#eu tech rules

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Lina Khan’s future is the future of the Democratic Party — and America

On OCTOBER 23 at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

On the one hand, the anti-monopoly movement has a future no matter who wins the 2024 election – that's true even if Kamala Harris wins but heeds the calls from billionaire donors to fire Lina Khan and her fellow trustbusters.

In part, that's because US antitrust laws have broad "private rights of action" that allow individuals and companies to sue one another for monopolistic conduct, even if top government officials are turning a blind eye. It's true that from the Reagan era to the Biden era, these private suits were few and far between, and the cases that were brought often died in a federal courtroom. But the past four years has seen a resurgence of antitrust rage that runs from left to right, and from individuals to the C-suites of big companies, driving a wave of private cases that are prevailing in the courts, upending the pro-monopoly precedents that billionaires procured by offering free "continuing education" antitrust training to 40% of the Federal judiciary:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

It's amazing to see the DoJ racking up huge wins against Google's monopolistic conduct, sure, but first blood went to Epic, who won a historic victory over Google in federal court six months before the DoJ's win, which led to the court ordering Google to open up its app store:

https://www.theverge.com/policy/2024/10/7/24243316/epic-google-permanent-injunction-ruling-third-party-stores

Google's 30% App Tax is a giant drag on all kinds of sectors, as is its veto over which software Android users get to see, so Epic's win is going to dramatically alter the situation for all kinds of activities, from beleaguered indie game devs:

https://antiidlereborn.com/news/

To the entire news sector:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Private antitrust cases have attracted some very surprising plaintiffs, like Michael Jordan, whose long policy of apoliticism crumbled once he bought a NASCAR team and lived through the monopoly abuses of sports leagues as an owner, not a player:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/michael-jordan-anti-monopolist

A much weirder and more unlikely antitrust plaintiff than Michael Jordan is Google, the perennial antitrust defendant. Google has brought a complaint against Microsoft in the EU, based on Microsoft's extremely ugly monopolistic cloud business:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-files-complaint-eu-over-microsoft-cloud-practices-2024-09-25/

Google's choice of venue here highlights another reason to think that the antitrust surge will continue irrespective of US politics: antitrust is global. Antitrust fervor has seized governments from the UK to the EU to South Korea to Japan. All of those countries have extremely similar antitrust laws, because they all had their statute books overhauled by US technocrats as part of the Marshall Plan, so they have the same statutory tools as the American trustbusters who dismantled Standard Oil and AT&T, and who are making ready to shatter Google into several competing businesses:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/8/24265832/google-search-antitrust-remedies-framework-android-chrome-play

Antitrust fever has spread to Canada, Australia, and even China, where the Cyberspace Directive bans Chinese tech giants from breaking interoperability to freeze out Chinese startups. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-11-cant-believe-im-writing-about-iv-fluid-again/

What's more, the conduct of global monopolists is the same in every country where they have taken hold, which means that trustbusters in the EU can use the UK Digital Markets Unit's report on the mobile app market as a roadmap for their enforcement actions against Apple:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63f61bc0d3bf7f62e8c34a02/Mobile_Ecosystems_Final_Report_amended_2.pdf

And then the South Korean and Japanese trustbusters can translate the court documents from the EU's enforcement action and use them to score victories over Apple in their own courts:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/10/an-injury-to-one/#is-an-injury-to-all

So on the one hand, the trustbusting wave will continue erode the foundations of global monopolies, no matter what happens after this election. But on the other hand, if Harris wins and then fires Biden's top trustbusters to appease her billionaire donors, things are going to get ugly.

A new, excellent long-form Bloomberg article by Josh Eidelson and Max Chafkin gives a sense of the battle raging just below the surface of the Democratic Power, built around a superb interview with Khan herself:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-09/lina-khan-on-a-second-ftc-term-ai-price-gouging-data-privacy

The article begins with a litany of tech billionaires who've gone an all-out, public assault on Khan's leadership – billionaires who stand to personally lose hundreds of millions of dollars from her agency's principled, vital antitrust work, but who cloak their objection to Khan in rhetoric about defending the American economy. In public, some of these billionaires are icily polite, but many of them degenerate into frothing, toddler-grade name-calling, like IAB's Barry Diller, who called her a "dope" and Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis, who called her an all-caps COMMUNIST and a LUNATIC.

The overall vibe from these wreckers? "How dare the FTC do things?!"

And you know, they have a point. For decades, the FTC was – in the quoted words of Tim Wu – "a very hardworking agency that did nothing." This was the period when the FTC targeted low-level scammers while turning a blind eye to the monsters that were devouring the US economy. In part, that was because the FTC had been starved of budget, trapping them in a cycle of racking up easy, largely pointless "wins" against penny-ante grifters to justify their existence, but never to the extent that Congress would apportion them the funds to tackle the really serious cases (if this sounds familiar, it's also the what happened during the long period when the IRS chased middle class taxpayers over minor filing errors, while ignoring the billionaires and giant corporations that engaged in 7- and 8-figure tax scams).

But the FTC wasn't merely underfunded: it was timid. The FTC has extremely broad enforcement and rulemaking powers, which most sat dormant during the neoliberal era:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

The Biden administration didn't merely increase the FTC's funding: in choosing Khan to helm the organization, they brought onboard a skilled technician, who was both well-versed in the extensive but unused powers of the agency and determined to use them:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

But Khan's didn't just rely on technical chops and resources to begin the de-olicharchification of the US economy: she built a three-legged stool, whose third leg is narrative. Khan's signature is her in-person and remote "listening tours," where workers who've been harmed by corporate power get to tell their stories. Bloomberg recounts the story of Deborah Brantley, who was sexually harassed and threatened by her bosses at Kavasutra North Palm Beach. Brantley's bosses touched her inappropriately and "joked" about drugging her and raping her so she "won’t be such a bitch and then maybe people would like you more."

When Brantley finally quit and took a job bartending at a different business, Kavasutra sued her over her noncompete clause, alleging an "irreparable injury" sustained by having one of their former employees working at another business, seeking damages and fees.

The vast majority of the 30 million American workers who labor under noncompetes are like Brantley, low-waged service workers, especially at fast-food restaurants (so Wendy's franchisees can stop minimum wage cashiers from earning $0.25/hour more flipping burgers at a nearby McDonald's). The donor-class indenturers who defend noncompetes claim that noncompetes are necessary to protect "innovative" businesses from losing their "IP." But of course, the one state where no workers are subject to noncompetes is California, which bans them outright – the state that is also home to Silicon Valley, an IP-heave industry that the same billionaires laud for its innovations.

