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EU Commissioner Renews Call for Serious Fines in Data Privacy Laws
DW100 writes "Despite Google being fined €900,000 by Spanish authorities and €150,000 in France for its controversial privacy policies in recent months, an EU commissioner has admitted this is mere 'pocket money' to the company. Instead, a new legal regime that would have seen Google fined $1bn for breaching data protection laws is needed to make U.S. companies fear and respect the law in Europe. 'Is it surprising to anyone,' asked Commissioner Viviane Reding, 'that two whole years after the case emerged, it is still unclear whether Google will amend its privacy policy or not? Europeans need to get serious. And that is why our reform introduces stiff sanctions that can reach as much as 2% of the global annual turnover of a company. In the Google case, that would have meant a fine of EUR 731 million (USD 1 billion). A sum much harder to brush off.'"
The EU is also responsible for the Data Retention Directive. Worse, most of their spy agencies are just as bad as the NSA. When you combine that with the lack of free speech in many EU countries it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
They're going to force companies to keep user data on EU soil. Which sounds nice, but that means they can force companies to keep your data for as long as they want and hand it all over to "law enforcement" when you've done something inconvenient. They will then have things like search results censored. (See Google France) I hate to say it, but people in the EU have even less privacy than those of us in the US. Even with/especially because of these privacy directives.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Finally, some restrictions on the mining of "big data". Some people have a HUGE problem with its collection and storage by greedy, sleazy, single minded corporations. Not to mention the fact that government goons can store and search that data however they please. Privacy is a human right. If you are willing to use it as currency to purchase shiny, you are part of the problem.
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
Yes, it sure would suck for EU tech companies to suddenly have a few hundred million customers with a well-defined and established need in a market where the incumbent dominant player has just decided to quit. I am sure that their bank managers would complain about them putting more into their accounts than they were expecting and their politicians would be very upset by all of that money flowing in their economies instead of going to the US.
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FTFY
Yeah, EU companies would NEVER do the double-dutch to save on their tax bill, because taxes are at a much more reasonable level in the EU compared to the US.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Note that I didn't say anything about taxes. Even if the company is avoiding all of its taxes, if its infrastructure and employees are all based in the EU then that's money circulating in the EU, which is of net benefit to the local economy and likely to result in local benefits and even in more total tax revenue. This is a big part of the reason why countries try to give companies tax breaks: even if none of the money is paid directly in taxes, it's better to have it circulate locally than to be sent elsewhere. This worked a lot better when you got a factory employing ten thousand people for your multimillion dollarpound tax break, rather than a datacenter employing 50...
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The ad companies will cry foul and make websites give messages saying how the evil socialist EU regime is taking this website away. Please email X to tell them to reverse this law etc.
Since they are injecting Chrome with malware and adware through buying extensions and now circumventing adblock plus and making javascript fail to load if they detect blockers I would not put this past them.
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Not legal. When it comes to the question whether something "illegal" is done by a company, three things get taken into consideration:
1. What it costs to avoid the fine (or the profit to be had by ignoring the law, respectively)
2. Amount to pay when you get caught.
3. Chance to get caught.
That's it. And before someone asks, yes, risk management is part of my job, and these are essentially the considerations when it comes to laws. More and more often law changes get dumped on my desk rather than legal because we no longer avoid breaking the law by default, we check whether it pays to break it.
You'd be surprised how often it does...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Solution: Fine them for random stuff for a lot of money.
This isn't random stuff.
Just because the US doesn't know what proper consumer protection and privacy laws are doesn't mean it isn't important.
Unbelievable. Only desperate government bureaucrats could possibly look at administrative fines as a source of income that might save the EU from its financial woes. Excessive taxes, fines, and other means of taking money from the people they are supposed to protect are not the keys to prosperity.
Reality check: Big companies are not the people the European governments are supposed to protect. That are still the citizens of thoes countries. And the rights of those citizens are ignored by Google et. al.
So the governments are actually doing exactly what they should: Protect the rights of the citizens.
Solution: Fine them for random stuff for a lot of money.
This isn't random stuff.
Just because the US doesn't know what proper consumer protection and privacy laws are doesn't mean it isn't important.
Indeed. It's interesting that a lot of Americans respond to stories like this mostly with "zomg taxes!" It's almost as if you can't even imagine there is really an aspect of consumer protection involved. That says something about what you guys expect from government, methinks.
Conversely I think this goes some way to explaining why a lot of Europeans don't actually mind taxes, certainly not as reflexively and dogmatically as many Americans seem to oppose them: they believe that these payments, or at least a part of them, will be spent toward their wellbeing.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
In well functioning economies, "circulating money" is a sign of lots of useful economic activity. Such useful activity happens when companies make things people want.
