I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I agree, the EU legislates privacy to a degree that no other political entity does as far as I'm aware, but on the other hand, they often do so with poorly designed policies. As an example, I'd point to the cookie notices that appear on almost every major website, which must have absorbed, globally, many careers worth of man-hours to implement while offering virtually no real-world privacy benefits.
Maybe I'm over-indexing on one bad example? I'd love to hear more informed opinions about this.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the US. Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card.
And those damn cookie notices!! Because they show up in every page, everybody accepts the policy without questioning, which completely defeats the purpose. And worse for the user experience, most often the implementation of websites for those notices is dummy, and show the notice upon refreshment, even after having accepted the policy before.
> And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card.
That's because we had our own system established in 1984 (ELV, electronic direct debit based on the EC cards mentioned elsewhere). From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade.
- The system covered all German banks (private banks, public banks = Sparkassen, credit unions) because they got their act together and set up a single standard.
- It had lower fees than credit card transactions.
- Pretty soon the card was included with bank account fees, while credit cards cost extra.
- It worked with a magnet stripe and automated electronic clearing in a time when credit cards were merely a slight convenience over manually writing a check which needed to be mailed around the country (you do know why credit cards have name + card number embossed to this day, right? Check out credit part imprinters).
All that made it more attractive to merchants, and credit card companies weren't used to competing in a market that already had a big incumbent.
> From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade.
Not only germans use the german system. When other Europeans go to European institutions that are placed in Germany, we can't use electronic payments. A system established 34 years ago should not be an acceptable excuse for a subpar service.
It is a shame (and quite fraud-risky!) to go on a taxi and have to wait 5-10 minutes for the taxi driver to carbon copy your credit card details in the invoice (now he only needs to memorize 3-4 digits for the security number), whilst in the same country Uber, and other similar services that provide immediate payment facilities with no open handling of sensitive data, have been banned.
> A system established 34 years ago should not be an acceptable excuse for a subpar service.
The system was developed in those 34 years, both on user visible features (EMV card with chip&pin in 2004) and invisible (SEPA Cards Clearing, implemented in 2015).
The latter allows any SEPA based participant (and those outside, apparently there's some interest in Brazil) to handle clearing of transactions compatibly. That should allow card based SEPA Credit/Debit Transfers (which draws from 34 years old ELV a lot).
Merging incompatible banking systems takes time, but IMHO that's better than just layering another rent seeker or two (the credit card company, plus potentially Stripe) on top.
Offtopic, but:
> whilst in the same country Uber has been banned
Maybe they should have read up on the local regulations instead of spouting their usual nonsense about fighting the taxi cartel? (nevermind that the biggest player in that space is Uber itself)
A cursory reading of the relevant laws got me three different ways to try to establish a legal setup in which they could have proved their contribution to the public transport system for a couple of years (after which that could be extended or be made part of the official playbook). But it sometimes looks like reading laws is a fireable offense at Uber.
Considering how widespread accepting cash only is, you'll end up paying more for ATM withdrawals than you save on the lower merchant fees (that is, if the merchant even passes those onto you). Unless you want to carry hundreds in cash on you.
I've also noticed that not many people pay contactless, even when the terminals support it... and the cashiers tend to assume that the card is not contactless for some reason.
ATM withdrawal typically is free (at the same banking group).
The merchant fees are part of the total cost, so lower fees provide a competitive edge to the merchant. (the listed price also contains VAT, so you pay what's on the sticker, not like in the US)
Aldi (a discount grocery chain) didn't accept _any_ cards for a long time to avoid these extra costs.
In short: the German market situation is rigged in favor of cash, which is "free", which is hard to compete with when you're selling credit card services for a living.
Why kind of world has people saying cash is rigged to be cheaper. It's the medium of exchange, everything else is on top of it. Of course it costs more!
I don't disagree with you. There are other entities that solve the issue for taxi service, such as mytaxi, that pay by the rules - still "an extra layer of rent seekers" though.
But in general, even if technically possible, not a lot of businesses accept visa or mastercard - be it that the bank does not provide the service, or that they charge extra, it is not available.
Luckily PSD2 will soon open the space to more players.
