Today, we have opened five non-compliance investigations under the Digital Markets Act.
It concerns:
🔹Alphabet’s rules on steering in Google Play
🔹Alphabet’s self-preferencing in Google Search
🔹Apple’s rules on steering in the App Store
🔹Apple's choice screen for Safari
🔹Meta’s ‘pay or consent model’
@EU_Commission I can’t believe I’m saying this but good job – especially “pay or consent” has to be nipped in the bud before it takes hold; it’s basically data extortion.
(And thank you for sharing the news without some silly meme attempt.)
@sarajw@aral@EU_Commission Journalism isn’t free. Journalists, too, have rent to pay and children to feed. You have a choice to pay with your money or pay with your data, whichever you prefer. Sounds fair to me.
@intermobility@sarajw@EU_Commission Your data or your money! How about my body? Can I pay with my body too? How many page views will fucking the CEO get me?
The only reason folks aren’t more repulsed by this is because they don’t understand that our data is us. If I have enough data about you, and the right algorithms, I can create an approximation of you—a model/simulation/proxy—and I can do whatever I want to it. Your body is protected by human rights law, your proxy isn’t. And it must be.
@intermobility@sarajw No, I’m saying just like ‘pay with your organs’ is not acceptable, neither is ‘pay with your data’ and that your data should be protected as part of your self under human rights law.
@intermobility@sarajw@aral@EU_Commission It means that people with low financial ressources are coerced into agreeing into surveillance advertising if they want to participate in news reception. Therefore that's actually evil, no way fair. Advertisements without use of personal data as one option would be fair.
Meta is a „Gatekeeper“ under the DMA, news sites are not. You don’t need legislation to fix news sites. All you need is to convince a news site that following your suggested strategy is a competitive advantage for them (because all the people who neither want to pay money nor want to be tracked would then prefer their service over the competitors‘ services).
They are not tracking you because they love tracking so much, but 🧵
… because they need to make money. If they can do that without tracking, they will. If your suggestion cannot earn them the money they need, then you have to come up with something else. Eventually, bills have to be paid or we end up with no proper journalism at all.
@intermobility@tonk@aral I either browse away or just accept it. I don't have time or energy to lobby them. But I'm perfectly allowed to dislike, or even hate the situation.
@intermobility@tonk@aral I'd much prefer to pay for journalism, but I can't justify the subscription cost to all the papers I'd like to read occasionally.
That is indeed a HUGE problem, I couldn’t agree more. All attempts to build something like a Spotify for news, or establish micropayments on a per article basis, have failed, and there is currently no vision at all to tackle this problem. It’s a shame, and a problem for the entire industry.
Having attended most of last week's #DMA compliance workshops in person, I was already convinced that the EU Commission would have no choice but to investigate if it doesn't want to lose all credibility for the #DigitalMarketsAct; the gatekeeper's circumvention attempts are just too blatant to ignore.
I wasn't sure they would act so swiftly though, so thank you @EU_Commission ! 👏
E.g. “Apple's measures may not be fully compliant as they impose various restrictions and limitations” would mean that after 30 days I loose my privilege as EU citizen.
This means I would need to stop travel.
It is a tough restriction.
I love travel. And sometimes EU.
Okay, I understand. So basically, Apple proves that it's a trash company. Nothing new there.
But, that still doesn't mean you can't travel. You just need to buy another mobile phone instead (I assume you have the money since you're traveling a lot anyway, if this specific case matters to you).
Or in other words, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Yes, obviously it's better to avoid using Apple altogether. The @EU_Commission should generally consider pushing local producers to recreate what is necessary for its citizens instead of forcing them to rely on foreign, global monopolies, which don't give a damn about singular countries, except maybe the US.
This includes manufactured goods as much as services like social media. If you want something to follow your policies and rules, then produce it locally and ban foreign incursion. Globalization only benefits a few super rich capitalists through exploitation anyway.
And thanks for that mac term. Never heard of it but sounds pretty accurate here. 👍
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