EU Commissioner Renews Call for Serious Fines in Data Privacy Laws 162
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.'"
Hypocrites (Score:5, Interesting)
The EU is also responsible for the Data Retention Directive [wikipedia.org]. 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.
Re:Hypocrites (Score:4, Informative)
Worse, most of their spy agencies are just as bad as the NSA.
When did a european spy agency pay the largest security firm in the world to put a back door in their encryption?
There is nobody in the world as bad as the NSA.
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NSAs actions regarding surveillance are worse than the wettest dreams the East German StaSi could ever have imagined, for several reasons:
Are you really going to go full retard on me? Show me where the NSA created a secret police force in another country (repeatedly), and trained them, created a large network of "sleeper agents", assisted in smuggling in weapons and nuclear secrets, created and financed a terrorist organization responsible for thousands of civilian deaths, deseceration of cemeteries, orchestrated a large-scale industrial chemical disaster solely to distract from domestic problems, numerous assassinations, and routinely engage
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NSAs actions regarding surveillance are worse than the wettest dreams the East German StaSi could ever have imagined, for several reasons:
Are you really going to go full retard on me? Show me where the NSA created a secret police force in another country (repeatedly), and trained them, created a large network of "sleeper agents", assisted in smuggling in weapons and nuclear secrets, created and financed a terrorist organization responsible for thousands of civilian deaths, deseceration of cemeteries, orchestrated a large-scale industrial chemical disaster solely to distract from domestic problems, numerous assassinations, and routinely engaged in psychological warfare of social undesireables so extreme that its victims often committed suicide or went insane.
Please, show me this amazing and never-before documented evidence you have about comparable NSA activities. Because that is what the Stasi did in East Germany. To compare them to the NSA is, to put it mildly, intellectually dishonest. While you're at it, invest in a double-wrapped tin foil hat, because apparently single-ply isn't getting the job done with you anymore.
We were discussing surveillance here. But Ok, lets broaden the scope; only in that case lets not restrict it to NSA, but include other american secret services as well.
Ever read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O... [wikipedia.org]?
Or about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]?
Or about do you know about the Taliban history, how they were created by CIA to fight against the Russians? (Steve Coll: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, February
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> Show me where the NSA created a secret police force in another country (repeatedly), and trained them,
You mean like how the NSA created and trained GCHQ, and tasked them with attacking targets all over Western Europe? You want an example? They attacked Belgium by breaking into Belgian's telephone operator Belgacom. It was all over the news a few months ago. And yes, breaking into national infrastructure (Belgacom is owned for > 50% by the Belgian government) at the scale the GCHQ did can easily be c
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You mean like how the NSA created and trained GCHQ
Utter nonsense. The modern era of surveillance was forged during WW2 and it was the Brits who taught the Yanks the tricks of the trade (particularly the code breaking stuff from Betchley Park). However I agree the US have taken to it like a fish to water and have been using it to fight proxy wars ever since.
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Is it calling from 1990, when that would be relevant?
Oh, I'm sorry, do you think the NCA, Mossad, Al-amn al-Watani, Ministry Of Intelligence and Security, State Security Department, etc., don't spy on their own citizens too?
The NSA got caught. That's the distinction here. Not what they're doing. Everyone else is doing the same damn thing, they just didn't leave a cheeky 20-something unattended in the server room of their security archives.
I don't think the NSA is the worst of the lot, not by a long shot. There's plenty of recent historical examples of shit ot
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So what you're saying is that Americans are just very bad at spying?
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When you combine that with the lack of free speech in many EU countries it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Lack of explicit regulation/laws on free speech and lack of free speech are two different things.
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Lack of explicit regulation/laws on free speech and lack of free speech are two different things.
In theory that's true, but many parts of the EU outright ban certain speech. For example, I don't like the Nazis and consider them to be horrible; However, when people are prevented from showing their colors to the world they, rightly, think that people are out to get them. So instead of some crazies yelling whatever they want you have people who can only get attention through things like violence.
"There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that o [wikipedia.org]
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"There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order." [wikipedia.org] Marginalized people like Neo Nazis* aren't allowed to speak in countries like France and Germany, they know there a minority so voting won't work, and no way that they would be allowed on a Jury. With that in mind it's surprising that we haven't seen more violence out of people like them.
Yeah. Isn't it strange that the oh so free US has more problems with extremists (Unabomber and the like) than the countries that you say should expect those kind of problems?