Well, assuming that bitcoin can be tracked and deanonymized, it would. Although, all cryptocoins are a step back. There's no way they could support transactions-per-second necessary.
As much as I like cards, I also prefer paying for stuff with cash.
In Portugal it is illegal to buy an expensive computer, or high-end computer monitor, or a high-end TV with cash. Similar thing in France.
Imagine yourself throwing a dinner party in a restaurant with 10 guests and they eat and drink so much that it comes to a point where it's illegal to pay that dinner with cash. Ridiculous.
Since, as your parent says, in Portugal cashless systems are convenient are efficient, I don't really see the issue, aside from your personal preference.
"""
I would find more ridiculous (or suspicious) someone carrying 2000€ in cash in this day and age for whatever reason, to be honest.
It is clearly a measure created to prevent tax evasion,
"""
this shows the extent to which the banking system has brainwashed us, when 2 people cant conduct a large transaction directly without an intermediary and it seeming 'suspicious'
Why someone would risk or be inconvenienced carrying such larges amount of cash in order to carry a transaction is beyond me, and yes, I would find it suspicious.
If you lived in a country where every other week you see in the news some politician caught on camera while pocketing corruption money, you probably would have another viewpoint.
> I would find more ridiculous (or suspicious) someone carrying 2000€ in cash in this day and age for whatever reason, to be honest.
You'd think.
I bought a house in Japan and I had to pay my deposit in cash, approximately US$10,000. Walking around with that much money, I've never been more paranoid in my life.
> In Portugal it is illegal to buy an expensive computer (…) with cash.
A few questions:
1. Are you sure it’s illegal?
2. From what value does that apply?
3. How is that enforced?
4. More importantly, who is in trouble if they do so, the buyer or the seller?
I live in Portugal and have different friends that bought different brand computers on different stores on different years, both paid cash, and in no case was there a problem. In at least one of the cases the cashier just made a quick call to the manager, asked “can I accept it?” and it was done.
* The article is from August 22nd 2017.
* It prohibits cash payments for anything (not just electronics) from 3000€ on.
* For non-residents, the limit is expanded to 10000€, or equivalent in a different currency.
I don't think that matters at all. Many countries have their own debit card system and for what it's worth, I think EC cards are great debit cards. They can, however, not replace credit cards.
All the benefits from credit cards really come from the fact that you're paying with credit:
- Travel a lot? They sure accept Visa.
- Want to pay some street vendor? Square is only possible because they don't need to dial your bank directly.
Also the fee per transaction might be cheaper on debit cards, but the cost to acquire a debit card reader from your bank is still high. That's why virtually all larger vendors do accept debit cards in Germany, only smaller businesses are cash only (from my perspective).
The advantages you give aren't directly related to the cards being real credit cards, though. Visa debit cards work fine all over the world, and with Stripe. (In my experience it's very common in Europe for debit cards to be dual network, domestic and Visa or MasterCard. I don't know about Germany, though.)
The real advantages of credit are spending money you don't have, and points/cashback.
> the cost to acquire a debit card reader from your bank is still high.
My friend owns a retail business, and acquired a debit card reader for it. I was surprised at how cheap it was (ISTR 50€ -- certainly below 100€). He's quite happy with the bank's tech support, too.
Same price point, except that credit cards usually cost extra here.
Since bank transfers are immediate now (unlike in the past when monthly batching was cost effective) and most credit cards in Germany are managed by the banks and coupled to bank accounts, they could just reconcile all transactions immediately (and even reject those that overdraw too much).
In such a situation, credit would become a risk adjusted premium feature and you'd have to calculate if it's worth it (vs the bank's regular interest rate on overdraw).
Plus, according to the OECD Germans have somewhat higher household savings (relative to household income) than Americans, so the liquidity might be comparable without using credit.
You are missing my point. I don't care if credit reconciles immediately at the bank level or not, I care about what credit cards allow me to do, which is smooth over lumpy cashflow.
If I have expenses of 100K a year, without access to credit I have to make 100K a year without fail, or I am insolvent. With credit, I can make 100K one year, 0 the next and 200K (+ whatever interest I need to pay for Year 2) in the final year. The optionality is more than worth whatever interest and surcharges I encountered by using credit in Year 2.
