The EU Goes Too Far(stratechery.com)
stratechery.com
The EU Goes Too Far
https://stratechery.com/2024/the-e-u-goes-too-far/
78 comments
Absolutely right and seems to be wishfully unaware that visiting US sites will trigger the same insane data collection as in the EU (but you can object as a EU citizen). A typical site might integrate 100 to 1000 trackers. Neither Google nor Meta have solved any of that.
My understanding is that permission is required for nonessential usage of data in addition to nonessential collection.
So it’s okay to collect IP addresses for load balancing but not targeting adverts.
This “essential usage” is where things get dicey with whether it’s okay to collect info for logs, customer support, fraud prevention, law enforcement cooperations etc
So it’s okay to collect IP addresses for load balancing but not targeting adverts.
This “essential usage” is where things get dicey with whether it’s okay to collect info for logs, customer support, fraud prevention, law enforcement cooperations etc
Tobacco manufacturers have to provide warning labels on cigarettes, so unfair!
The EU regulation states that tobacco health warnings must use an image from the EU approved gallery. Come to think of it, the next iteration of the ePrivacy Directive should force vendors to use only pre-approved designs for the consent prompt. No more "legitimate interest" bs.
I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that supposedly tech-savvy people would completely miss the point of the _tracking_ (not cookie) prompts.
It’s the industry that’s going too far, not the EU.
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Frankly, the EU didn't go far enough. Instead of allowing this popup bullshit, they really ought to have enforced do not track.
Indeed. A browser sending a “do not track” is already a good indication that the answer to tracking is no.
This is marginally true but misleading. There is not a consistent definition of what data is considered "essential" so the current consensus is that for all cookies - whether it be a first-party non-tracking or not - you are safest to just have the consent banner.
I've worked with four separate GDPR legal teams over my career and none have ever agreed that there is was any such use case as "essential-only" data.
I've worked with four separate GDPR legal teams over my career and none have ever agreed that there is was any such use case as "essential-only" data.
Then they're bad legal teams.
Github.com, free.fr, 42.fr probably a lot of others as those are 3 of the first 4 fqdn I thought about when asking myself 'which website does not need advertising or tracking)'.
Github.com, free.fr, 42.fr probably a lot of others as those are 3 of the first 4 fqdn I thought about when asking myself 'which website does not need advertising or tracking)'.
Further down this thread you point at a specific website and claim it doesn't have popups, even though it does. The same is true of free.fr (modal popup) and (sliding cookie banner). It's not great that you keep defending cookie popups when you not only very clearly block them, but did it so long ago you forgot about it.
Github eliminated cookies for anonymous users on their repo pages, but absolutely still uses tons of cookies for authenticated users, which lets them skirt around the banner requirement: https://github.com/privacy/cookies
They also use an internal analytics system which eliminates the need for a tracking cookie, though they are still able to track website activity.
Visiting free.fr prompts a cookie banner for me, as does 42.fr. Analyzing their websites, they use Didomi and Axeptio as their cookie consent systems - respectively.
They also use an internal analytics system which eliminates the need for a tracking cookie, though they are still able to track website activity.
Visiting free.fr prompts a cookie banner for me, as does 42.fr. Analyzing their websites, they use Didomi and Axeptio as their cookie consent systems - respectively.
This is a headache-inducing read. Weird anecdotes about EU site having cookie consent forms while US sites don't (what US sites are you browsing?). Blaming the poor UX on regulators rather than site operators (if they only tracked the data they needed to operate the site they wouldn't need to ask). Implying that sites all tracking you as much as they want with no need for consent would be ideal and "the market working" to provide a good experience. Equating a regulator deeming a business model unethical and illegal to nationalizing private property (lol). The bizarre assertion that selling or providing an app for an operating system is using the OS maker's intellectual property without compensation. The rapid-fire procession of terrible takes is dizzying.
The EU hasn't gone far enough until I can install Firefox with its native engine and uBlock Origin on an iPhone without Apple collecting fees that prevent Mozilla from shipping it to me for free.
A lot of people are skimming the article or taking some of the points in bad faith - I'll jump to this point near the end.