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Marginalized people like Neo Nazis* aren't allowed to speak in countries like France and Germany, they know there a minority so voting won't work, and no way that they would be allowed on a Jury. With that in mind it's surprising that we haven't seen more violence out of people like them.
Neo-nazis are quite handy in Germany. When kids decide to have a fight, they look for some neo-nazis to beat up instead of law-abiding citizens, so everyone is happy.
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Marginalized people like Neo Nazis* aren't allowed to speak in countries like France and Germany, they know there a minority so voting won't work, and no way that they would be allowed on a Jury. With that in mind it's surprising that we haven't seen more violence out of people like them.
It's generally considered good form to revise one's assumptions when their predictive value has been lost. Or put another way: It's your understanding of these "marginalized people" that's faulty here.
*They're marginalized because they're horrid and nuts,
Ah yes, of course. It couldn't just be that you're a prejudiced asshole. It is, in fact, possible to be a minority that is not "horrid and nuts". See also: Every civil rights movement. Ever.
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Marginalized people like Neo Nazis* aren't allowed to speak in countries like France and Germany, they know there a minority so voting won't work, and no way that they would be allowed on a Jury.
The way I know (but I might be wrong) neither France nor Germany has the institution of Jury.
With that in mind it's surprising that we haven't seen more violence out of people like them.
Well, other places, other folks, other habits (I'm deliberately letting aside the mater of culture)... Somehow, I don't find it strange at all (and no longer feel an urge to judge them).
*They're marginalized because they're horrid and nuts, but that just makes them more likely to do something dangerous and crazy.
Ummm... every "circle" has a fringe... of course there will always be some that would be disliked and avoided the most and highly probable they'd be considered nuts ("if only they'd change a bit their behavior, they'd be closer to th
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With that in mind it's surprising that we haven't seen more violence out of people like them.
Not really. The limits on speech are extremely narrow and very specific. Holocaust denial, for example. You are free to say you think the holocaust was a good thing, just not deny that it ever happened. These laws were introduced to deal with very specific problems.
As such Neo-Nazis do have a voice but since most people know better it doesn't get them very far. They will keep trying of course, but violence isn't really helping their cause and most of them do kind of understand that. Aside from anything else
Hypocrites yourself (Score:3)
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Hypocrites - but capable to rethink (Score:2)
Indeed. Which is - I admit - a shame. But we're also capable of learning from our errors, it seems:
Source [wsj.com]
I wi
Re:Hypocrites (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, the Euro has its own problems and can't keep its own house clean, so some good old fashioned attacks on a US company will generate enough good will to keep them relevant in
the eyes of the people there.
I'm really getting tired of this.
You're just plain wrong.
European companies are fined just as much for this kind of thing.
The difference is: European companies are used to these laws and break them less often, and fines for EU companies are rarely talked about in the US
Most of the time this is not about 'oh, it's a US company, let's hit them' but about 'US companies think they don't need to care about local law, so the break it at need to be fined'.
Re:Here is your citation (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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â676,011,400 over candle wax. There must be a story here.
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Acually, the EU was a
- US Constitution with all 27 Amendments - 7,818 words.
- EU Constitution: Nobody's really quite sure. It's approximately the size of a book at present, and nobody can really find a plain-text version on the internet... it's all been compressed into navigable websites, databases, and PDFs.
--
There is nothing logical about the EU.
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It's almost like the EU's constitution incorporates laws that US's laws place in other documents.
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Actually, with the US' entrenched practice of case law, where judges rely on how other judges interpret how other judges interpret (...) certain aspects of the constitution, it's impossible to put a number on it even after including all the other laws concerned.
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Each EU nation has its own constitution (if they have one, unlike Britain for example).
The EU constitution, also known as the Lisbon Treaty. Grow a brain.
Better idea (Score:2)
Or even better, just tell google they have to stop selling services in Europe for a period of time, say 90 days. So nobody in Europe would be allowed to buy ads off Google while the ban was in place.
This would give competitors, who presumably adhere to EU law, a chance to step in and earn some revenue of their own.
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This would give competitors, who presumably adhere to EU law, a chance to step in and earn some revenue of their own."
Otherwise known as a "free market"..
Free = Anyone can step in.
Market = Rules of trade.
Big data (Score:2)
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Some people have a HUGE problem with its collection and storage by greedy, sleazy, single minded corporations.
Greedy, yes. Sleazy... maybe, highly probable. Single minded? In Google's case, I doubt it: they are a too intelligent bunch.
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Some people have a HUGE problem with its collection and storage by greedy, sleazy, single minded corporations.