Lest you think this is insane, this is how I bootstrapped my last business.
It's convenient because everyone accepts it and the transaction charges appear to be half of credit card fees (or zero if the merchant uses Tencent's escrow system). When I travel to China, as a foreigner, I'm virtually the only one carrying any cash. None of the locals carry meaningful amounts of cash any more.
>Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off.
Funny, why would they ban a company simply for breaking the law? It throws me off too.
In all seriousness, Uber's business model seems to be a mixture of disregard for labour and transportation regulations and of using their endless supply of investment to aggressively drive the prices down. Do you expect the governments to sit and watch?
No and if laws are broken something can be done, but there are too many cases / stories, like the one described for France in this thread, where the gov was not really interested until they got forced by some corrupt (smelling) means by the big taxi companies and their lobbies. And i'm sure (but maybe that's just cynicism from living life) those companies are not going out for 'the law' or against uber specifically; they would go after anything that is competition for them in any way they can. Uber just is easier because you can play a few cards which are internationally known; big trees catch a lot of wind as we say in NL.
> And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card.
That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards
But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). Note not all cookies need the notice (which is a fact overlooked by most sites)
I live in Munich, Bavaria, and, to give an example, in most restaurants you will not be able to pay with a credit card. Having said that, you can pay once you reach a minimum amount with what they call an "EC-Karte", a sort of debit card.
Yup, this was quite surprising to me having travelled a fair bit but not been to Germany in 10 years or so. "I'm supposed to pay my dinner bill at a fancy restaurant.. in.. cash?"
Seconded. Also a fella from Munich. In regular restaurants you have to pay at least 25 EUR to be able to pay with “EC Karte” which I find incredibly annoying. I don’t like carrying around any cash honestly. I have my cards and that’s it.
> Cookies clearly exempt from consent according to the EU advisory body on data protection- WP29pdf include:
> user‑input cookies (session-id) such as first‑party cookies to keep track of the user's input when filling online forms, shopping carts, etc., for the duration of a session or persistent cookies limited to a few hours in some cases
authentication cookies, to identify the user once he has logged in, for the duration of a session
> user‑centric security cookies, used to detect authentication abuses, for a limited persistent duration
multimedia content player cookies, used to store technical data to play back video or audio content, for the duration of a session
> load‑balancing cookies, for the duration of session
user‑interface customisation cookies such as language or font preferences, for the duration of a session (or slightly longer)
> third‑party social plug‑in content‑sharing cookies, for logged‑in members of a social network.
Can someone tell me as a consumer what benefit those chips provide?
It’s slower and security isn’t my problem because fraud is covered by the CC company. So I still don’t get what the benefit is or how our heads are above sand now?
It creates a healthier society in long run if people cannot spend money they don't have. Some goes for the uber decision, I think it's healthier for the job market and society in general when this kind of exploitation of employees is not possible.
User experience of debit cards is just fine, I don't carry any cash, and typing a pin code is just as fast as singing your signature. And currently in the Netherlands debit cards also support contactless payment, where you can pay small amounts of money without proving a pin code. I don't use this though, as I don't feel the need to.
This debt, at least in Norways case, is probably mostly due to a very large portion of people buying their own home. Its a lot more common here than in other countries and when growing up, at some point buying your own home is almost expected of you. It is also heavily incentivized by the government through tax policy. This is probably creating a housing bubble of sorts, so i guess we'll see how well that turns out at some later date, but i assume that is the reason Norway is where it is on that chart.
I doubt Norwegian homeownership culture is anything as militant or debt-fueled as America's. Remember how the US nearly tanked itself with mortgage backed securities a few years ago?
As @farrisbris mentioned, this is mortgage based debt (in the Netherlands).
All debt is tracked, including the 'free' phone you get with your subscription. You can't go over a limit based on your income.
Also a large difference with for example the US is that in the Netherlands you don't need a down payment when buying a home. And until recently you could include the transfer tax, realtor, etc in the mortgage. All which make it easier to buy a home and thereby driving up the debt of a household.
With respect, that's a horrible generalization, and does nothing to refute my point that households Europe are in much more debt (as a share of disposable income) than US households.
