No, Europe would never regulate their own companies this much. BMW gets away with violating privacy laws regularly, and something tells me Spotify will never be asked to stop being so hostile to consumers.
Spotify is in an odd position; it's the labels which are monopolies, by definition of how copyright works. They're the current winner of the fragile truce in the piracy wars between consumers and labels. Normally considered to be bad for artists, not consumers, although they have been engaging in dark pattern behavior lately.
Im not sure. The amount of money isnt so big. If instead of 70 % , Spotify gives 100 % to the labels / artist, they still wouldnt get that much money. This is also the case for Apple Music, Deezer and Youtube Music. Im not sure if DMA applies to.
They say nothing other than I just have to file a formal complaint which requires legal representation. I don’t want to waste my money on something that won’t happen anyways.
Regulating predatory practices is not the same as destroying a company. And if it happens to be the same, then that's probably a good thing.
I have my problems with many things EU, but that hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves is just good for both the hotel and the guest.
There is nothing predatory that I know of booking.com's practices. I know that hackers have a categorical hostility towards any large company (but not towards large governments or large banks of course), but could you explain what Booking.com does wrong?
Are they supposed to provide a central search engine with availability and reviews and a large customer base for free to any hotel owner? And when any guest makes a booking, the hotel owner sends them a message "Hey, cancel your reservation on booking and book with me instead and I'll give you a little discount." I guess hackers think that is marvellous, but how is that fair to booking? It is the hotels that ask to be on booking, they are free to do without and many do with great success.
Awaiting the responses saying "The government should provide an online booking platform and ban all others".
I used to be a hotel manager. Now I work in almost direct competition to booking. Booking is not a racket, you are free to not use them if you don't like them and you are free to take rooms away from booking if you want to limit how much they can sell. The hotel has compete control of how they use booking.
Your job as a hotel manager is to do what you can to increase direct reservations and reduce booking.com's share of your total reservations. But the reality is that most are too lazy or incompetent to make guests comfortable to book directly instead of through booking. Some hotels are even so donkey brained that they offer better rates on booking than on their own website. Then cry to regulators?
No, the Regulation (in this case) is the predatory practice, which is destroying companies. There's a reason the EU doesn't have many successful companies.
DMA is the problem, it's not "that hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves". DMA does not regulate (or provide) that "hotels are allowed to provide cheaper prices themselves" because hotels were always allowed to do this.
Even I admit that DMA has a couple good things, but it is overwhelmed by the bad. DMA goes way, way too far and it causes destruction.
EU policies are extremely overbearing, arrogant and totalitarian. This is destroying business.
So what are the concrete problems with the DMA? I do not know it well enough but as a EU citizen and small business owner I am generally very happy with other EU regulations.
Would you rather be forced to scour a dozen hotel sites individually to find a place to stay? Arguably "Middle men like Hotels.com etc" are providing a valuable service by allowing consumers to comparison shop in one place. Unless you think such sites should be government funded, it's only fair that they charge a fee for their service.
Looking into it further, it seems booking.com is only "sort of European". Booking.com (headquartered in Amsterdam) is actually owned by Booking Holdings (an American company), which seems to have originated as Priceline, which then bought booking.com and renamed/restructured itself into Booking Holdings and owns Priceline, kayak, booking.com, Agoda and a bunch of other airline/hotel aggregators.
That goes for a lot of companies operating out of NL though.
They're there mostly for tax and stock issuing reason, but tend to be majority owned and managed by some US VC/PE/investment group or other kinds of foreign entities who need a EU HQ.
It's what makes the NL jobs (and housing) market so hot.
I think in this case booking.com was founded in Amsterdam and were purchased by an American company at some point and they aren't there just for tax reasons. I guess it is possible it is the reason they stay there, though!
No this happens a lot. The only reason is tax benefits. They do need an office with alike 10 employees and a flower in it though (to ensure there are actually people there lol), but that’s about it.
So they either stay in NL, or do some sandwich with London or Dublin. It helps that the main Dutch party VVD is completely corrupt and only in there to enrich themselves.
You keep going on about "destruction" without even explaining what specifically is happening here that is so bad that booking.com will be unable to continue operating?
I'm talking about the fines and fines and fines that EU has been levying on business in general and the DMA is just another window into that. I'm not talking about just booking.com
They will have to increase transparency (rankings algo, pricing etc), allow data portability for users (and hotels), and avoiding self-preferencing of its services over competitors and face stricter regulatory oversight from EU.