> It is the cases above, though, that are thieving like the German publishers: it is one thing to regulate a market; it is another to straight up take a product or service on your terms, enabled by a company’s loyalty to its existing userbase. I might disagree with a lot of E.U. regulations, but I respect them and their right to make them; dictating business models or forcing a company to provide services for free, though, crosses the line from regulation to theft.
His broader point isn't that these regulations are bad - but that regulators are using "privacy" to sell generally anti-tech regulations to rent seek or enrich their own local special interest groups. Actual consumers are being treated as a bargaining chip.
> It is the cases above, though, that are thieving like the German publishers: it is one thing to regulate a market; it is another to straight up take a product or service on your terms, enabled by a company’s loyalty to its existing userbase. I might disagree with a lot of E.U. regulations, but I respect them and their right to make them; dictating business models or forcing a company to provide services for free, though, crosses the line from regulation to theft.
His broader point isn't that these regulations are bad - but that regulators are using "privacy" to sell generally anti-tech regulations to rent seek or enrich their own local special interest groups. Actual consumers are being treated as a bargaining chip.
> to sell generally anti-tech regulations to rent seek or enrich their own local special interest groups. Actual consumers are being treated as a bargaining chip.
Which is false and not at all in line with the DMA and the bigger framework of legislation and policy it belongs to (which nobody talks about because it doesn't make for bombastic and reactionary titles).
Which is false and not at all in line with the DMA and the bigger framework of legislation and policy it belongs to (which nobody talks about because it doesn't make for bombastic and reactionary titles).
> the Internet experience in America is better because the market was allowed to work
So you are ok with websites sharing your data wih 800+ others that you don't know how are going to use it, all for the annoyance of the pop-up alert? I think this might be the dumbest thing I have read in the last six months.
So you are ok with websites sharing your data wih 800+ others that you don't know how are going to use it, all for the annoyance of the pop-up alert? I think this might be the dumbest thing I have read in the last six months.
The "market being allowed to work" was referencing the lack of Oauth options on European sites, not the pop-up banners.
First Daring Fireball, now Stratechery! At this rate I'm worried Eclectic Light will have an opinion to share.
How many completely impartial and well-respected tech journalists have to call out the EU before they finally leave poor Apple alone!
How many completely impartial and well-respected tech journalists have to call out the EU before they finally leave poor Apple alone!
If i was a bit cynical, I might suspect that all these journalists are in the pocket of these big companies and these are the “Apple is so good and gives so much money to developers and the environment, that they deserve your data and everything in your digital life” takes, meant to rile up the public
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To be fair, I've only been skimmed through the article, but nowhere do I see any research, or even clear arguments/fair reasoning, about monopolistic behavior in free markets. Only false comparisons (Apple when it was close to bankruptcy and Apple today - yes there's a huge difference!) and jumping to conclusions (Apple was the one restoring faith and rescued third-party development - before App Store no businesses developing third party software existed, or?).
Yes, when you're vertically integrated and dominate a market (in practice have some kind of monopoly) it's fair you need to open up certain things to everyone. Unless you believe in a completely free market without any regulation.
A fair bit of research supports that stance btw. (That free markets needs to be regulated)
Yes, when you're vertically integrated and dominate a market (in practice have some kind of monopoly) it's fair you need to open up certain things to everyone. Unless you believe in a completely free market without any regulation.
A fair bit of research supports that stance btw. (That free markets needs to be regulated)
> the E.U. identifies an issue (excessive data collection) and reaches for a regulatory solution, locking in a terrible status quo, while the U.S.’s more market-oriented approach results in a better experience for users and better business outcomes for businesses.
I would ask the author to ask average Americans how they feel about their lightly regulated internet providers, airline operators and health care providers.
I would ask the author to ask average Americans how they feel about their lightly regulated internet providers, airline operators and health care providers.
An average American? Generally pretty good. Especially from the user experience/technological point of view that he is making in his article.
You can book a cheap flight directly through Google without having to set up an account and never have to deal with popups or consent forms.
You can book a cheap flight directly through Google without having to set up an account and never have to deal with popups or consent forms.
> never have to deal with popups or consent forms.
