completely different results.
> the great-GP's statement is incorrect if he means the European Union as it is now, so he logically must mean something else
E.g. your assumptions being incorrect. You could have avoided a lot of downvotes with showing some humility. Assuming someone does not know about large shifts in EU membership seems like argument in bad faith.
While there's nothing wrong with opining that state interventionism is a form of corruption, be warned that people will not infer your custom definition if you drop the word "corruption" in a conversation. I'm in favor of sticking to popular word definitions for the sake of clarity.
Do you even know your checks and balances?
This is not about government, it's about court. Facebook only has to pay because individuals (or in that case, a privacy organisation) decided to sue Facebook
The entire tech industry can now consider themselves warned. Not even giant American corporations with direct links to the White House are above the law.
Well I personally despise all tech companies selling out their users whether they are from the US, France or Peru. Its a fact on the ground many are from the US though.
GDPR had been announced 2012, implemented fully in 2016. Active enforcement will start May 2018 with again a temporary period to allow companies to correct. Refusal to comply after that can result in penalties up to a maximum of 4% of the companies global revenue.
How much courtesy lead time does a company actually need to comply?
That's not how the law works in most European countries. Class actions don't exist, so the usual strategy is to sue the biggest company or greatest offender, since that results most likely in the best defence or the best case.
The summary of the court of the case, if ruled in favor of the one suing or in favor of the public interest, will be used to prosecute all other offenders if they do not comply. If the defense wins, it can be used by others as a defense.
While not 'fair' it works as the smaller fish will probably go bottoms up trying to mount a proper defense against larger governmental or lobbying groups which results in a no-win scenario for all: The company is dead and there is still no ruling, or a ruling lacking proper defense.
What, if you get screwed by Google do you ue all the companies or only Google?
Or say Intel users that are now sewing on the meltdown bug should they get involved in AMD too from some feeling of solidarity?
In this case someone did something illegal and someone else complained to the justice, should they first find all (I hope you understand what all means, aka don't forget anybody) and try to do what? start 1000 processes in justice? It makes sense to start with the bigger criminals, if the court decides favorably then you continue to the next ones.
1. Why should their be a "courtesy heads up"? Most of these defendants know they're breaking the law. The regulatory agencies have made their interpretations of the statutes known.
2. Do you realize how much manpower it would take to require that all separate cases be tried at once? You might as well just come out and say you don't want any cases to be tried at all, as that would be the outcome.
> why is the law being enforced predominantly against a handful of American companies instead of the industry at large?
Because the largest companies that European citizens are using and that breaking the law are American. There is no point in targetting first the Chinese and Russian companies doing the same tracking, as few European citizens are affected. And as far as I know, there is zero European company doing the same thing on such a level.
> The difference matters in this context because the counter argument would be "why is the law being enforced predominantly against a handful of American companies instead of the industry at large?"
That's not a counter argument but dissatisfaction. Are you saying that EU companies also don't follow their laws?
>That's not a counter argument but dissatisfaction.
You're correct but mainly because I wasn't paying attention and phrased it as a question. Written instead as a statement, it's a valid counter argument because it's criticizing the parent comment's ridicule of a different instance of criticism.
> Are you saying that EU companies also don't follow their laws?
I'm insinuating that if someone wanted to defend Facebook's position one avenue would be to argue that the law is being selectively enforced. Obviously this isn't a comprehensive argument but it's an easy platform to jump in other directions from.
> You're correct but mainly because I wasn't paying attention and phrased it as a question. Written instead as a statement, it's a valid counter argument because it's criticizing the parent comment's ridicule of a different instance of criticism.
I doubt a statement expressing dissatisfaction is a valid legal argument responding to a legal ruling. Clearly the term argument in this context is for a legal argument not a colloquial use of the term, since a legal appeal is what is being discussed.
When people get traffic tickets, the judge won't let them off for saying, "But, your honor, the police officer didn't pull over any of the other speeders around me."
I was using the term "argument" in the more broadly applicable but also literal sense of the word. Your explanation is correct but you've either misunderstood what I was saying or I've misread your reply.
But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.