[marceldegraaf]

VAT is not a "sneaky backdoor tax", it's imposed on all goods, regardless of where they're produced or imported from.

DMA (and similarly, GDPR) are enforced in EU countries just as much. It's just that the US tends to have more gigantic tech companies that do shady things with user data. Apparently the US doesn't care, but the EU actually does, and so it enforces its laws.

[jbverschoor]

If anything is sneaky, it's the way how the in US you never see salestax until you're about to pay :D

[pembrook]

We’re talking many 10s of billions in “fines” specifically levied against US tech firms where there is no EU competitor.

I don’t necessarily disagree with all of the laws themselves (some are incompetent EU risk aversion, some are good protections) but given the massive never ending fines being applied in bad faith and constantly moving goalposts it is indeed a defacto tariff on US tech firms.

[jonathanstrange]

The fines are not imposed in bad faith, they're imposed for actual, provable violations of the law. Companies who do not violate the law are not fined. Complaining about fines is another way of saying "We'd like to trade in the EU while violating EU laws that every EU company also has to adhere to."

[pembrook]

The laws are specifically designed to target US firms without affecting EU ones and enforcement of fines and the size of them is highly selective -- the most attractive targets with the highest willingness to pay without getting to the point where they would pull out of the market.

If you do not see the moral hazard in this, I don't know what else I can tell you. If the EU had a seriously competitive tech industry, many of these laws would have never been created, as the EU is not some moral believer in privacy (they fight against encryption domestically), they are just run-of-the-mill protectionists like all governments.

[jonathanstrange]

This is nonsense, I'm about to launch a company in the EU and these laws are a major consideration and potential pain point for us, too. They are very relevant for EU companies.

This makes me wonder if US companies complaining about the GDPR and DMA have any idea how many more laws EU companies have to comply with in addition to this. It's not easy.

[detaro]

If you claim GDPR is "not affecting" EU companies your position has nothing to do with reality.

[0xy]

There hasn't been a single DMA fine against an EU company, ever. Nor have any been investigated.

The DMA is a tax on the United States. Look no further than its enforcement and its text (highly targeted).

[cwillu]

Could it be because EU companies based on doing shitty and illegal things just never get started in the first place?

[marceldegraaf]

DMA is not the same as GDPR.

[0xy]

You're trying to claim a law that is exclusively used to fleece U.S. companies and never EU competitors is 'not bad faith'?

When has the DMA been used against EU tech companies? Never.

Your comment also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the DMA and GDPR laws. Neither of them are objective laws, and they are applied subjectively without guidance.

Let me be very clear: the EU does not tell you how to comply with either the DMA or the GDPR, period. The law is extremely vague and does not prescribe how to comply in any way, shape or form.

[marceldegraaf]

DMA has not been used against EU tech companies because US tech companies are clearly the market leaders in the area the DMA is concerned with. The DMA exists to make sure that companies (from the EU, US, or elsewhere) comply with EU regulations regarding privacy, tracking, and consumer rights.

It's not a "tax" on US companies, it's just that US companies don't bother to comply with the regulations that apply in the EU, and thus get fined.

[f33d5173]

>US tech companies are clearly the market leaders in the area the DMA is concerned with.

There's a good argument that this is targeted. Why didn't this regulation affect SAP? Their market position gives them leverage over a massive number of companies.

>it's just that US companies don't bother to comply with the regulations that apply in the EU, and thus get fined.

It's not that they "don't bother", it's that they understand complying with the regulation to cost them more than the fine. In other words, the regulation itself is a sort of fine, or tax imposed by the EU, with a magnitude of roughly equal proportion to the fines it imposes.

[jonathanstrange]

No offense, but this is a silly argument. Companies in country X tend to develop their products in conformance with country X. Of course, products developed in the EU will conform with EU law. By the same token, I would be surprised if US companies habitually developed products that don't conform with US law.

> It's not that they "don't bother", it's that they understand complying with the regulation to cost them more than the fine.

This means that the fines are not high enough and don't fulfill their purpose. That's an argument for the thesis that the EU is handling fines of violators in a too lax fashion, not the opposite. This has also been the impression of many EU citizens, and it seems to be the reason why so many huge US corporations keep violating EU customer protection rules again and again.

But the reality is also that US companies that violated those rules basically have no EU competition because the EU has an abysmal market in certain tech domains. There simply are no viable EU equivalents to Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

[0xy]

Explain why Spotify got a carve-out from the DMA despite being an effective monopoly gatekeeper.

Is it because it's an EU company and the DMA is a tax on the United States?

'The law that applies only to US companies is applied equally and fair!'

[cwillu]

This argument would be just as valid if the US was the world leader in assassination markets: shitty and illegal practices are shitty and illegal, regardless of whether they were firmly established with significant markets in other countries first.

[0xy]

Unless you're EU company Spotify, who got a carve-out from the DMA despite being a monopoly gatekeeper :)

[sam_lowry_]

> provable violations of the law

If you ever tried reading GDPR or DMA... you will realize pretty quickly that there is little meaning in them.

I am totally unsure someone can prove a DMA violation. It's simpler with GDPR because a lot of concepts from it have been already somehow interpreted and agreed upon. But we do not have case law in EU, so I guess even known GDPR violations are often dubious.

[0xy]

DMA is applied equally, you say. How interesting! Can you link me to the examples of the EU going after EU companies for DMA violations? I couldn't find a single one. Not a single case, ever.

The EU wanted to fine Google $35,000,000,000 under DMA. That's a backdoor tax. No European tech company faces this scrutiny. Never have, never will -- because the DMA is a tax on the United States.

It's also interesting that the Google and Meta DMA fines are expected to land in the next week. What a timing coincidence, almost like it's retaliatory (as many articles have suggested).

[mopsi]

> Can you link me to the examples of the EU going after EU companies for DMA violations?

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

[0xy]

So they haven't gone after a single EU company and the ONLY court cases or investigations on DMA were specifically US companies?

[echoangle]

Maybe the companies from the EU just didn’t violate the law? How does enforcement prove that it’s a tax?