What? Google won't pop up a form, but the airline site it directs you to in order to purchase your tickets absolutely will. Most sites do. Americans complain about cookie consent forms all the time, this isn't an EU-specific problem, though it does stem from EU and California regulations.
What? Google won't pop up a form, but the airline site it directs you to in order to purchase your tickets absolutely will. Most sites do. Americans complain about cookie consent forms all the time, this isn't an EU-specific problem, though it does stem from EU and California regulations.
Some airlines like Spirit now have direct integration into Google Flights so you never need to log in.
Even when being directed to Delta or Alaska to purchase flights, I usually have the option of an expedited sign in or account creation through Oauth, which is largely what the author was trying to point out.
> What was different this time is that, for the first time in a while, I was traveling as a tourist with my family, and thus visiting things like museums, making restaurant reservations, etc.; what stood out to me was just how much information all of these entities wanted: seemingly every entity required me to make an account, share my mailing address, often my passport information, etc., just to buy a ticket or secure a table. It felt bizarrely old-fashioned, as if services like OpenTable or Resy didn’t exist, or even niceties like “Sign In With Google”; what exactly is a museum or individual restaurant going to do with so much of my personal information — I just want to see a famous painting or grab a meal!
Even when being directed to Delta or Alaska to purchase flights, I usually have the option of an expedited sign in or account creation through Oauth, which is largely what the author was trying to point out.
> What was different this time is that, for the first time in a while, I was traveling as a tourist with my family, and thus visiting things like museums, making restaurant reservations, etc.; what stood out to me was just how much information all of these entities wanted: seemingly every entity required me to make an account, share my mailing address, often my passport information, etc., just to buy a ticket or secure a table. It felt bizarrely old-fashioned, as if services like OpenTable or Resy didn’t exist, or even niceties like “Sign In With Google”; what exactly is a museum or individual restaurant going to do with so much of my personal information — I just want to see a famous painting or grab a meal!
All those three areas are heavily regulated in USA. How they feel about that varies greatly from state to sate and from one income band to another.
My feeling is that when European policy is discussed on Hacker News, many Europeans reflexively become defensive and defend the European government's perspective irrespective of the merits. There is this sense that Europe can never be wrong, and is always better than the US. I would strongly encourage Europeans to reconsider this approach. It is not in your interest or in the interest of Europe.
For context, I grew up in Europe and now live in the US. One major difference in the US is that people are often very critical of the general direction of the country. In many cases this is the key mechanism by which positive change is made. For example, in the US many of us are critical of the healthcare system's poor accessibility for lower income people. That criticism has been channeled towards some non-trivial positive change (Obamacare on the federal level, many other thing locally).
Imagine instead that Americans took the European attitude towards this issue. As soon as anyone criticized American healthcare they would get defensive, dig their heals in, refuse to listen, and insist that the American healthcare system is fine. This would be really bad for the US! We would never have made any positive change because we would have been in denial about there being a problem in the first place.
Of course some people in the US do this. But I feel for Europe the standard response to any criticism of Europe is to dismiss it out of hand and retreat to this attitude that Europe is superior to everywhere else.
For context, I grew up in Europe and now live in the US. One major difference in the US is that people are often very critical of the general direction of the country. In many cases this is the key mechanism by which positive change is made. For example, in the US many of us are critical of the healthcare system's poor accessibility for lower income people. That criticism has been channeled towards some non-trivial positive change (Obamacare on the federal level, many other thing locally).
Imagine instead that Americans took the European attitude towards this issue. As soon as anyone criticized American healthcare they would get defensive, dig their heals in, refuse to listen, and insist that the American healthcare system is fine. This would be really bad for the US! We would never have made any positive change because we would have been in denial about there being a problem in the first place.
Of course some people in the US do this. But I feel for Europe the standard response to any criticism of Europe is to dismiss it out of hand and retreat to this attitude that Europe is superior to everywhere else.
I have the complete opposite impression of European vs. American attitudes in this regard. It's a common belief here in the States that the Constitution was genius, that the healthcare system is "best in the world", that it's the "shining city on the hill" for the rest of the world. "If you don't like it, leave" is a fairly common response to criticism of US governance.