After that listening tour, Khan's FTC banned noncompetes nationwide:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/25/capri-v-tapestry/#aiming-at-dollars-not-men

Only to have a federal judge in Texas throw out their ban, a move that will see $300b/year transfered from workers to shareholders, and block the formation of 8,500 new US businesses every year:

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/21/g-s1-18376/federal-judge-tosses-ftc-noncompetes-ban

Notwithstanding court victories like Epic v Google and DoJ v Google, America's oligarchs have the courts on their side, thanks to decades of court-packing planned by the Federalist Society and executed by Senate Republicans and Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, and Trump. Khan understands this; she told Bloomberg that she's a "close student" of the tactics Reagan used to transform American society, admiring his effectiveness while hating his results. Like other transformative presidents, good and bad, Reagan had to fight the judiciary and entrenched institutions (as did FDR and Lincoln). Erasing Reagan's legacy is a long-term project, a battle of inches that will involve mustering broad political support for the cause of a freer, more equal America.

Neither Biden nor Khan are responsible for the groundswell of US – and global – movement to euthanize our rentier overlords. This is a moment whose time has come; a fact demonstrated by the tens of thousands of working Americans who filled the FTC's noncompete docket with outraged comments. People understand that corporate looters – not "the economy" or "the forces of history" – are the reason that the businesses where they worked and shopped were destroyed by private equity goons who amassed intergenerational, dynastic fortunes by strip-mining the real economy and leaving behind rubble.

Like the billionaires publicly demanding that Harris fire Khan, private equity bosses can't stop making tone-deaf, guillotine-conjuring pronouncements about their own virtue and the righteousness of their businesses. They don't just want to destroy the world - they want to be praised for it:/p>

"Private equity’s been a great thing for America" -Stephen Pagliuca, co-chairman of Bain Capital;

"We are taught to judge the success of a society by how it deals with the least able, most vulnerable members of that society. Shouldn’t we judge a society by how they treat the most successful? Do we vilify, tax, expropriate and condemn those who have succeeded, or do we celebrate economic success as the engine that propels our society toward greater collective well-being?" -Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo

"Achieve life-changing money and power," -Sachin Khajuria, former partner at Apollo

Meanwhile, the "buy, strip and flip" model continues to chew its way through America. When PE buys up all the treatment centers for kids with behavioral problems, they hack away at staffing and oversight, turning them into nightmares where kids are routinely abused, raped and murdered:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/they-told-me-it-was-going-be-good-place-allega-tions-n987176

When PE buys up nursing homes, the same thing happens, with elderly residents left to sit in their own excrement and then die:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/24/nursing-homes-private-equity-fraud-00132001

Writing in The Guardian, Alex Blasdel lays out the case for private equity as a kind of virus that infects economies, parasitically draining them of not just the capacity to provide goods and services, but also of the ability to govern themselves, as politicians and regulators are captured by the unfathomable sums that PE flushes into the political process:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/oct/10/slash-and-burn-is-private-equity-out-of-control

Now, the average worker who's just lost their job may not understand "divi recaps" or "2-and-20" or "carried interest tax loopholes," but they do understand that something is deeply rotten in the world today.

What happens to that understanding is a matter of politics. The Republicans – firmly affiliated with, and beloved of, the wreckers – have chosen an easy path to capitalizing on the rising rage. All they need to do is convince the public that the system is irredeemably corrupt and that the government can't possibly fix anything (hence Reagan's asinine "joke": "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help'").

This is a very canny strategy. If you are the party of "governments are intrinsically corrupt and incompetent," then governing corruptly and incompetently proves your point. The GOP strategy is to create a nation of enraged nihilists who don't even imagine that the government could do something to hold their bosses to account – not for labor abuses, not for pollution, not for wage theft or bribery.

The fact that successive neoliberal governments – including Democratic administrations – acted time and again to bear out this hypothesis makes it easy for this kind of nihilism to take hold.

Far-right conspiracies about pharma bosses colluding with corrupt FDA officials to poison us with vaccines for profit owe their success to the lived experience of millions of Americans who lost loved ones to a conspiracy between pharma bosses and corrupt officials to poison us with opioids.

Unhinged beliefs that "they" caused the hurricanes tearing through Florida and Georgia and that Kamala Harris is capping compensation to people who lost their homes are only credible because of murderous Republican fumble during Katrina; and the larcenous collusion of Democrats to help banks steal Americans' homes during the foreclosure crisis, when Obama took Tim Geithner's advice to "foam the runway" with the mortgages of everyday Americans who'd been cheated by their banks:

https://www.salon.com/2014/05/14/this_man_made_millions_suffer_tim_geithners_sorry_legacy_on_housing/

If Harris gives in to billionaire donors and fires Khan and her fellow trustbusters, paving the way for more looting and scamming, the result will be more nihilism, which is to say, more electoral victories for the GOP. The "government can't do anything" party already exists. There are no votes to be gained by billing yourself as the "we also think governments can't do anything" party.

In other words, a world where Khan doesn't run the FTC is a world where antitrust continues to gain ground, but without taking Democrats with it. It's a world where nihilism wins.

There's factions of the Democratic Party who understand this. AOC warned party leaders that, "Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl":

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1844034727935988155

And Bernie Sanders called her "the best FTC Chair in modern history":

https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1843733298960576652

In other words: Lina Khan as a posse.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl

[allthegeopolitics]

Elon Musk, unlike other tech bosses, "is not able to recognize good and evil,” a European Union top official said Wednesday. The multibillionaire tech mogul and boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX is amplifying hatred, outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told POLITICO in an interview, calling him a “promoter of evil.” Musk has been on a collision course with European officials, fighting regulators and governments on multiple fronts. The tech mogul bought Twitter in April 2022, rebranding it as X shortly after, and he has attracted criticism for his management of the platform, with European politicians and civil society saying he has allowed hate speech to fester on the site.

Continue Reading

[mariacallous]

Unbox a new phone in the US and it's almost certain to have Google as the default way to search the web. Federal judge Amit Mehta on Monday ruled in favor of the US Department of Justice that the contracts Google uses to secure that position violate fair competition laws. Now Mehta must decide what to do about it.

