“Brussels is set to widen its front against US tech companies just two weeks after the launch of its landmark competition case against Google by initiating a separate probe into a wider range of online platforms,” Duncan Robinson and Alex Barker report for The Financial Times.
“The move marks a first step towards tighter EU regulation of the internet and comes with the European Commission under pressure from France and Germany to take a tougher line on tech groups such as Amazon and Google,” Robinson and Barker report. “In a draft plan for a ‘digital single market’ encompassing everything from online shopping to telecoms regulation, the commission said it would probe how online platforms list search results and how they use customer data. The latest draft of the plan, seen by the FT, will be approved by the commission next week.”
“The plan could also bring in stricter rules for video-on-demand services such as Netflix and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Skype that have become big rivals to traditional European media and telecoms companies,” Robinson and Barker report. “Companies such as Airbnb and Uber are also likely to be roped into any investigation into platforms, which will aim to determine whether they are abusing their market power in the so-called ‘sharing economy.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: A wide-ranging, far-reaching “plan” for “EU regulation of the internet.” Yum.
This phrase suddenly occurs to me:
WITCH HUNT!
Climbing sales curve for torches and pitchforks.
No entity deserves to be “probed” more than Google.
Probed indeed- with very long and sharp objects.
Suggestion:
Suggestion: Anarchy. See who lasts.
The US government is sooooooo great and the US comnpanies are sooooooooooooo great and this EU thing is sooooooooo stupid and Europe and Europeans are sooooooo stupid and should just shut the fuck up and accept all things American and stop whining. And if American companies spy on people it should read on US citizens for the so called freedom fighters and freedom of speech warriors mean “for US citizens”. Heil US and US companies, we bow to you in submission.
Que the: We saved your ass in 1945……add infinitum
Heh.
Meanwhile: If the TPP and TTIP treaties go through, we’ll be living in a whole new world of global corporatocracy. Heil Monsanto, Heil News Corp, Heil Viacom, Heil Comcast, Heil Verizon, Heil Sony, Heil Universal, Heil Haliburton, ad nauseam. Very serious nausea indeed.
:-Q**#*$**@*****
Let’s fast track that!
Let me say I was mighty disappointed when a few months ago everyone realized the US companies were spying on us all and all I heard was how bad it was that US companies spy on their own. Yes, that is bad, but normal non-US citizens should also be protected. Yep, TTIP etc sounds like a very bad plan to me, as is often the case with ideas that sound reasonable enough but when thought through are not so favorable…..
Well, well, well. I guess there is no free market anywhere in the world. Pay taxes here, pay taxes there. Every company should more their accounts to Switzerland. The Swiss deserve it. Great infrastructure, free medical, cheap college, 35% taxes. We will pay for their social services.
Their bankers are great, like Milburn Drysdale, we all need a Mr. Drysdale to watch our money and keep us from wasting it.