In EU GDPR vs. Google/Facebook/Apple, I'm very comfortable with the concept that the EU is at least trying to protect consumers from what has been decades of clear overreach by the ad industry.
In EU GDPR vs. Google/Facebook/Apple, I'm very comfortable with the concept that the EU is at least trying to protect consumers from what has been decades of clear overreach by the ad industry.
Yeah that's interesting - maybe I have some selection bias that leads me to a different sense.
I do think though that there's a relation between attitudes and policy that gets enacted. So I agree many people do think that the US healthcare system is the "best in the world" - but if everyone thought that, we would never have had Obamacare, and Medicare for All wouldn't be a thing. I think these policies being enacted/seriously discussed is evidence that there's a non-trivial number of people questioning the status quo.
Anyway, my overall point was that questioning the status quo is good for your country and reflexively defending it is bad, because then you don't find ways to improve it.
I do think though that there's a relation between attitudes and policy that gets enacted. So I agree many people do think that the US healthcare system is the "best in the world" - but if everyone thought that, we would never have had Obamacare, and Medicare for All wouldn't be a thing. I think these policies being enacted/seriously discussed is evidence that there's a non-trivial number of people questioning the status quo.
Anyway, my overall point was that questioning the status quo is good for your country and reflexively defending it is bad, because then you don't find ways to improve it.
But I want to be able to run any app i want to on my $999+ phone. Why am I not allowed to?
If you want to do that you're free to buy a phone (i.e. Android) that is has fewer safeguards and lacks vertical integration.
For those of us who value Apple's approach, please let us choose the phone that works best for us, and stop supporting bad politicians who want to regulate our choices away.
For those of us who value Apple's approach, please let us choose the phone that works best for us, and stop supporting bad politicians who want to regulate our choices away.
Lol, you don’t have choices currently
My comment is not about the specifics of this case...
Yes, you’re purposefully changing the subject, to avoid actually discussing the issue, since it’s not in your interest as a now American
HN topics are not linear conversations. There is no notion of "changing the subject". We can simultaneously discuss the article and topics around the article on separate comment trees.
Great! So then why am I not allowed to run whatever i want on my $999 phone?
Because Apple doesn't want their OS turning into Windows from the 2000s. Bad for you, good for all the non-tech people out there, or so the thinking goes.
My comment is not about the specifics of this case...
You knowingly bought the phone that had that limitation, so presumably you had some other priorities
I would be interested in hearing why my comment is being downvoted.
I am not one of the downvoters, but I assume it is because you make unsusbtantiated accusations of defensive behaviour about most of the Europeans on HN. It's flame bait.
Doesn't this whole HN post kind of substantiate it though? The article itself was incorrectly flagged. So far I see no comments addressing the content of the article at all. I think it's completely fair to describe the response here as reflexively defensive.
I do agree that my comment is too broad in implicating most Europeans. I do think the standard European response on HN is how I described it, but presumably most Europeans on HN don't actually contribute to these discussions and it's misleading to extend the point to them.
I do agree that my comment is too broad in implicating most Europeans. I do think the standard European response on HN is how I described it, but presumably most Europeans on HN don't actually contribute to these discussions and it's misleading to extend the point to them.
I see a lot of posts saying they support this kind of regulation. Not sure how you know they are all European posters, or why supporting it should be seen as a defensive stance.
The fact you got downvoted is very amusing and, ironically, perfect evidence of what you're describing.
The problem is there's no HN equivalent for tech people in Europe. So they're stuck here, hanging out with a bunch of Americans bragging about how big their salaries are and how Americans in tech are all getting fabulously rich (and they actually are).
Imagine the level of resentment that creates! You're just as competent an engineer, yet instead of financial freedom in <10 years, you get stuck making 1/5th as much in a lifer "IT" job at some lame industrial company running on autopilot just because you were born in the wrong country.
So what do you do? Take a risk and build something of your own? Nahhh. Too much work.
It's much easier to rationalize the discomfort away by recasting yourself as the hero of the story.
"Sure, I have to ask my government for permission to retire at 70 (hopefully), but that's because I'm actually the morally superior one! Those American tech innovations are all evil, and the people who use them are getting duped by a bunch of conmen! LLMs are worthless, I don't need their latest tech fads anyways!" ...And so on, and so on.