Greedy, yes. Sleazy... maybe, highly probable. Single minded? In Google's case, I doubt it: they are a too intelligent bunch.
Yep they will pay the Russian mob under the table to do it illegal through a subsidiary that funnels the money back to Google corporate. American companies do this all the time for tax evasion and patent lawsuits. They sign a contract that they wont sue anymore for a settlement for additional patents. The patent troll then looks at the patents and opens up a secret shell subsidiary and sues under that for the rest etc.
Next: websites wont work in EU (Score:3)
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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The ad companies will cry foul and make websites give messages saying how the evil socialist EU regime is taking this website away.
Wrong, defined: You. The "ad companies" are not the people collecting thie data, they're not the ones whose servers are being hacked, aren't the ones with crappy internal security procedures, and are not collecting massive amounts of data on people's online habits and aggregating them into profiles. The "ad companies" are the consumers of this data, not the producers of it.
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.
Yes. It's every "ad company" that's doing this, not just a few rogue ones. Let's just throw the entire industry under the bus because of
Fines are a matter for risk management (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
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Perhaps because it's not a "conspiracy"?
What's next? Are you going to throw people in jail who deliberately park in no parking zones?
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Well, maybe because that's not what it is displayed as to the outside but as "some unfortunate mishap that we're truly sorry for"?
Duh.
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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.
Holy shit. You should check that policy with legal. The laws might be different in different countries but where I live I am pretty sure that if you intentionally and willingly break the law you are no longer protected as a worker at a company and can be held personally accountable.
The protection a company gets is there for the kind of negligence that can happen when many people think "someone else will take care of that" and such, not to protect calculated organized crime.
Your policy can actually put you i
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You're acting like there's any company out there who does it differently.
Of course, the official course is to minimize damages and try to do whatever you can to uphold the law, but the extent you go to is mainly influenced by the cost to do so and the cost to pay the fine if it hits. Whether you want to admit that or not, it's the sad reality of business, and anyone not following that train of thought will not survive for long. You simply cannot afford putting security before profitability, as much as I'd l
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Not legal. When it comes to the question whether something "illegal" is done by a ...
Thank you, Sir Armchair Lawyer, for that insightful commentary. I'm sure you're a far better expert on the topic than the legal departments of all these major companies. Consider that just the laws of the United States are so numerous, so complex, that nobody on this planet is capable of being fully versed in them, and in fact they cannot even be counted with any accuracy. Entire libraries exist for the sole purpose of collecting these laws. Now, multiply that problem by the number of countries we're talkin
Except the new fine won't apply to Google. (Score:2)
Except the new fine won't apply to Google. Google was fined previously for changing the privacy policy with insufficient notification and explanation of the change, not because they were actually violating anything other than a notification requirement.
Why do they want to target Google? (Score:2)
Why do they want to target Google? What are the practical problems caused by the data collection?
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That being said, I do think Vic Gundotra should probably be fired from Google.
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Remove all the services, and only leave them search. See how the people of the EU like that.
That would be cool, but won't necessarily get Google off the hook: tracking/profiling the searches would still be a privacy violation.
Re:LOL screw the EU (Score:5, Insightful)
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FTFY
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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.
Re:LOL screw the EU (Score:5, Insightful)
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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 w
Protectionism? (Score:4, Interesting)
[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.
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Looks like it has worked out very well: all the low margin, polluting, back breaking industries are leaving the country, while more people than ever before are working in the US (well, that was true until Obama).
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US Steel, Bethlehem Steel... those were big operations. To see them die rather than convert to smaller, more efficient furnaces... that was a hell of a blow to a lot of people. Even if you forget the steel industry, though, all the rest stands, and of course there is more -- go into a Walmart and look at country of manufacture on just about anything you can find. Look at H1-B visas. Look at Korean guitars and semiconductors, Japanese keyboards audio, home theater, and amateur radio gear... to argue that we'
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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.
That's the reason why economists distinguish between transfers and actual spending. Transfers don't count in GDP and, indeed, do not represent production. You give money to someone: transfer. Government taxes your money and gives it to a benefits recipient person: transfer. But it's not true that you can't force money to circulate or that money somehow disappears when you tax it (where do you think it goes, exactly?). Government taxes and spends it on infrastructure: infrastructure spending is not a transfe
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Economists do lots of things, some of them even sensible. TheRaven64, however, didn't.