The fraud is ultimately paid for by the userbase (cardholders and merchants) as a whole through paying fees. (Of course, whether a reduction in fraud cost results in a decrease in fee burden or an increase in issuer profits...)
In my experience it's definitely not. Especially when you pay contact less (something any chip containing credit card provides for the last few years) it's basically instantly.
So I still don’t get what the benefit is or how our heads are above sand now?
You get the benefit that your card is accepted throughout the world. I don't think that you can use any chipless card in Europe, nowadays.
The service available in France as UberX is what is known as UberBlack in the rest of the world - a black car and a professional driver (also applies to Pool). Uber in France is effectively a taxi company with an app (which is not a trivial improvement, but that's a separate discussion). This is strange because France is, philosophically, a "communist" country and sharing economy innovation is usually welcome and happily embraced; UberX and UberPool were extremely popular with millions of riders (I believe 7? 10% of the country) before they were made illegal.
How this came about is a textbook case study in government-industrial nepotism, including the family [1] controlling 60% of the taxi companies (edited) literally hiring the head of the French FBI to transfer a couple of months before retirement in the transport ministry, pass anti-Uber legislation, and then retire to a cushy job as the chairman of I think the second or third largest taxi company (owned by the same family). This was exposed in a long article in the Nouvel Obs, a real piece of journalism, which was taken offline about a week after publication (edit - seems to be back! [2]) and before I could take a copy (only the URLs I sent friends remain as testimony of its existence). [1] also claims that the Rousselet family blocked a direct rail link between CDG and central Paris (my Uber on that route last week cost 99 EUR), and has kept the number of taxi licenses "near 1930s levels". edit - [2] claims Paris has 1/5th as many taxis as London or New York, and that no new licenses were given between 1990 and 2002, during which CDG passengers increased almost 50%.
There is an embryonic version of Pool, in the form of Blablacar, an app that arbitrages the very high cost (for French citizen) of SNCF and Air France domestic intercity travel. You post your approximate trip, and riders can ask you to pick them up for a portion of the way. I've travelled 5 hours for 10 EUR this way, and used it frequently between Geneva and Annecy (about 45 minutes, no train link, infrequent buses). Since this app is effectively useless for last minute short trips within a city, it does not compete with taxis, which may explain why it is still around.
[2] https://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/economie/20150212.OBS2398/de... - on the former security head: "fin 2007, le gouvernement Fillon demande un rapport sur les taxis au préfet Pierre Chassigneux [...] Coïncidence ? Ancien directeur des Renseignements généraux puis directeur de cabinet de François Mitterrand, l’homme est une vieille connaissance d’André Rousselet via le corps préfectoral. Son travail, publié en avril 2008, est si conservateur que la presse le qualifie de "contre-rapport Attali", qui vient, lui, de prôner une véritable libéralisation du métier. Mieux : ce même Pierre Chassigneux devient ensuite… président des Taxis bleus, poste qu’il occupe encore à ce jour !"
>This is strange because France is, philosophically, a "communist" country and sharing economy innovation is usually welcome and happily embraced; //
When I (UK) think of France in this context I think they're strongly in to workers rights and that probably Uber aren't (based on the kerfuffle in London)? That makes it completely unsurprising to me that Uber wouldn't be doing well in France??
Uber is super-capitalism, it's not communistic, it's lowering workers (proles) wages; and using capitalist investment in order to bottom out the market and bankrupt the other players so that the market can be captured by a single player. Could you perhaps describe why you think this sort of market manipulation, particularly the reduction in wages and reduction in worker rights (through machinations of "they're not employees") makes this communist in any way shape or form??
I'm not talking about politically, but about philosophy or spirit. Compared to the Anglosphere megacities, there is a certain comradeship amongst the French (which you find in other countries, like Japan), a sense of shared fate and community spirit, the idea that this goes before profit and efficiency.
The use of the word communism was deliberately ambiguous and a bit of a pun given the leaning of a sizeable portion of the population in the 20th century. "Commune" means a small town in French, and "commun" can mean "that belongs to all" or "shared".