The jurist could order big changes to the unboxing experience, with users having to select their default search provider. He also could go as far as to force Google to sell parts of its business. Mehta scheduled a hearing for September to begin the process of deciding the penalties, but with Google appealing the verdict, it could be years—if ever—before the search giant must comply.

Though legal and economics experts say it’s difficult to guess where Mehta might land with his remedies, they have some ideas of what he might be considering. Here’s a look at five options.

Ban Revenue Sharing

US courts have generally tried to resolve antitrust violations by ordering an end to the illegal behavior, setting rules to prevent it from recurring, and taking any additional measures needed to ensure that the culprit and its competitors are moved onto an even field.

To satisfy that first prong, Mehta is widely expected to ban Google from continuing with arrangements under which it splits tens of billions of dollars in ad revenue among Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and other companies that agree to set Google as the default search on their devices or software.

“At a minimum, the Justice Department will ask for an injunction that forbids Google from engaging in the conduct that the court deemed to be improper,” says William Kovacic, who previously served as an antitrust regulator on the US Federal Trade Commission.

An injunction might prevent Google from using its unmatched economic might to outspend smaller search companies, such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia, to secure exclusive default status. Positioning matters; Mehta’s ruling found that even when it’s easy for users to switch defaults, most people don’t adjust the setting. But some do prefer Google. That’s why “Google.com” is the most popular search term on Bing, which is the default on some Microsoft devices, according to Mehta’s ruling.

In the future, users who prefer Google may end up having to query “Google.com” in other search engines, too.

Require Choice Screens

Mehta could follow the lead of the European Union, which for years has required Google to offer a menu of search options on Android devices, and recently expanded the rule to the Chrome browser.

Experts don’t believe the European regulation has led to a significant increase in the popularity of Google alternatives because users recognize Google better than other options. “The horse is already out of the barn,” says Herbert Hovenkamp, an antitrust scholar at Penn Law School who has researched tech platforms. “One problem with free choice is that it won’t necessarily take down Google’s market share.”

But if Mehta pursues the approach, he should make some improvements on the EU’s rules, says Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs at DuckDuckGo. Users should be prompted with the choice screen periodically, not just once, Bazbaz says. They shouldn’t have to deal with popups from Google urging them to switch the default to Google, he adds. And when users first interact with a competing search app, there should be an easy way to set it as the default app.

With these added measures, some searchers could find themselves more reliably ditching Google. Others could be frustrated by the recurring requests.

Order a Divestiture

Contract bans and choice screens are examples of conduct remedies. But the Justice Department in recent years has expressed a preference for what are known as structural remedies, or breaking off parts of a company.

Most famous is the breakup of telephone giant Bell in the 1980s, creating a variety of independent companies, including AT&T. But courts aren’t always on board. When Microsoft lost an antitrust battle in the 1990s, a federal appeals panel rejected an order to break up the company, and Microsoft eventually settled on a range of conduct changes.

A one-time sale is preferred by regulators in part because it doesn’t require them to invest in monitoring the ongoing compliance of companies in terms of conduct remedies. It’s a much cleaner break, and some antitrust experts contend that structural remedies are more effective.

The challenge is figuring out what parts of a company need to be separated. John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University who recently served as an adviser to FTC chair Lina Khan, says the key is identifying businesses in which ownership by Google are “distorting its incentives.” He says that, for instance, breaking off search could open the door to Google’s Android partnering with a different search engine.

But Hovenkamp doubts the potential of a search sell-off to increase competition because the service would remain popular. “Selling Google Search would just transfer the dominance to another firm,” he says. “I don't know what sort of breakup would work.”

Some financial analysts who study Google parent Alphabet are also skeptical. “Alphabet's scale, continued strong execution, and financial strength mitigate this legal risk and the possible ensuing financial and business model ramifications,” Emile El Nems, vice president for Moody's Ratings, said in a press statement.

Other legal experts envision a future in which search results would come from Google and the ads in the experience from another company that’s spun off from Google. It’s unclear how that remedy would affect users, but it’s possible ads could end up being less relevant and more intrusive.

Force Google to Share

Mehta found in his judgment that Google provides users a superior experience because it receives billions of more queries than any other search engine, and that data fuels improvements to the algorithms that decide which results to show for a particular query.

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University following the Google case, says one of the most aggressive remedies would be requiring Google to share data or algorithms with its search competition so they too could improve. “Courts do not like to force sharing between rivals like that, but on the other hand, the judge seemed very concerned about how Google’s conduct has deprived its rivals of what they really need to compete—scale in search data,” she says. “Forcing data sharing would directly address that concern.”

Potential shareable data could include all the queries that users are running on Google and which results they are clicking, DuckDuckGo’s Bazbaz says.

Another option would have Google hold on to its data while instead providing a service on a nondiscriminatory basis, with adequate customer support, for other apps to pull results from Google and present them to users as part of a competing experience. Rivals have called Google’s existing offering in this regard inadequate.

“Only a multipronged remedy will allow rivals to enter the market and fairly compete for consumers based on the merits of their own product,” says Lee Hepner, senior counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, an anti-monopoly advocacy group.

Any approach that involves Google sharing data is likely to raise questions about its users’ privacy. Strengthened rivals also would have a better shot at securing defaults, meaning those who’d rather use Google would again have to take a few more steps to get back to regular old Google.

Increase Oversight

It’s up to the Justice Department to propose to Mehta potential remedies, which Google would then get a chance to rebut. Neither side has previewed what it wants.

In some other antitrust battles, Google has found ways to design product and policy changes to continue to limit competition in part by making competing unaffordable for rivals. “Google will do anything it can to get in the way of progress,” Bazbaz says. That’s why he hopes Mehta establishes a monitoring body to administer the remedies and hold Google to their spirit.

Bazbaz also wants to see Google have to invest in public education initiatives to let users know about the benefits they can get from switching search engines. With oversight and PR measures in place, users may have no choice but to hear about the Google Search antitrust case for a long time to come.

[taikeero-lecoredier]

Chat control email script (english)

Subject line: "2022/0155(COD)

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my grave concerns regarding the proposed introduction of "Chat Control,", also known as CSAM regulation This measure poses a serious threat to the privacy and fundamental rights of all EU citizens and stands in stark contradiction to the core principles that the European Union seeks to uphold.