The problem is there's no HN equivalent for tech people in Europe. So they're stuck here, hanging out with a bunch of Americans bragging about how big their salaries are and how Americans in tech are all getting fabulously rich (and they actually are).
Imagine the level of resentment that creates! You're just as competent an engineer, yet instead of financial freedom in <10 years, you get stuck making 1/5th as much in a lifer "IT" job at some lame industrial company running on autopilot just because you were born in the wrong country.
So what do you do? Take a risk and build something of your own? Nahhh. Too much work.
It's much easier to rationalize the discomfort away by recasting yourself as the hero of the story.
"Sure, I have to ask my government for permission to retire at 70 (hopefully), but that's because I'm actually the morally superior one! Those American tech innovations are all evil, and the people who use them are getting duped by a bunch of conmen! LLMs are worthless, I don't need their latest tech fads anyways!" ...And so on, and so on.
So did EU regulation open IPhones or not? Can I run my own binaries or python scripts on IPHones in EU? If not, all those regulations are just noise and power grab with no benefits for the general computing.
> So did EU regulation open IPhones or not?
Apple's currently trying to see how much open defiance and disdain for the rules they can get away with. We'll see how it pans out.
Apple's currently trying to see how much open defiance and disdain for the rules they can get away with. We'll see how it pans out.
This reads like "American goes to Europe and is upset to find out that things are done differently than in America"
Not quite. From the article
"This makes absolutely no sense: Apple not deploying AI in fact opens them up to competition, because their phones will be less fully featured than they might be otherwise! Vestager should be taking a victory lap, if her position made a shred of sense.
"
It's a tiny nuance, but what would really open Apple to competition is allowing 3rd party developers to offer replacement experiences for "Intelligence" and other functions, like the OpenAI integration.
The DMA seems vague only if you have bad intentions and want to get away with it. Perfectly fine if you want to do the right thing.
The DMA seems vague only if you have bad intentions and want to get away with it. Perfectly fine if you want to do the right thing.
All those are half-measures for me. It's either open system like x86 PC or closed like the current iOS/Android. Open for some, in some cases, in EU only, is not helping really.
> Open for some, in some cases, in EU only, is not helping really.
Would you mind explaining how the status quo is better without them? I'm confused.
Would you mind explaining how the status quo is better without them? I'm confused.
I think it very obvious. For example EU now forced to open Apple platform for Epic Games. For me that means absolutely nothing. Before: one gated store, now - two gated stores. It doesn't help me running my own python script. N or N+X gated and censored stores change nothing really. It's not a general computing in any sense.
How is that any worse? It just sounds like you're mad that Apple refuses to admit their own wrongdoing, not that the EU isn't trying.
It puts tremendous pressure on the rest of the locales, if the EU ends up working fine. It exposes that there’s no need for Apple to decide what apps you can have on your phone
Before the DMA compliance, Apple was known as supposedly caring about privacy and creating a good and safe user experience. They could have opted to incorporate the spirit of the DMA into their products world-wide (as it aligns well with what they preach). Unfortunately, Apple decided to just show everyone how unlike a regular conglomerate/big corp they really are. So here we are, we have tobacco, big oil and iOS.
""I do not believe we should cancel those who want to regulate down prices on pharmaceuticals, even though likely they will kill millions over time, at least to the extent they succeed. (Supply is elastic!) But if we can like them, tolerate them, indeed welcome them into the intellectual community, we should be nice to others as well. Because the faults of the others probably are less bad than those who wish to regulate down the prices of U.S. pharmaceuticals."
Cowen's point is that while many countries aggressively regulate the price of pharmaceuticals, you ultimately need a profit motive to invest in the massive up-front cost in developing new drugs; that profit comes from the U.S. market. The reason this all works is that the actual production of drugs is similar to technology: once the drug is approved every marginal pill is effectively zero marginal cost; this means that it is worth selling drugs at highly regulated prices, but you still need a reason to develop new drugs as well.