The French job market is ultra-regulated which makes it relatively rigid with many people left out (and great conditions for the connected). I remember someone interviewing for selling ice-creams - there were 22 finalists! And most graduates will do year-long, low paid internships outside the regulated, cushy full time job system, which like post-docs in US academia can repeat ad infinitum if the economy is bad.
As everywhere else, UberX/Pool allows the marginalised to get an easy job that's a step up from pizza delivery, whilst drastically expanding the market for rides (and I've seen this play in a lot of countries). This is particularly helpful for the numerous people juggling many jobs, and parents (especially single parents) who appreciate the flexibility.
The market was already captured by a single player in France, the worst possible way - in a similar fashion as healthcare in the US. Other markets that have been completely captured by capitalist foreign mega corporations include web search, browsers, social networking, computers, fast food, fashion, real estate supplies, the auto industry (Renault and Peugeot are French only in name at this point)... I guess at least the Rousselet were French?
Perhaps it is time to see things in grey instead of black and white, to avoid labels, to judge companies and actions by their net welfare effect instead of saying "he's not from my team so he's bad" or "she's from my team so she's good" (I'm thinking of you, Democrats in the last election). Almost forgot - reduction in wages? The taxi companies employed many drivers on survival wages (particularly those with difficult immigration situation) and pocketed the difference. Uber's transparency is a net gain for the worker (and the state, which does not get tax-evaded).
UberPop was popular because it allowed people to car pool easily without talking about money, and decongested city centers particularly at rush hour. Enabling widespread, safe car sharing seems to have been perceived as a good thing given the high number of users. I never heard a bad comment about Uber from normal French people (drivers or riders), always from taxi drivers or the news.
Just FYI usually in English we would say communitarian where a French person might be tempted to translate as communistic or communist. Communist in common English is pretty much restricted to the political philosophy.
> blocked a direct rail link between CDG and central Paris (my Uber on that route last week cost 99 EUR)
Well, true, there isn't a direct link, but there is a train link, also link to other cities. Last year an Uber from the city center to CDG had a fixed price (if I estimate the fare today it gives me 45Eur for X or 70Eur for UberBerline)
I'm not sure I understand.
- both uberx and uber pool are legal in France
- uber black elsewhere is a luxury service, which French uberx is not
- maybe we don't have the same definition of professional driver, but you need them to be professionals for insurance and tax reasons.
- there has been a direct rail link from CDG to central Paris since 1981. It's called RER B.
It's confusing because the terms are different internationally.
The RER B is not a direct train link - it's equivalent to taking the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow, you will take a long time through many stations and share with commuters. Think instead Hong Kong's express train or the Narita Express in Tokyo: a fast, clean, premium service that takes you from airport to city centre core locations in a couple of stops (the Heathrow Express is actually pretty bad for this as it arrives somewhere far from most places of interest which is why they're building CrossRail).
UberX/Pool in most of the world (although this is changing - e.g. license now required in Singapore) means the everyday salaryman who happens to commute by car and decides to pick people up on the way to bump up his end of month. Many people end up doing this full time but usually in between jobs. In some countries it's lucrative enough to become a career.
How nice an X/Pool car is depends on the local market. In Singapore it used to be old, entry level Toyotas but as the rental company business improved it became small SUVs (like the Honda Vezel). In Sydney you get anything from a Subaru WRX to an E-class.
Black in most of the world means "professional driver, new-ish sedan used for professional transport" and that depends again on the price locally. In Ho Chi Minh City it's a local market 8 seater van (like a bare bones Honda Odyssey with leather seats). In Singapore you can get the odd Mercedes E-class. In Hong Kong you get many Teslas, with the rest Audi A6 or larger.
In France, X/Pool now use professional drivers, and the cars are sedans: Renault Laguna, Volvo S60, etc. In that sense, the service is equivalent to Black in the rest of the world.
I agree about insurance and tax, but it really depends how you implement it. In Singapore, the license is very cheap and requires a few hours of training (for safety and to know your obligations). This is a stark contrast to 300k+ EUR/USD medallions.
There are actually direct RER B trains between the airport and gare du Nord in central Paris and other RER B trains that stops at all the stations between the airport and gare du Nord...