When people "save" money, what they are actually doing is in
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When people "save" money, what they are actually doing is investing it in businesses. Those businesses use that money to buy equipment in order to do something productive with it. When government takes that money instead and gives it to people who will use it for consumption, the consumer goods they buy with it won't be used to produce anything new. So your idea that taxing and then transferring the money to poor people is good for the economy is wrong.
When people save money they can be doing quite a lot of things. They may be buying assets, like shares or houses, which is a transfer and doesn't represent any economic activity (except for commissions, etc). Or they may be saving it in a bank account. In a bank account most of the money will be lent out again, although much of it will be to governments and consumers as loans, not businesses, and in the process more money will be created and spent. Whilst this is true, it doesn't help.
Let's take a very simp
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Shares are the primary economic activity: they represent investments in companies and produce both economic activity plus the generation of additional wealth. Banks lend privately, they invest, and they lend to the government. Of those, lending to the government
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Better in a way that people felt that they had a stable life with stable income, and were able to plan their lives tens of years ahead.
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Yeah, if you were a straight white middle aged male with a decent education, lucky enough to land a boring corporate managerial job, you found a wife that actually would stick with you for tens of years, and nothing else happened, then you could look forward to decades of boring, mindless stability in a system that was was cheating you in many ways, living in a cheap house a
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That's one hell of a twisted version of it.
Considering that about the only problem I did see was the discrimination against certain people, and everything else you mention is pretty much imaginary or not a problem, I would take it over not getting a job, or getting fired over getting sick, or because company wants to hire someone from China to do your job, or just not being liked by the boss any day, yes.
And mind you, single people didn't get discriminated against. They got fast tracked since they could tra
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Certain people, like everybody who wasn't a straight white male working a corporate job. Which meant that life wasn't so good for a huge number of Americans.
Everybody is a lot better off today than they would have been in the 1960's.
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1. I'm not an American.
2. That is called "technological progress". Issue is, that in spite of it massively pushing forward even today, quality of life is actually going down.
That suggests we have hit the saturation point where parasitic corporatism is so powerful, that even technological progress can no longer hide its inefficiency.
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I've lived through it as an adult for several decades, I assure you: quality of life has improved immensely in the US and even much of Europe.
If by "parasitic corporatism" you mean the fact that govern
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If you seriously think that economic disasters in Greece and Spain were caused by their governments and banks have no parts in it, I only have one question for you.
What are the base principles behind that device that allows creation of tunnel that lets you post on slashdot from a different universe and how can I build one?
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Greece had a government debt crisis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
That means the Greek government borrowed more than it could afford, in large part because they bet on continued growth that didn't materialize. Then they lied about their financial situation, so people kept giving them money long past where it was reasonable. And because they ha
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I'm am... astounded by the sheer ignorance before me.
Truly, I do not think I can argue against this. To do so would require me typing out pages of material because the sheer depth of ignorance requires going to the basics of our financial system.
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I'm not astounded by your ignorance. In fact, it's a reflection of the crap you read that you erroneously think describes "the basics of our financial system".
The only thing the Greek government debt crisis has to do with "our" financial system is that banks and other financial institutions are being pressured and subsidized by European governments to waste even more money on Greece because everybody wants to pretend that Greece isn't actually a basked case.
But the causes of the Greek government debt crisis
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So, can you tell us about that machine that lets you send messages across parallel worlds? It's much more interesting than the strange retelling of history from our world's stand point that you're engaging in.
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Why don't you tell us how the Greek government borrowing too much money is the fault of banks.
But, of course, you exhaust yourself in this nonsense because you don't know. You don't know because you're full of sh*t.
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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.
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.
Yandex couldn't possibly scale fast enough, and the EU threatening Yandex with silly fines could see great segments of
the EU suddenly without enough gas to warm a teapot.
Google's privacy troubles all started when they consolidated them into ONE manageable control panel, rather than
10 or 12 indi
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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.
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Nothing comes close to Google maps.
And don't even bother mentioning Open street maps. Just don't.
Let's face it, the EU is looking for a money grab, trying to extort Google back to an unworkable privacy model with every service having its own rules and its own sign up. Yet this is not what EU citizens want. Those that do have already closed their Google accounts and exported all their data (something no other service even offers). All 6 users that couldn't abide by googles integrated sign on have left.
Every
Re:LOL screw the EU (Score:4, Informative)
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 :-)
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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.
Yandex couldn't possibly scale fast enough, and the EU threatening Yandex with silly fines could see great segments of
the EU suddenly without enough gas to warm a teapot.
bing hasn't been tested yet as an option, and there's always duckduckgo. surely THAT search meets their privacy expectations!