So it is with technology; to take the Meta example above, the company may very well be brought to heel with regards to offering a non-personalized-ads business model: Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp are already developed, operations teams already exist, data centers are already built, so maybe a fraction of potential revenue will be worth continuing to offer those services in the E.U. Moreover, there is the matter of network effects: should Meta leave the E.U. it will make its services worse for non-E.U. users by reducing the size of the network on its services.
This comparison is a bridge too far. When person is in hospital fighting for life Zuckerberg's website is nothing more than a useless distraction. Whereas drugs can save life. There is no comparison. If Meta conducts "R&D" on their own cryptocurrency (Libra), the "Metaverse", surveillance glasses, "AI" nonsense or whatever it thinks is "the next big thing", it is not a matter of life or death. No lives depend on the success or failure of these projects. People invested in them will claim they will save lives and much more... someday. Please wait. It is speculation. Life-saving drugs are real, not speculation. In the pharmaceutucal industry it is too expensive to "move fast and break things". Failure costs too much money.
"That's not the only cost that is going up for Apple in particular: part of the implication of the "Core Technology Fee" model is that Apple has put forth a tremendous amount of engineering effort to accomodate its platform to the DMA specifically. Or, to put it another way, Apple has already forked iOS: there is one version for the E.U., and one version for the rest of the world. This too dramatically changes the calculus: yes, every E.U. user comes in at zero marginal cost, but not the E.U. as a whole: Apple isn't just paying the expected value of future fines, but actual real costs in terms of engineering time and overall complexity."
Comparing life-saving drugs to some feature of Apple's BSD-based privatised operating system. This is insane. Computer nerds are going to make computers do stuff whether someone is paying them or not. Computers are toys to these people and they will play for a lifetime; it is not work. Overhead costs for software development are extremely low. Free "features" are "shipped" with alarming frequency, for marketing purposes. Software development is almost entirely unregulated. Whereas development of therapeutics is a highly regulated, costly endeavor that can take a decade. Lab equipment, purpose-built facilities, clinical testing. Experimentation costs money. How much does it cost to play with software. Nothing. Time.
Another thing that costs nothing: Stratechery blog posts.
Cowen's point is that while many countries aggressively regulate the price of pharmaceuticals, you ultimately need a profit motive to invest in the massive up-front cost in developing new drugs; that profit comes from the U.S. market. The reason this all works is that the actual production of drugs is similar to technology: once the drug is approved every marginal pill is effectively zero marginal cost; this means that it is worth selling drugs at highly regulated prices, but you still need a reason to develop new drugs as well.
So it is with technology; to take the Meta example above, the company may very well be brought to heel with regards to offering a non-personalized-ads business model: Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp are already developed, operations teams already exist, data centers are already built, so maybe a fraction of potential revenue will be worth continuing to offer those services in the E.U. Moreover, there is the matter of network effects: should Meta leave the E.U. it will make its services worse for non-E.U. users by reducing the size of the network on its services.
This comparison is a bridge too far. When person is in hospital fighting for life Zuckerberg's website is nothing more than a useless distraction. Whereas drugs can save life. There is no comparison. If Meta conducts "R&D" on their own cryptocurrency (Libra), the "Metaverse", surveillance glasses, "AI" nonsense or whatever it thinks is "the next big thing", it is not a matter of life or death. No lives depend on the success or failure of these projects. People invested in them will claim they will save lives and much more... someday. Please wait. It is speculation. Life-saving drugs are real, not speculation. In the pharmaceutucal industry it is too expensive to "move fast and break things". Failure costs too much money.
"That's not the only cost that is going up for Apple in particular: part of the implication of the "Core Technology Fee" model is that Apple has put forth a tremendous amount of engineering effort to accomodate its platform to the DMA specifically. Or, to put it another way, Apple has already forked iOS: there is one version for the E.U., and one version for the rest of the world. This too dramatically changes the calculus: yes, every E.U. user comes in at zero marginal cost, but not the E.U. as a whole: Apple isn't just paying the expected value of future fines, but actual real costs in terms of engineering time and overall complexity."