But you're confused about cause and effect: you can't make an economy function well by forcing money to circulate. You and I can play ping pong with our wallets and circulate money between us all day long and nobody is going to benefit. If you tax that activity, the money will disappear entirely.
"Better" in what sense? The people back then had a much lower standard of living, their work was harder and more dangerous. And fewer people were working overall.
Because in Economics 101, we all learn that if we force goods (and hence money) to circulate within a country and to stop them from crossing borders, everybody is so much better off than if we let them engage in trade! Protectionism, yeah! It's worked so well!
Except the part where the EU has nothing waiting in the wings that comes anywhere near to the package Google offers. Lets face it, Google cutting off the EU would bring the continent to its knees for months and months.
Not at all. Microsoft adds a few thousand servers to Bing, sells a copy of their server software to Amazon and Apple, and we'll never need Google again.
keeping the data in EU means two very great things for me. 1) NSA must work harder to get it on their grubby hands , whereas with US firm they jsut need to ask 2) I can check the data and ask for rectification and so forth as an EU citizen, but good luck doing that in the US 3) it is much harder to market "me" in the Eu than it is in the US. My data you see cannot be sold that easily. 4) US law enforcement can pretty much run roughshed on my data in the US anyway so it isn't as if the EU law enforcement would be any worst
,2 and 3 , and give my finger in the general direction of US firm and the NSA. Thank you.
AS an EU citizen I'll take that convenience of 1
So back at you.
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[looks around] notes missing steel industry, almost dead car industry, Detroit, electronics industry, retreating engineering industry, small widget manufacturing, semiconductor manufacture, computer manufacture, clothing manufacture... I'm really not sure that open trade has worked out that well, frankly. For that matter, in the intellectual areas where we maintained some presence for a little longer... not so much today. Companies think nothing of outsourcing anything they can, and countries like India are happy to fill those roles. Of course, we're still pushing paperwork around on Wall street and etc., and we have basic food commodities and some oil resources, but we're really not doing that well overall.
Within our borders, we have a large workforce, many of whom are unemployed, a large market, and immense natural resources, all within our borders. Economically speaking, it seems to me that a round of protectionism might not be a bad idea at all at this juncture.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
For those keeping track, all of their highest-ever Cartel fines were against EU companies, in one case jointly with a Korean company. If you read the numbers in the PDF they make everything Google and MS have ever paid with seem like a diner tip.
Saint Gobain (France)
Philips (Netherlands) and LG Electronics (Korea)
Deutsche Bank AG (Germany)
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Switzerland)
Société Générale (France)
Siemens AG (Germany)
Pilkington (UK)
E.ON (Germany)
GDF Suez (France)
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Nothing comes close to Google maps.
HERE (including former Navteq!) has 80% market share in all car navigation systems. The map data is quite good, the routes calculated by here.com are also on par with Google (sometimes slightly better, at other times slightly words). Maybe Google has some more point of interest listed, but this is a matter of market share of the software as a guide rather than only routing. The more people use HERE map data and software as a guide, the more points of interest they will add.
Everyone else likes it and uses it to their advantage. The EU is working against the wishes and against the interests of its citizens.
Unfortunately most people do not understand the significance of privacy and free speech. Ask people if they'd sell the right to speak out on one tiny specific topic for 1000€ annually, and you will see that freedom has a price-tag. Nevertheless I think governments should prevent people from selling their privacy and freedom. (Yes, sounds illogical to force people to stay free. I'm still working on that one :-)
Trolling is a art!
Speaking as an American and my experience with other Americans, most Americans are crazy. (well, so are most people around the world but...)
The issue of taxes really comes down to how much value do you get from the taxes. EU have higher rates overall, but at the same time there is a much more evident benefit from those taxes. Affordable/free health care, affordable/free education, retirement safety nets, and so forth. Yes I agree that sometimes these plans overreached and could not be paid for, but the point is that there is something in return for the taxes. In the US, the biggest expenditure is the military, and not all of that goes for staff (ie, as a jobs program it's overpriced), but that's not directly benefiting most people with their expenses and no one wants to touch their budget. The safety net is not so great overall, medical health insurance still only for older people and difficult to fund, and almost nothing whatsoever comes back for education. So it's money spent in taxes with nothing coming back the other way.
It's like Europeans are paying %40 of their income on a new luxury car with room for 6, and Americans are paying %20 of their income for a 30 year old Ford Pinto.
The crazy part is because no one wants to touch the military budgets, that the anger is focused on very minor things. An after-school program for at-risk youths is deemed a waste but a new billion dollar fighter plane is left alone and the contractors who are inflating the costs are never investigated. Eisenhower warns about the military-industrial complex and no one pays too much attention, Reagan warns about welfare queens and the voters rally to his side. A trillion dollars is so huge that I think some people just don't comprehend it, whereas a waste of a mere million dollars can be understood and so that is jumped on fast.