The last time I tried to take the RER (early 2010s), I was in a train full of graffiti, with drunks (or drug users?) passed out across the seats, and few escalators/lifts for my 20kg suitcase. So after this I thought it was less painful to pay for a taxi, the experience put me off trying the RER again.
This round, the problem was a strike which surge priced the fare into 8 minutes ETA and 2x the usual.
It's funny that CDG is actually a TGV station - you can probably reach other cities faster (and more comfortably) than Paris as a result.
I don't think the complaint is about how fancy the card is. It's about how easy it is to pay with cards. I'd say cards are much more ubiquitously accepted in the US than anywhere I've visited.
> Things like having UBER banned for example in France
You have no idea what you're speaking about, do you? Uber is not banned in France. It's being investigated for multiple suspicions of breaking the law.
> Because they show up in every page, everybody accepts the policy without questioning
Well, if people can't read a notice, I can't see how that's the fault of the EU.
> And worse for the user experience, most often the implementation of websites for those notices is dummy
So now, it's the fault of the EU regulations if websites are cheating with the law and breaking UX.
No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.
What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).
> Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?
Totally legit reason in some countries. In Czech republic this became such a topic that half a year ago the government implemented a new system. Now every single payment cash or cashless has to be sent in real time to central gov server. This also means that every merchant has to have digital terminal so almost all of them accept credit cards.
Many restaurants (especially those with good service + good price) had to increase their prices a lot since then.
I’m with you that Cash has the benefits of anonymity and no fees. However, it’s also inconvenient, specially when you are traveling. Digital transactions are also faster. — On a side note, that’s why I’m, besides all the hype, a strong believer of cryptocurrencies.
There is also a cost involved with handling cash. I don't know exactly how those costs add up relative to other payment methods, but I do know that certainly here in Sweden more and more shops and restaurants have stopped accepting cash all together, so presumably cost is non-trivial.
> sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.)
The EU also recently introduced and controls on credit card fees (that a merchant pays) with the aim of making it as cheap to transact as cash. That is of course only true if cash isn't being used to avoid taxation.
You can go without cash for a lot on Germany. Train tickets, groceries, cinema, restaurants, bars.. All of those and more work fine without cash (you need Maestro, but everyone has one of those).
It fails if you want to buy food in the streets maybe, not every Doner can be paid by card.
But.. that's normal and aligns with what I see here in Singapore now: Cashless, unless small food shop/hawker place or something similar.
Germany doesn't accept _credit cards_ on a large scale. It does support paying with a card made of plastic usually..
Uber is still in France. I just used them last week. If I remember correctly, most of the controversy revolved around another uber-like app which had little to no regulation.
Uber undermines local taxi businesses offering mild comfort and some wows but also no job/social security and no quality standards (like the London Knowledge for example). It outcompetes taxis by sidestepping regulations. And just like airbnb while it was meant as a means to share one's own property for extra income, that's hardly the case in reality. People use both for full time commercial activity, and they evade taxes and regulations through them.
Some pros:
Being able to force social networks to provide me with a physical copy of my data is alone a reason to get an EU citizenship. I don't even use the social networks, i just demand my data every 3 months to FB, Tinder and Linkedin to punish them for being so aggressive in their spamming and tracking.
Being safe from throttling, censorship and all the nice stuff that US ISPs are going to feed american citizens with is also pretty nice.
Also very efficiently getting my money back when companies try to scam me.
No adapter whatsoever. I assume it's the exact same as anywhere in the world. Therefore it seems USB-C is considered an acceptable next standard for phone charging in the EU.
On a side-related note, I wonder why Apple was never subjected to charging standards in the EU.
It was voluntary. The EU said sort this out or we will make a standard and require it. I think iPhones did come with an adapter for the standard charger at some point.
You are allowed to get a request of all personal data that someone/some company has one you. So you can contact Facebook and say "Please give me a copy of all the data you hold on me" and they have to give it to you. When Max Schrems did they first, Facebook did send a CD with a ~1,000 page PDF "print out". It garnered some media attention since it shows how much they do collect on people./
The maximum they can charge is set in law and is about €5.
This varies in strange ways. I dont know how facebook does this and if i could get more but i have seen facebook datasets from three people including mine.
Usualy it is all photos and vids yove uploaded, comments etc.