Violation of Fundamental Rights

The proposed Chat Control contravenes Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which guarantee the right to respect for private and family life and the protection of personal data. The indiscriminate surveillance of private messages without specific suspicion or cause directly violates these fundamental rights. Contradiction to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out stringent rules for the processing of personal data. The proposed indiscriminate surveillance and scanning of private messages before end-to-end encryption is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation enshrined in the GDPR. Specifically, Articles 5 and 6 of the GDPR, which govern the lawfulness and principles of data processing, would be violated by the introduction of such measures.

Technical and Ethical Concerns The implementation of Client-Side Scanning (CSS) on devices means that all messages and files are scanned on the user's device before being encrypted and sent. This effectively nullifies the protection offered by end-to-end encryption and opens the door to misuse and additional security vulnerabilities. Moreover, the technical capability to scan such content could be exploited by malicious actors to circumvent or by taking advantage of surveillance mechanisms Threat to Freedom of Expression and Trust in Digital Communication

Such far-reaching surveillance measures endanger not only privacy but also freedom of expression. The knowledge that their private messages are being scanned and monitored could significantly restrict individuals' willingness to freely express themselves. Additionally, trust in digital communication platforms would be severely undermined.

Call to Action

I urge you to take a strong stance against this disproportionate and unlawful measure. The privacy and digital rights of EU citizens must be safeguarded. It is imperative that we protect our fundamental rights and ensure transparency in the decision-making processes of our leaders.

Furthermore, given the current war happening in Ukraine, installing back doors in private communications would create more security vulnerabilities that Russia could exploit in order to launch cyber attacks within Europe and steal essential data. American officials have been recommending their citizens to use encrypted messaging following the multiple cyber attacks that targeted 8 telecom providers, including Verizon according to this article : https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-officials-urge-americans-use-encrypted-apps-cyberattack-rcna182694

For more detailed information on the Chat Control proposal and its implications, please refer to the following resource: https://edri.org/our-work/dutch-decision-puts-brakes-on-chat-control/

Thank you for your attention to this critical matter.

Sincerely,

[Name]

Art. 10 GG , Art. 8 & 11 EU Charta , Art. 8 EMRK ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

( This is the kind of arguments you can use when contacting your officials. I don't have a phone script ready yet,but you should familiarize yourself with your meps / prime ministers and tell them to keep opposing Chat Control,no matter what country you are in. It's best that you translate this script in your own language when contacting your officials and reword some parts so it doesnt sound repetitive if they are going to receive similar emails of that nature. )

Find your meps : https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search/advanced?

If anyone knows a site where all the EU prime ministers are listed, let me know ! If you have no clue what im takling about,please check this post : https://www.tumblr.com/taikeero-lecoredier/769688553496215552/okayso-good-news-chat-control-still-didnt?source=share

[digitalproductsservice]

Trump hosts Apple CEO at Mar-a-Lago as big tech leaders continue outreach to president-elect

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump hosted Apple CEO Tim Cook for a Friday evening dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Cook is the latest in a string of big tech leaders — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — who have sought to improve their standing with the incoming president after choppy relations with Trump during his first term.

Trump has said he has spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union.

The meeting comes less than two months after Trump said he spoke to Cook by phone, and soon after Apple lost its last appeal in a dispute with the EU over 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland.

“He said the European Union has just fined us $15 billion,” Trump recalled of his conversation with Cook, in an October interview with podcaster Patrick Bet-David. “Then on top of that they got fined by the European Union another $2 billion.”

The decision by the EU top court was the finale to a dispute that centered on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multinational businesses with minimal taxes across the 27-nation bloc. The European Commission in 2016 ruled that Ireland granted Apple unlawful aid that Ireland was required to recover.

Trump’s transition team and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his dinner with Cook.

[ellie-the-oracle]

The Bad Batch Season 3 - A New Theory and the future for Tech

Spoilers ahead!

Hey you guys! So I've previously discussed how I believe that the operative character could be Tech and how that affirms my winter soldier theory. However, I am here to retract that statement as I do not believe that it makes sense narratively, as it would either copy Crosshair's story or Echo's story. I propose a new theory: the operative is not Tech, but rather Cody. Let me explain why.

Firstly, we now know (via Crosshair's confirmation) that the program Hemlock is running does not work on defective clones, as they attempted and failed to integrate Cross into said program. This would rule out Tech as he was also a defective clone.

Secondly, and more prevalently, we know (from Rebels) that some event needs to push Rex over the edge and make him quit his efforts of saving other clones. I suspect that this event could be an encounter with a brainwashed Cody, and perhaps a botched operation to Tantiss resulting in a lot of casualties.

Thirdly, why do I think it's Cody? While it's true that we were told in season two how he went "awol" (albeit by an unreliable source), that doesn't necessarily mean he escaped, it just means that he defied the Empire. We also know that this operative program is designed to repurpose defiant clones. I also want to point out how the operatives voice, while warped through a modulator, sounded like a reg, instead of a higher pitched, vaguely English accent.

Lastly, Tech has been mentioned only once in this season, briefly in conversation. Yes, Cody isn't mentioned at all but I'll get to that. The end of season two, in my opinion, felt like a lazy write off of Tech's character (in an attempt to elicit reactions from fans), that essentially served as a "wrap up" of his story (more on this in a moment). Cody's story is still a loose end though. It's also important to mention that in the EU, Cody was used as the template for the dark troopers.

Now onto the discussion of where this leaves Tech. Well...I think he's dead for good. Trust me when I say that deeply hurts me beyond words. I have related to and deeply bonded with Tech's character, so to me, his death was very real and painful, and I'm honestly still having a hard time with it (I was literally sobbing about it the other day). Unfortunately, I just do not believe that the writers of this show are capable of what the writers of Lucasfilm era Clone Wars were capable of (please dkm, this is just my personal opinion). I'm sorry but I just don't have faith in Disney, not after the sequels and most (if not all) of the live action shows they've put out. Yes, Tech should, logically, 100% be alive...if they were good writers. He has a potential love interest, a family and a potential peaceful life to live on Pabuu to return to. There are so many plot holes that would remain unanswered, and would be extremely disappointing. Tech's story is largely unfinished. Should he be dead for good, it will show the utter lack of writing talent that Disney possesses and a lack of care or respect for fans.

Apologies for the spicy takes at the end. Again these are just my personal opinions and experiences. No hate to anyone who enjoys any of those shows/movies.

