I agree, except the DMA specifically only applies to companies over a specific size. I think if the German newspapers were at FB/Apple scale, in terms of number of users, then the DMA would apply (i.e. they would be designated gatekeepers or similar) and they could also be fined. Although I think pay for no ads is also a violation of GDPR maybe?
Exactly. While DMA does not apply, GDPR does. But it gets ignored and weakened by decision against the letter and the spirit of the law - which does not surprise if you realize how much power those legacy publishers hold. Not so FB, not here at least.
So it's not exactly the same regulation but pretty much the same situation. I'd also be pissed.
GDPR does not purport to outlaw targeted advertising. It just purports to require that the target consent.
In pretty much every other area of law in most of the world (including Europe) consent can be bought--the party requesting consent gives the consenter something in exchange for consent, and will not give that thing unless consent is given.
But under the rulings from some regulators that doesn't work for GDPR. Consent is apparently only considered to be freely given if withholding it would not result in any detriment such as not getting the same level of service or having to pay money for service.
If regulators want to outlaw targeted advertising it would be a lot better if they just did that, instead of making consent in GDPR work differently from how it has worked for pretty much everything else pretty much everywhere for centuries.
That's not entirely fair. The concept of duress exists and is always at odds with consent in a transactional setting. The issue is where to draw the boundary between "you freely chose to do business" and "you were coerced into accepting unfavorable terms".
I'm inclined to think that "pay or be tracked" is usually the former. The issue was never that I shouldn't have to pay but rather that I wasn't given the choice in the first place.
That would probably work if it wasn't already such an established business model. The grocery store hires a bouncer to not let me in unless he can take a picture of my ID? Fine... I'll go across the street.
But since it already is established that the Internet works this way, all grocery stores in town are already doing this. I might not want to but I still have to. Moreover, it's been firmly impressed upon everyone that they have to show ID to enter a grocery store, so if I created a new one that didn't, people would just continue going to their closest one anyway. To improve this situation, something more drastic than free competition is needed (if that could work, it already would have).
In this analogy the grocery stores pretty much all started offering the option to pay a cover charge and not have your ID checked. They believed this complied with the new laws but the regulator is making noises that this isn't good enough - that they have to make ID checks optional even for customers that won't pay.
So the question is, does charging you to not have your ID checked count as coercion or is it a voluntary choice? Or alternatively, does it have a detrimental effect on society at large? Is it somehow unfair to the individual? I'd tend to think that the answer to those questions would depend a lot on motivations - the funding model, the size of the fee, and how much money they make if they track you.
In the case of a newspaper they have to make money somehow. If readers aren't willing to pay I don't immediately see how offering a free tier that has advertisements with tracking is detrimental to society or unfair to the individual.
> When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, inter alia, the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract.
Don't blame the regulators, it's pretty clear that "paying" with consent is a no-go from the text itself.
Surely there is a middle ground where its at least possible to install apps that apple haven't approved[1]? I also like the idea of the _higher_ bar that the app store is supposed to have (not that this bar is always met), but the lack of any alternative is really crappy.
I don't think any current flow in the water is deliberate. The heating comes from the resistive heating of the coil. The issue (i think) is the coil being uninsulated, allowing some current to leak out through the water, hence the tingling sensation others have mentioned.
Probably not much harder, but you wouldn't get the same massive jump in quality that you get going from 1 image to 2. NeRF/Gaussian Splatting in general is what you're describing, but from the looks of it, this just does it in a single forward pass rather than optimising the gaussian/network weights.
I thought, (although the rules might have changed), that Apple explicitly forbids having different prices between your website and the app, and will kick you out of the store if it finds you doing this?
According to this article Spotify was charging 30% more on iOS all the way back until 2016 with multiple other prominent examples still existing today, so I don't think that this is true or at least hasn't been true since at least 8 years: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaharziv/2020/07/08/heres-why-...
Isn't part of the problem how US anti-monopoly law is worded requiring proof of "consumer harm" which is normally measured in increased costs? In the case of Apple's monopoly, its not clear how you would measure that let alone prove it to a court.
US anti-monopoly law is worded requiring proof of "consumer harm" which is normally measured in increased costs?
This is more a matter of interpretation, policy and practice rather than statute and these things can change over time. The interpretation you're describing was itself an innovation at one time.
Consumer harm is pretty easy to argue, Apple doesn't tax macos programs but it does tax ios programs. That argument results in billions of dollars of consumer harm. There are many arguments against that view as well, but I just wanted to show that it is easy to argue for consumer harm.
I don't think that's enough though is it? To my mind the strong counter argument is that consumers are choosing to pay higher prices for "higher quality" (i know that often not the case with the scams on the app store) apps and if they want cheaper apps they are free to switch to android.
> I am curious though, why is the iOS version €4.99 but the Android version is free ? I've seen this a lot actually and have always wondered, I figured it might just be Apple's annual developer license fee but not sure.
Apple users are being forced to pay more for equivalent software because of Apple's tax.
Oh 100% I agree. My question/point is about how the US system treats monopolistic practices, and I worry that actually that example works in Apple's favour as they would likely argue that consumers are free to switch to android if they want cheaper apps.
If apple were to pay for the android replacement phone & perform the transfer of personal data to the new device then that might be a valid argument. As it is they do their best to lock users in to prevent them from ever switching.
