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EU Objects To AOL-Time Warner Merger
A reader writes: "Reuters has a story on the European Commission having drafted a report opposing the merger of AOL and Time-Warner, in grounds that the new company would be too powerful."
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There are some people who are probably thinking what right does a European entity have to interfere with a US company? As a European, I'm quite pleased to see the EU make a stand in this. Time Warner are very powerful and very influencial. AOL have a huge amount of mindshare partly due them swamping the market with CDs and a "the internet's safe with us" advertising campaign. Combined, these two companies can be very destructive, and I don't think many Europeans fancy having such a pervasive US company (or any company) controlling the media.
Am I in favour of governments interfering with companies? If they protect the consumer then I do. Are governments to be trusted? No, but at least they're more accountable than multi-nationals. If I have a problem, I can write to my MP or MEP (and I did with regards to the RIP Bill in the UK - I also got a response). If I have a problem with the MPAA, who can I complain to? I can boycote products but when companies get as big as Time Warner/AOL, that can be pretty difficult as who knows what other brands they own? And we've already seen that the MPAA don't seem to respect local laws.
It's not a US vs EU thing, it's about stopping a big, monolithic, and IMHO ultimately malignent corporation from pushing their views to people ignoring local politcal and legal institutions in the process. This is not in the interests of the consumer and I think it's a bad thing(tm).
All IMHO naturally.
Yet in this story it seems 90% of slashdot readers find it perfectly OK to say some really horrifically offensive, misinformed, uneducated, stereotypical, innacurate, unrealistic and frankly ludricous shit about Europe.
FACT - Europe is not "socialist". Most of you probably dont know the meaning of the word. Why are legal posts always preceded by "IANAL", yet no-one makes the disclaimer I Am Not A Social Scientist/Historian/Politician/etc? Seems everyone thinks they know about such subjects already. Trust me - you dont. Go do a degree in them, then come back and read this site, and try and keep a straight face.
FACT - Europe has a right to say something about companies operating in its arena. They are not "American" companies, dont make me laugh, what a hilariously naive idea, how can any of you seriously believe that. M-U-L-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N-S.
FACT - slashdotter's decry the actions of TimeWarner, AOL and many, many other multinational conglomerates at every opportunity. But when someone tries standing up to this, ahh heck, your brainwashed GAWD BLESS THE YOO ESS OF AYY nationa^H^H^H^H^Hpatriotism kicks in.
Like another poster commented... if your government wasnt "0wned" by big business, it would be doing something about this too.
To get an idea of just how much Time/Warner media you consume every day of your life, take a look at this list of Time Warner assets.
I'm sorry this is OT, but I thought that people would be interested and Slashdot would probably not make a story out of it. I just wanted to point out that the Slashdot Copyright notice at the bottom of the page has changed - it now says "... The Rest Copyright OSDN"
OSDN is the Open Source Developer's Network. So, I'm guessing that VA's corporate structure has changed or something like that and Slashdot is now not its own entity. Am I right? I wonder if it means some changes are coming around the bend...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.