[follow-up-news]

Google lost its last bid to overturn a European Union antitrust penalty, after the bloc’s top court ruled against it Tuesday in a case that came with a whopping fine and helped jumpstart an era of intensifying scrutiny for Big Tech companies. The European Union’s top court rejected Google’s appeal against the 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, for violating antitrust rules with its comparison shopping service. Also Tuesday, Apple lost its challenge against an order to repay 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, after the European Court of Justice issued a separate decision siding with the commission in a case targeting unlawful state aid for global corporations. Both companies have now exhausted their appeals in the cases that date to the previous decade.

[darkmaga-returns]

Go ahead. Play the cat, trapped in a simulacrum, chasing the laser pointer around the house. The biggest story of 2024 will also be the biggest story of 2025: that we are perilously close to full-blown Technocracy. Hemingway famously quipped, “How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” Totalitarianism is like that. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.

As the embers of 2024 spit out their dying sparks and tendrils of smoke corkscrew into 2025, I want to ask: what were the important news stories of this year?

Most people will say something international. The war in Ukraine, the atrocities in Gaza, the fall of Assad.

Maybe some will cite elections, it was a big year for voting after all. A global shift-change in the corridors of power saw a dozen governments swapped out for new faces, with 2 weeks of the year left it’s still possible Trudeau, Macron or Scholz may join the procession.

The tech minded might talk about advancements in Artificial Intelligence.

Those are the big stories of 2024. The banner headlines. Sound and fury and all that signifies. But were they the most important?

No, the important story of 2024 was The Great Reset.

Remember that? It was this pan-global supranational plan to tear down and then rebuild society in a “sustainable”, “inclusive”, “fair” and “secure” way that would – totally accidentally – eradicate civil liberties and individual freedom for every single person on the planet.

It was all the rage a few years ago, you might remember. But when it didn’t go over too well with a lot of people, the powers that be dropped the subject and there’s been very little talk about it since 2022.

Does that mean it’s gone away?

We need to have “object permanence” in politics as in all things. Something doesn’t cease to exist just because you can’t see it anymore. The world doesn’t vanish when you close your eyes.

The Great Reset is still the plan.

It’s still happening. It’s just distributed now. A compartmentalized strategy uploaded to the cloud, everywhere and nowhere. A million nanobots working a million angles to change a million tiny rules and build a million tiny cells.

Like the end of The Usual Suspects, stand the right distance back and you can see the pattern.

Just last week, the UK’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty published his annual health report. What does he recommend? Sin taxes on “unhealthy” foods and 15 minute cities. Labour have already increased “sin taxes” on sugar, salt, alcohol and tobacco. Next comes red meat, dairy and just “carbon” in general.

Earlier this year the UK introduced licensing for keeping chickens. They banned smoking too.

By 2035 it will be impossible to buy a new petrol car in the UK. Or the EU. Or Canada. Or New Zealand. Or Australia. Or Mexico. Or South Africa. Or California, and 11 other US states.

From that point you and your car will be anchored to charging points. Even better your new car will probably have automatic drive features, speed limiters – oh and remote kill switches.

This week, all of sudden, the news tells us that wood burning stoves cause cancer. A ban is already being discussed. Since coal is already a no-no for domestic users (since 2023), there effectively goes your last chance of energy and heat independence. If they ban stoves there will be no heating available to you that can’t be hooked up to a smart meter, surveilled, controlled.

Unless you count burning a candle inside a plant pot. And they’re coming for those too.

The much-publicised murder of Sara Sharif has already been parlayed into a new bill taking away parents “automatic right to homeschool their children” – if the state deems them “vulnerable”.

Digital IDs are coming for everyone from everywhere. Here’s just a selection of reasons –

To secure the border and ensure electoral integrity in the US.

To protect children on social media in Australia.

To promote efficiency in the EU.

To combat illegal immigration in the UK.

To track migrant workers in Russia.

Because they said so in China.

[beardedmrbean]

Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU for breaking competition laws over music streaming.

The firm had prevented streaming services from informing users of payment options outside the Apple app store, the European Commission said.

Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple abused its dominant position in the market for a decade.

She ordered the US tech giant to remove all the restrictions. Apple has said it will appeal against the decision.

The European Commission's decision was triggered by a complaint by Swedish music streaming service Spotify, which was unhappy about the restriction and Apple's 30% fee..

Ms Vestager said Apple had restricted "developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem".

"This is illegal under EU antitrust rules," she said.

However, Apple said it would appeal, adding there was no evidence consumers had been harmed.

"The decision was reached despite the Commission's failure to uncover any credible evidence of consumer harm, and ignores the realities of a market that is thriving, competitive, and growing fast," the company said in a statement.

"The primary advocate for this decision, and the biggest beneficiary, is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden.

"Spotify has the largest music streaming app in the world, and has met with the EC [European Commission] more than 65 times during this investigation," it said.

Spotify attacks Apple's 'outrageous' 27% commission

Spotify called the fine handed out to Apple "an important moment" and said it sent "a powerful message" that "no company, not even a monopoly like Apple, can wield power abusively to control how other companies interact with their customers".

Apple said the Swedish company pays no commission to them as it sells its subscriptions on its website and not on the app store.

Spotify had argued that the restrictions benefit Apple's rival music streaming service, Apple Music.

Digital Markets Act

In January, Apple announced plans to allow EU customers to download apps outside of their own app store, as the introduction of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) drew closer.

The aim of the European Union's DMA is to help competition in the technology sector and to try to break down the stronghold the likes of Apple and Google have on the market.

The tech companies were given six months from August last year to comply with a full list of requirements under the new legislation, or face a fine of up to 10% of their annual turnover.

The firms have until later this week to comply with a raft of changes announced since the start of the year, as Apple, Meta and TikTok pursue challenges to aspects of the law.

Law professor at EDHEC, Anne Witt, told the BBC the DMA will have a "significant impact" on the way designated platforms operate within the EU.

"It is a more effective but also much blunter legal tool in the fight against market concentration in the digital economy," she said.

Last week, Spotify and 33 other companies operating across a wide range of digital sectors wrote to the European Commission with a renewed attack on Apple's "lack of compliance" with the DMA.

"Apple's new terms not only disregard both the spirit and letter of the law, but if left unchanged, make a mockery of the DMA and the considerable efforts by the European Commission and EU institutions to make digital markets competitive," it said.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Marketing News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

A US court ruled that Google is a monopoly, and has broken antitrust laws. This decision will be appealed, but in the meantime, could affect similar cases against large tech giants. 

Did you violate a Facebook policy? Meta is now offering a “training course” in lieu of having the page’s reach limited for Professional Mode users. 

