[chaostheory]

It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free.

Given that many EU countries are part of the 14 eyes alliance, these laws seem more like hypocritical protectionist legislation. They don’t care about the privacy of EU citizens. They only care about the survival of ancient EU companies. Ie why aren’t EU publishers subject to the same terms? Why can they offer targeted ads in lieu of payment?

EU protectionism is also one of the reasons why the US is growing tired of continuing to subsidize the EU’s defense.

[ToucanLoucan]

Meta (at the time Facebook) decided to provide it's services for free at the time of inception of the product. The EU did not force their hand and they're free to stop providing services to EU users at a time of their choosing.

I find it rather amusing how the notion that a business that can't make money in a given region is so wholly incompatible with your thought processes that you just jump immediately to "the EU is trying to get them to operate for free!" Like just... what if Facebook just wasn't in Europe? Like... that would be fine. The planet would continue spinning, Facebook would still make shit tons of money. It's honestly kind of wild how committed you are to this one shitty product remaining available in this one region.

[chaostheory]

Yes, it’s this kind of thinking that makes it clear that the EU and the US are no longer allies. It goes both ways.

Also if it was such shitty product, why are law makers forced legislate it to death? One would assume that EU users would simply stop using it.

[prmoustache]

> It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free.

No. Facebook can paywall their services.

What they condition the use of their services while respecting user's privacy to payments. It is like EU fighting against a criminal organization that offer "protection services" if you don't want them to burn your shop.

[chaostheory]

That analogy makes no sense as a retort to why EU publishers don’t have to abide by the same rules. EU publishers also have n free articles per month. It’s still just protectionism at the end of the day.

[prmoustache]

I think the key is the EU's Data Protection Board can't probably fight all abuse at the same time and target first the biggest (in term of audience) first.

[chaostheory]

If they don’t bother enforcing the privacy rules on domestic companies, it’s just thinly veiled protectionism of dinosaur media companies.