Comparing life-saving drugs to some feature of Apple's BSD-based privatised operating system. This is insane. Computer nerds are going to make computers do stuff whether someone is paying them or not. Computers are toys to these people and they will play for a lifetime; it is not work. Overhead costs for software development are extremely low. Free "features" are "shipped" with alarming frequency, for marketing purposes. Software development is almost entirely unregulated. Whereas development of therapeutics is a highly regulated, costly endeavor that can take a decade. Lab equipment, purpose-built facilities, clinical testing. Experimentation costs money. How much does it cost to play with software. Nothing. Time.
Another thing that costs nothing: Stratechery blog posts.
I make it a point to safely ignore Stratechery, a veritable fountain of bad takes going back years.
Nice try, Apple, but nope.
This has to be one of the most corporate-simping bloated think pieces I have ever seen.
I didn't even know one could be so in love with the biggest corporations on earth and get enraged at the thought of them not being able to make the largest profit they possibly can.
I didn't even know one could be so in love with the biggest corporations on earth and get enraged at the thought of them not being able to make the largest profit they possibly can.
Why this article is flagged? It's technical and mostly accurate.
This kind of tactical suppression of news happened a lot in the run-up to the UK's Brexit referendum.
The EU is a very polarising institution. Unfortunately, loyal supporters of the EU will do anything to protect it from criticism.
Which is one of the reasons it has become such an awful, yet powerful, political experiment. We're not able to openly criticise it.
(watch as my comment gets downvoted / flagged!)
The EU is a very polarising institution. Unfortunately, loyal supporters of the EU will do anything to protect it from criticism.
Which is one of the reasons it has become such an awful, yet powerful, political experiment. We're not able to openly criticise it.
(watch as my comment gets downvoted / flagged!)
It's neither of those things.
It's false and clickbaity.
What is false about the article? (This is not a rhetorical question - I'm curious.)
"seemingly every entity required me to make an account, share my mailing address, often my passport information, etc., just to buy a ticket or secure a table." He further expands on this in the latest episode of Dithering, stating that 'every single EU entity requires me to have an account just to do something like book a table' (paraphrasing as I don't remember the exact line but the 'every single EU entity' stuck in my mind).
To me this feels like the sadly common misconception that every country in the EU is the same. I live in Ireland and have never once had to create an account to book a table in a restaurant. Nor a cinema ticket, nor visits to tourist attractions. And that includes while travelling abroad.
Thompson is either being hyperbolic in the extreme or just had really bad luck (or, went to an EU country where this is actually common - I won't make the mistake of assuming they are all the same).
To me this feels like the sadly common misconception that every country in the EU is the same. I live in Ireland and have never once had to create an account to book a table in a restaurant. Nor a cinema ticket, nor visits to tourist attractions. And that includes while travelling abroad.
Thompson is either being hyperbolic in the extreme or just had really bad luck (or, went to an EU country where this is actually common - I won't make the mistake of assuming they are all the same).
For example:
> every website has a bunch of regulatory-required pop-ups asking for permission to simply operate as normal websites, which means collecting the data necessary to provide whatever experience you are trying to access
is completely false.
> every website has a bunch of regulatory-required pop-ups asking for permission to simply operate as normal websites, which means collecting the data necessary to provide whatever experience you are trying to access
is completely false.
Is it really a false claim that that nearly every website he would need to visit as a tourist would have a popup of some kind?
Even if his reasoning is off here, it's really a small anecdote at the beginning of a much larger article.
Even if his reasoning is off here, it's really a small anecdote at the beginning of a much larger article.
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Yes. I'm in vacation in Brittany RN, I'll check the next place I'll have to contact to find a place to sail to: https://www.saintmalo-cancale.port.bzh
No pop-up. I'll bet most ports don't have cookie pop-ups, most public campings won't either.
It's a modal popup obstructing the entire website. Can't miss it :)
When I visit the site I instantly get a popup:
"Ce site utilise des cookies et vous donne le contrôle sur ce que vous souhaitez activer" "OK, tout accepter" "Interdire tous les cookies Personnaliser"
Do you have something blocking it?
"Ce site utilise des cookies et vous donne le contrôle sur ce que vous souhaitez activer" "OK, tout accepter" "Interdire tous les cookies Personnaliser"
Do you have something blocking it?
No, these popups are only regulatory-required when you're collecting data unnecessary to provide the experience.