Google Ads shown in Canada will have a 2.5% surcharge applied as of October 1, due to new Canadian tax laws.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Search Engine Roundtable’s Google report for July is out; we’re still waiting for the next core update. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta’s latest legal development: a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas over facial recognition and privacy.  

Instagram

Instagram is highlighting “Views” in its metrics in an attempt to get creators to focus on reach instead of follower numbers. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is testing outside ads on the site. The ad auction system would include revenue sharing. 

Reddit

Reddit confirmed that anyone who wants to use Reddit posts for AI training and other data collection will need to pay for them, just as Google and OpenAI did. 

Second quarter 2024 was great for Reddit, with revenue growth of 54%. Like almost every other platform, they are planning on using AI in their search results, perhaps to summarize content. 

Threads

Threads now claims over 200 million active users.

TikTok

TikTok is now adding group chats, which can include up to 32 people.

TikTok is being sued by the US Federal Trade Commission, for allowing children under 13 to sign up and have their data harvested. 

Twitter

Twitter seems to be working on the payments option Musk promised last year. Tweets by users in the EU will at least temporarily be pulled from the AI-training for “Grok”, in line with EU law.

CONTENT MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Email software Mad Mimi is shutting down as of August 30. Owner GoDaddy is hoping to move users to its GoDaddy Digital Marketing setup. 

Content ideas for September include National Dog Week. 

You can now post on Substack without having an actual newsletter, as the platform tries to become more like a social media site. 

As of November, Patreon memberships started in the iOS app will be subject to a 30% surcharge from Apple. Patreon is giving creators the ability to add that charge to the member's bill, or pay it themselves.

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google worked with Meta to break the search engine’s rules on advertising to children through a loophole that showed ads for Instagram to YouTube viewers in the 13-17 year old demographic. Google says they have stopped the campaign, and that “We prohibit ads being personalized to people under-18, period”.

Google’s Performance Max ads now have new tools, including some with AI. 

Microsoft’s search and news advertising revenue was up 19% in the second quarter, a very good result for them. 

One of the interesting tidbits from the recent Google antitrust decision is that Amazon sells more advertising than either Google or Meta’s slice of retail ads. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

More than half of Gen Z claim to have bought items while spending time on social media in the past half year, higher than other generations. 

Shopify’s president claimed that Christmas shopping started in July on their millions of sites, with holiday decor and ornament sales doubling, and advent calendar sales going up a whopping 4,463%.

[mrbubblyurchin]

Adapting Republic Commando into canon

Yes. I am doing this for fun.

RC was written for the EU, so I thought it could be fun to try to adapt some of its story into the current canon. In fact, there are only a few issues that need to be solved for this to work! Let’s begin.

1- Twi’Leks and Humans can breed

This was a rule that took place in Legends, but obviously we known Kanan and Hera had Jacen in Canon, which means there is now no reason as to why Atin and Laseema cannot.

2- CSF

In the EU, the CSF were pretty popular as the police force more than the Coruscant Guard. I figured that this doesn’t change anything in particular, maybe just that Kal says he prefers working with the CSF over the CG because he has Obrim in the CSF

3- Mandalore

So, obviously Mandalore from the EU and Mandalore from the Clone Wars are… different. Well I have a solution to this. The clones were created in 32 BBY, which was during the Phantom Menace. AKA, after Obi-Wan met Satine, well, after Sabine’s well established rule, she created Mandalore as pacifists. But, for the sake of this universe, a group of Mandalorians went to form their own ‘Mandalore’ on Kyrimorut to adhere to their more traditional Mandalorian values. Jango ruled this new Mandalore for a short time, explaining why Shysa wanted his heir, and why Shysa eventually becomes a Mandalorian ruler. This place would still be Mandalore to them, but it would be separate from the actual Mandalore of the Clone Wars Series.

Kyrimorut= New Mandalore= From Republic Commando

Mandalore= Actual Mandalore= From The Clone Wars

4- Spaarti Clones

So obviously the Spaarti Clones bred by Palps don’t exist in canon. So we are changing them to the most recent batch of clone troopers shipped off Kamino at the end of the war. Maybe still made with second generation Jango DNA. Instead of investigating the Spaarti clones, maybe Besany can find something related to Order 66. Which brings me to my next point…

5- Order 66

This is the biggest issue of canonization within the series. Because in the EU, there were no inhibitor chips. The clones just followed orders. So… what does that do here? Well… there are a few solutions.

Solution One is that they didn’t listen. The Nulls are already incredibly deviant when it comes to orders, so not a real problem there. Omega Squad is iffy, because they weren’t around any Jedi when it happened, but they knew they were going to meet up with Etain, who was a known Jedi. I could see Darman still fighting the chip, but not really for Niner, Atin, or Corr. Fi doesn’t matter since he isn’t wearing his trooper armor, and therefore doesn’t receive Order 66.

Solution Two is better. And it’s that Besany discovered the inhibitor chips based on the same report made by Rex that Ahsoka watched. She managed to access Anakin’s database or whatever cause Jaing tech skills for the win. While she did not discover the purpose of the chips or anything, she discovered they were there, and Kal hated having those chips inside his boys’ heads, and had them be removed as soon as possible in secret. Not to protect the Jedi, but just because Kal didn’t want the Kaminoans to be able to control his sons in any way. Then, when Order 66 rolled around, none of them obeyed.

So, yeah. That’s my idea on adapting RC into canon. Thank you for reading!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Reverse engineers bust sleazy gig work platform

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/23/hack-the-class-war/#robo-boss

A COMPUTER CAN NEVER BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER MAKE A MANAGEMENT DECISION

Supposedly, these lines were included in a 1979 internal presentation at IBM; screenshots of them routinely go viral:

https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1385565737167724545?lang=en

The reason for their newfound popularity is obvious: the rise and rise of algorithmic management tools, in which your boss is an app. That IBM slide is right: turning an app into your boss allows your actual boss to create an "accountability sink" in which there is no obvious way to blame a human or even a company for your maltreatment:

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

App-based management-by-bossware treats the bug identified by the unknown author of that IBM slide into a feature. When an app is your boss, it can force you to scab:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

Or it can steal your wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

But tech giveth and tech taketh away. Digital technology is infinitely flexible: the program that spies on you can be defeated by another program that defeats spying. Every time your algorithmic boss hacks you, you can hack your boss back:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Technologists and labor organizers need one another. Even the most precarious and abused workers can team up with hackers to disenshittify their robo-bosses:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For every abuse technology brings to the workplace, there is a liberating use of technology that workers unleash by seizing the means of computation:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/13/solidarity-forever/#tech-unions

One tech-savvy group on the cutting edge of dismantling the Torment Nexus is Algorithms Exposed, a tiny, scrappy group of EU hacker/academics who recruit volunteers to reverse engineer and modify the algorithms that rule our lives as workers and as customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/10/e2e/#the-censors-pen

Algorithms Exposed have an admirable supply of seemingly boundless energy. Every time I check in with them, I learn that they've spun out yet another special-purpose subgroup. Today, I learned about Reversing Works, a hacking team that reverse engineers gig work apps, revealing corporate wrongdoing that leads to multimillion euro fines for especially sleazy companies.