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LOL! Simply LOL.
What is so vital about Google that can bring Europe to its knees? There are adequate (and in some instances superior) replacement to each Google service already reachable.
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Google cutting off the EU would free the EU, if only they could cut off the US too.
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Remove all the services, and only leave them search. See how the people of the EU like that.
Sounds like an awesome justification for the EU to start coercive licensing of Google's intellectual property. Coercive licensing is the process used by countries that have decided that a company has priced a drug too high, so they allow a competitor to make it instead.
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The people of Europe wouldn't really care much. There are plenty of alternatives to Google's services, and Google would be handing their competitors the whole EU on a nice easy silver platter.
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You mean, like, in the US? Damn those socialists!
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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.
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Reality check: Big companies are not the people the European governments are supposed to protect.
Correct! Big companies in Europe are the "people" the European governments are supposed to protect. -_-
So the governments are actually doing exactly what they should: Protect the rights of the citizens.
False. They're protecting their own economic interests. Google is an American company that pays little (if any) taxes to Europe. Europe's governments therefore have an incentive to try to lock Google out via cumbersome and expensive legislation to encourage a European competitor to emerge. But I love how you think there's a government out there who honestly cares about the "rights of the citizens". If onl
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Not quite. Companies are not people in Europe. They are "juridical persons", which is not the same thing.
Besides, EU companies regularily get fined. And quite heavily at that.
When in Rome... (Score:2)
They're protecting their own economic interests.
As others have pointed out with links to back them up, the number of EU companies prosecuted under the same laws and the size of the fines applied, thoroughly debunks that assertion. The US is in Rome, try observing some facts about their way of life before assuming you know what they think.
If only there were some historical document [the] illustrating how [declaration] often that [of] happens we [independence] could look at.
You took colonised land away from a British king with the help of the French, not so impressive compared to William the Conquer who took England away from an English King.
Re: (Score:2)
If the reason you think someone's doing something is really, really stupid, maybe it's not actually the reason they're doing it. All the other people in the world are not morons.
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All the other people in the world are not morons.
I object. But do agree that "Not all the other people in the world are morons.", it's just I'm convinced as well that "Not all the other people in the world are not morons." Takes all kinds...
Re:Sounds like an India shakedown (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sounds like an India shakedown (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Indeed. It's interesting that a lot of Americans respond to stories like this mostly with "zomg taxes!"
Clearly you don't watch a lot of TV... because that's the only way you'd find this observation interesting. Mass media has conditioned them to react that way.
That says something about what you guys expect from government, methinks.
Our already low standards can always be revised downward. It's called aging. When you're in 5th grade, you think you got a pretty good idea about how the government works, and it seems like an alright system. By the time you graduate from college, you have this suspicion that the country is run by morons. When you hit your 30s... you're certain of it.
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That's because in American it's every man for himself. You don't try to build a better society to live in, you build a gated community to keep everyone else out.
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US corporatocratic government cannot be expected to be fiscally responsible. It's major mission is globalism to which end it engages in (very expensive) perpetual war. The EU have given up militaristic imperialism and saved vast amounts of treasure thereby.
US "leaders" are all utterly corrupt puppets of the rich who differentiate based on social issues come election time.
Americans hate taxes because they increase but we don't benefit from the increase. Since I will not obtain any good from increases I pre
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i wish i could mod this "funny AND sad"
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That says something about what you guys expect from government, methinks.
Very little indeed, which is why we're actually doing better than you guys.
Better in what way, exactly? As a blanket statement this seems meaningless to me...
If Americans were "reflexively" against taxes, they wouldn't be collecting so many of them and the top marginal income tax rates would come down. Right now, they're higher than in Germany and the Netherlands (where you seem to be from), but Europeans don't figure that out because they don't even understand how the tax systems work.
Well, suppose I think it might be more complicated than what you're saying, which seems to amount to "Europeans are too stupid to understand US or even their own tax systems". Top bracket income in the Netherlands is at 52%, the number I just found for the US is 39%.
Of course with all the various accounting tricks and outright evasion, available on both sides of the Atlantic, nobody in that top bracket actually pays anything
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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
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Well... The long trials could actually make the fines more effective in this case.
Short trial = a powerful US company gets a serious fine = US diplomatic pressure (ineffective, as court decision is not that simple to undo) and all kinds of international stench... The company may or may not have to pay the fine, but nobody's happy.
Long trial = the company has enough time to realize they are going to lose. US pressure can actually be met with a good answer (make them behave and we'll see). The US doesn't real