Mine was most complete. Including some sort of keywords tags i am interested in. Not things i followed but what fb thinks i like.
Other datasets did not include this but one included all the times someone connected to the account including IP and location.
It isn't. If you look at the EU's information about it [1], you must be able to refuse processing of information that's not necessary for the functioning of the site. Virtually no site outside the EU's own ones does that. Ironically, there are some that have them even though the only cookies they use are ones that are necessary for the functioning of the site, and so are exempt.
Note that this isn't just about cookies. It's pretty much any information being sent from the user's computer or stored on the user's computer: "Member States shall ensure that the use of electronic communications networks to store information or to gain access to information stored in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned is provided with clear and comprehensive information in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC, inter alia about the purposes of the processing, and is offered the right to refuse such processing by the data controller."
As far as I can tell, this is mostly because member states capitulated before online advertising exchanges (it's a directive, not a regulation, so it is implemented by member states) and allowed them to work around the clear intent of the directive.
Really this sounds like a situation where they're setting up a system where every actor is in violation, but there's an understanding that you won't be charged, unless someone doesn't like you.
That's worrisome when it applies to people, and I'd like to think its worrisome when applied to corporations too.
The cookie provision will probably be changed very soon [1]:
> Simpler rules on cookies: The so called "cookie provision", which has resulted in an overload of consent requests for internet users, will be streamlined. New rules will allow users to be more in control of their settings, providing an easy way to accept or refuse the tracking of cookies and other identifiers in case of privacy risks. The proposal clarifies that no consent is needed for non-privacy intrusive cookies improving internet experience (e.g. to remember shopping cart history). Cookies set by a visited website counting the number of visitors to that website will no longer require consent.
> With the presentation of the proposals today, the Commission is calling on the European Parliament and the Council to work swiftly and to ensure their smooth adoption by 25 May 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation will enter into application. The intention is to provide citizens and businesses with a fully-fledged and complete legal framework for privacy and data protection in Europe by this date.
Apparently, the cookie notice is only supposed to show up if the cookies are not related to the site’s purpose; e.g. cookies that keep you logged in or similar are perfectly fine and don’t need a warning. The issue is that every website began using cookies for tracking, so the warnings jut became noise. It’s sad: this law was reasonable, but advertisers were able to completely subvert it into an annoyance for users, and in doing so, prevented the real problem from being solved.
Cookie law was the only major f*ck up from EU on privacy. And it will be fixed as soon as GPDR is active. On the other hand, we have many successful and useful regulations and court orders. I don't think cookie law alone is enough to discredit EU in this fight for privacy.
Their solutions are not perfect as they are the result of a multi-party compromise (as in the end, they should be). Keep in mind that the cookie law is by far the worst example, and definitely not the average.
Yes. I'm not super sure if this is privacy only. I think the cookie part is also for data protection. So that the end user could have understanding she/he is the product.
I also wonder for what some of the sites use cookies in such a way they need to ask for that "You must agree on our cookies" -consent. Since so many type of cookies are exempt from the need: user‑input cookies,
authentication cookies, user‑centric security cookies,
multimedia content player cookies, load‑balancing cookies,
user‑interface customisation cookies, third‑party social plug‑in content‑sharing
I think the cookie warnings might do something to get the idea of a cookie in consumer's minds.
I also don't think you can think of developer time like that. Imagine how many caterers have gone into making websites work on IE6. Stuff like that happens.
This is often what happens when legislatures take a first swing and regulating something. That rule about "build one to throw away" is just as relevant with law as it is code.
You will have to specify if you don't like the purpose of the law or the implementation. Because the implementation isn't really up to the EU. Google could implement a http header tomorrow that complied with the law (at least as much as a notice) and would act like other ways of accessing your browser (like web camera or location). The problem is everyone would turn off the tracking, which would affect their revenue.
I've never understood that cookie notification, there is no "I agree" so I be simply hit the popup modals x and then the back button, or sometimes if the site is particularly terrible about it. I click an ad or two
I'm beyond "informed" opinions, I only can offer infected ones. The cookie directive is an infuriating irritant which is completely counter-productive.
Maybe I'm over-indexing on one bad example? I'd love to hear more informed opinions about this.