One such company is Foodinho, an Italian subsidiary of the Spanish food delivery company Glovo. Foodinho/Glovo has been in the crosshairs of Italian labor enforcers since before the pandemic, racking up millions in fines – first for failing to file the proper privacy paperwork disclosing the nature of the data processing in the app that Foodinho riders use to book jobs. Then, after the Italian data commission investigated Foodinho, the company attracted new, much larger fines for its out-of-control surveillance conduct.

As all of this was underway, Reversing Works was conducting its own research into Glovo/Foodinho's app, running it on a simulated Android handset inside a PC so they could peer into app's data collection and processing. They discovered a nightmarish world of pervasive, illegal worker surveillance, and published their findings a year ago in November, 2023:

https://www.etui.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/Exercising%20workers%20rights%20in%20algorithmic%20management%20systems_Lessons%20learned%20from%20the%20Glovo-Foodinho%20digital%20labour%20platform%20case_2023.pdf

That report reveals all kinds of extremely illegal behavior. Glovo/Foodinho makes its riders' data accessible across national borders, so Glovo managers outside of Italy can access fine-grained surveillance information and sensitive personal information – a major data protection no-no.

Worse, Glovo's app embeds trackers from a huge number of other tech platforms (for chat, analytics, and more), making it impossible for the company to account for all the ways that its riders' data is collected – again, a requirement under Italian and EU data protection law.

All this data collection continues even when riders have clocked out for the day – its as though your boss followed you home after quitting time and spied on you.

The research also revealed evidence of a secretive worker scoring system that ranked workers based on undisclosed criteria and reserved the best jobs for workers with high scores. This kind of thing is pervasive in algorithmic management, from gig work to Youtube and Tiktok, where performers' videos are routinely suppressed because they crossed some undisclosed line. When an app is your boss, your every paycheck is docked because you violated a policy you're not allowed to know about, because if you knew why your boss was giving you shitty jobs, or refusing to show the video you spent thousands of dollars making to the subscribers who asked to see it, then maybe you could figure out how to keep your boss from detecting your rulebreaking next time.

All this data-collection and processing is bad enough, but what makes it all a thousand times worse is Glovo's data retention policy – they're storing this data on their workers for four years after the worker leaves their employ. That means that mountains of sensitive, potentially ruinous data on gig workers is just lying around, waiting to be stolen by the next hacker that breaks into the company's servers.

Reversing Works's report made quite a splash. A year after its publication, the Italian data protection agency fined Glovo another 5 million euros and ordered them to cut this shit out:

https://reversing.works/posts/2024/11/press-release-reversing.works-investigation-exposes-glovos-data-privacy-violations-marking-a-milestone-for-worker-rights-and-technology-accountability/

As the report points out, Italy is extremely well set up to defend workers' rights from this kind of bossware abuse. Not only do Italian enforcers have all the privacy tools created by the GDPR, the EU's flagship privacy regulation – they also have the benefit of Italy's 1970 Workers' Statute. The Workers Statute is a visionary piece of legislation that protects workers from automated management practices. Combined with later privacy regulation, it gave Italy's data regulators sweeping powers to defend Italian workers, like Glovo's riders.

Italy is also a leader in recognizing gig workers as de facto employees, despite the tissue-thin pretense that adding an app to your employment means that you aren't entitled to any labor protections. In the case of Glovo, the fine-grained surveillance and reputation scoring were deemed proof that Glovo was employer to its riders.

Reversing Works' report is a fascinating read, especially the sections detailing how the researchers recruited a Glovo rider who allowed them to log in to Glovo's platform on their account.

As Reversing Works points out, this bottom-up approach – where apps are subjected to technical analysis – has real potential for labor organizations seeking to protect workers. Their report established multiple grounds on which a union could seek to hold an abusive employer to account.

But this bottom-up approach also holds out the potential for developing direct-action tools that let workers flex their power, by modifying apps, or coordinating their actions to wring concessions out of their bosses.

After all, the whole reason for the gig economy is to slash wage-bills, by transforming workers into contractors, and by eliminating managers in favor of algorithms. This leaves companies extremely vulnerable, because when workers come together to exercise power, their employer can't rely on middle managers to pressure workers, deal with irate customers, or step in to fill the gap themselves:

https://projects.itforchange.net/state-of-big-tech/changing-dynamics-of-labor-and-capital/

Only by seizing the means of computation, workers and organized labor can turn the tables on bossware – both by directly altering the conditions of their employment, and by producing the evidence and tools that regulators can use to force employers to make those alterations permanent.

Image: EFF (modified) https://www.eff.org/files/issues/eu-flag-11_1.png

CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

[mariacallous]

Elon Musk is a ‘promoter of evil,’ EU rule-of-law chief says

BRUSSELS — Elon Musk, unlike other tech bosses, "is not able to recognize good and evil,” a European Union top official said Wednesday.

The multibillionaire tech mogul and boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX is amplifying hatred, outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told POLITICO in an interview, calling him a “promoter of evil.”

Musk has been on a collision course with European officials, fighting regulators and governments on multiple fronts. The tech mogul bought Twitter in April 2022, rebranding it as X shortly after, and he has attracted criticism for his management of the platform, with European politicians and civil society saying he has allowed hate speech to fester on the site.

“We started to relativize evil, and he's helping it proactively. He's the promoter of evil,” Jourová said.

The Czech politician, who was the EU’s justice chief from 2014-2019 and has been in charge of “values and transparency” since 2019, has had regular contact with many of the world’s largest technology companies over the last decade on issues like privacy, disinformation and content moderation. 

Big tech companies have “monstrous power in their hands,” Jourová said. “I'm really scared by digital platforms in bad hands."

X is “the main hub for spreading antisemitism now,” Jourová said, adding that she warned ministers from EU capitals on Tuesday to be vigilant to the possibility of online antisemitism spilling over into the real world. 

“Now we are in the situation where the member states’ law enforcement powers have to protect the people who are under threat, under physical threat,” she said. “This is what I mean ... This new chapter, new intensity of antisemitism, where we don't see sufficient action from the side of the platforms.”

Jourová has never met Musk in person, but said that “even without this personal meeting, I would say that out of all the bosses I met, he is the only one who is not able to recognize good and evil.” 

The EU’s former internal market chief Thierry Breton did meet Musk in California in 2022, and since clashed with him publicly over Musk’s approach to online content moderation. 

X did not respond to a request for comment.

Regulation vs. innovation

Jourová also dismissed the increasingly popular narrative that Brussels' overregulation has stifled tech innovation.

The EU passed a raft of digital legislation over the last five years, leading some of the world’s largest technology companies to argue that they cannot launch AI tools and other innovative products in the bloc because they don’t know how the new laws work together or how they will be enforced. 

But innovation for innovation’s sake is not necessarily desirable, Jourová said: “We have to be sure that the innovations are developed to do good to people.”

She said she wondered why innovation was typically "described as something absolutely good, [and] regulations as something which is bad … It's not black and white."

Big tech companies’ vast profits should not be at the expense of Europeans, Jourová said — even if that means product-launch delays. “Nobody says that Google and others cannot introduce new technologies in Europe. Maybe, one, two months, half a year later than somewhere else, but we want to be sure,” she said. 

Jourová led work on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a landmark privacy regime that went into force in 2018 and remains one of the EU’s most famous — and infamous — laws. 

Though the EU recently passed the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, the GDPR often remains the main target of tech companies' ire, particularly because of how it is interpreted. The question of whether the law will need to be changed in the next five years is a key issue for incoming Commission tech chief Henna Virkkunen, Jourová said. 

“I think in [terms of] GDPR, we will have to look again at how to better enforce under the principle of one continent, one law,” she said. 

Jourová, who is leaving Brussels after 10 years at the Berlaymont, joked that she was returning to Prague as a “dissident,” given she left her own ANO party, which has turned more illiberal under former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. 

The return of the Euroskeptic Babiš, who is currently leading the polls ahead of next year's Czech election, would strengthen the illiberal forces in the EU, given Babiš’ ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. 

Jourová dismissed rumors that she would start her own political movement to take on her former boss. Instead, she will return to her alma mater, Charles University in Prague, in a management and teaching role.

[vivaciousdomo]

Come to the Fediverse transmasc friends

You can learn more about the fediverse and mastodon here: https://fedi.tips/ In a nutshell, instead of one massive site where everyone signs up, like tumblr, facebook, instagram, x, etc, it's a series of smaller sites (called instances) that are all connected.

A good place to sign up is blorbo.social or eldritch.cafe (also have made some wonderful friends over at cooltrans.men.

We have free binders and are friendly: An offer of new binders

We also do old binder give aways: Free used binders other benefits

There are no ads.

servers can be hosted in more data privacy friendly locations like the EU

still uses hashtags like it's tumblr or old twitter

The moderation is done by the community and not a faceless corporation. You can chat directly with the moderators of any instance.

nazis can be blocked easier, because you can block entire domains full of nazis at once.

if you don't like your instance, you can move and take your followers and people you follow with you to the new instance.

custom emojis

cozy community

alt text on about 70-75% of images (100% depending on the instance rules)

instances centered around specific stuff like fandoms, or gardening, or tech, being trans or whatever you want Also, *ahem*, some of really like BG3 and could use more fandom friends. If you need help, let me know.

[cultml]

...Ultimately, the crisis of trust is a crisis of civilization. In May Contain Lies, Edmans recounts an experiment in which subjects are invited to drink apple juice from a bedpan that they know is perfectly clean; 72% of them flatly refuse. This is rational behavior. Heuristics, or rules of thumb, obviate thinking and enable us to live fuller lives. And, as McLean shows, trade is a supremely human activity. Trade enables specialization, and specialization enables the development of knowledge expertise. We all lose when expertise is discredited by being politicized and harnessed to a public policy agenda. A necessary condition for restoring trust in expertise is free expression by experts and nonexperts alike free of intimidation. This condition was absent during the pandemic and continues to this day. It has been absent for many years in discussions on climate change, as both Stuart Kirk and climate scientist Judith Curry, drummed out of her position at Georgia Tech, can testify. Despite the weight of the forces arrayed against them and the power of climate catastrophism to silence dissent, opponents of ESG and stakeholder capitalism have succeeded in checking its advance. True, the battle is lost in the EU and, for the time being, in Britain, but the fact that the CEO of the world’s largest investment manager refrains from using the word “ESG” says something, as does the withdrawal of a number of large financial institutions from climate action groups

[head-post]

Apple changes EU app store policy after Commission probe

Apple changed its policy in the EU to allow developers to communicate with their customers outside its App Store, Euractiv reported.

The move came after the commission accused the company in June of violating the bloc’s technical rules. The Commission said that under most business terms, Apple only allowed management through “link-outs.” In other words, app developers can include a link in their app that redirects a customer to a web page where the customer can sign a contract. Apple stated that developers would now be able to communicate and promote offers from within their app, not just on their own website.

However, Apple will introduce two new fees, an initial 5% fee for new users and a 10% shop service fee on any sales made by app users on any platform within 12 months of installing the app. The company currently charges three types of fees: a basic technology fee for less than 1% of apps, a reduced fee for all digital goods and services sold through the App Store, and an optional fee for payments and commerce services.

The two new fees will replace the reduced fee for all digital goods and services sold through the App Store. However, a Spotify spokesperson criticised Apple’s new policy.

At first glance, by demanding as much as a 25% fee for basic communication with users, Apple once again blatantly disregards the fundamental requirements of the Digital Markets Act.

A Commission official also claimed that Apple went beyond what was strictly necessary for such a remuneration.

We will assess Apple’s eventual changes to the compliance measures, also taking into account any feedback from the market, notably developers.

The charge against Apple is the first brought by the Commission under its Digital Markets Act. The legislation is designed to curb the power of big tech, with violations potentially subject to fines of up to 10 per cent of a company’s global annual turnover.

Read more HERE