Yeah, it's very overpowered and should be nerfed - they still haven't patched the cookie consent dialogs out.

To expand upon the silly comment a bit, not sure about this particular initiative, but to me it very much feels like something that should be configurable at browser level, instead of half-assed dark-pattern-filled JS dialogs: https://killthecookiebanner.eu/

I'm blaming Google for this, but most people just don't know why it happens. Probably they'll end up mandating that Google must show a notice with the reason and it will be implemented in the worst possible way.

All of these hissy fits Google and Apple are throwing are just making me wanting to use them less and less and I'm doing my best to explain how tech companies are doing malicious compliance to others.

The European Commission is way too pro-business for that, even when the said businesses are parasitic actors who don't even pay taxes in the EU.

It's fine + obligation to fix, and daily fine until fixed, and higher fine if you do it again.

I know that sounds like it comes from "it will never work", but that's how active directory, office file format, etc ... got opened, and in a case more similar to here that's how windows n and decoupling of media and internet component from windows internals happened.

The issue is, yes, it takes time.

Another issue, purely PR, is that yes the EU gets attacked repeatedly by people trying to match "respect the law of the market or leave" with "the EU tax US companies because they can't compete".

The solution is to mandate that websites are built for browsers/devices as much as they are for humans. That way you never see a cookie banner because you've set up your device to never accept marketing cookies; A Google Maps link clicks through to Google Maps because you told your browser Google Maps was your preferred online mapping tool.

The corrective force should be market competition, but Google is a monopoly not a monopoly with so many moats it might as well be a monopoly.

They also buy up the competition before it gets a chance as is the way now.

Google also makes money by making search worse.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

> No one would use the other maps because other maps are worse.

Do you realize how many commercial driving apps are based around OSM data?

Well no, the cookie banner is a well intentioned but flawed and poorly designed law. Any law that is that technically specific but relies on people without an understanding of how it works is doomed to repeat the same fate. The eu should have seen prop 65 and not sleepwalked back into it.

Yes, but by the time you are sued and fined into compliance again, you already made a ton of money to pay 10x the next fine.

That would suck, though? Showing places on a map makes so much more sense than burying them in a list of webpages.

> Yeah that's why EU isn't producing capable tech competitors.

Actually its how the EU avoids monopolization.

> If other map services want my business they need to work on that.

Yeah.. Because a startup is going to meaningfully compete against a company who uses forced internal integrations? DropBox is a good example I heard about recently, iCloud, OneDrive, lesser products maybe, was able to basically make Drop box irrelevant because of in-house integration with systems.

There are many amazing tech companies in Europe.

Siemens, Sulzer, ABB, Rolls Royce and so on.

Or perhaps you meant advertising companies like Google and Meta when you said "tech"?

On mobile its navigation is terrible, takes you into strange routes that might be technically faster but are hard to drive at or sometimes non-existent. Sometimes tries to be smart, makes everything worse. i.e. suggest a route that it says its 5 min faster and shows no traffic and you find out that there's no traffic because of a road closure further ahead. The UI when driving is not as good as the competition. I only use it because it has superior business listings with decent reviews and photos.

On desktop the web app is jittery, occasional freezing of UI, buttons stop working(most often the street view figure just doesn't show the available street view or would refuse being dropped at a location). Textures wouldn't load, sometimes will downgrade the UI to non-webgl version.

Also, businesses are often frustrated when it comes to changing their address, no proper support exists to fix mistakes or do updates.

I would loved if EU forced Google to open its maps business data for a year for download so competing services can achieve parity in this regard. After all, Google has this data because its a monopoly - people simply uploaded their photos and reviews to Google Maps because most people use it because Google forced it down the throat of everybody.

Ah, also Google is pretty evil when it comes to maps. They jacked up the API prices to ridiculous levels once the become the absolute dominant service and they also tried to make iPhone undesirable by not making their Google Maps app in some countries when Apple screwed up with Apple maps and Apple maps was practically useless outside the US.

If you click on the address result (the button in the map), it will normally work.

Mostly tested on Firefox on Mac in the EU.

> but no one is suggesting to do the same on mobile today.

I am unsure what you you mean with this? If you are talking about choosing a different browser on mobile I will point you to the DMA Browser Choice Screen page for Android[1], it has been a thing for a while as far as I can remember.

[1]: https://www.android.com/choicescreen/dma/browser/

Yes, but that's by design in some sense. Monopoly is a carrot, entrepreneurs are donkeys on treadmills chasing after such carrots. The market's value to society in this metaphor is the energy produced by the treadmills, so while it's critical to offer donkeys the promise of a carrot, it's even more important they don't actually get it, because then they step off the treadmill and become a nuisance.

(Actually I think it was Gallium but your point stands ;) )

Maybe US consumer internet companies should try following our laws?

What do they expect if they come to our countries and break the law there? Of course they're gonna get fined?!

It's a win-win: Wild west for the US and fines for the countries that have laws and enforce them.

It’s representative democracy, like most democracies. It is, granted, a particularly complex and confusing one.

In practice, the average European has more agency in shaping EU law than the average American does in shaping US law; the US’s electoral system means that, realistically, on a federal level, most peoples’ votes simply do not matter (two party FPTP system, with most seats being safe). The EU parliament is at least multiparty proportional representation, and most member states’ governments are also elected via some sort of PR.

> for which you can’t vote for its leader

Most democracies don’t have a directly elected head of state; it’s _largely_ a thing in the Americas and Africa. In terms of big countries with a true presidential system, you’re really talking the US, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia. I’m, ah, not sure that we should be rushing to emulate those paragons of democracy :)

For the Council, it is literally just a grouping of our democratically elected heads of state. Those we can of course vote for according to our countries own democratic systems.

For the Commission, our democratically elected national governments each send a representative, so those are as elected as any minister in government is.

For Parliament, the EU demos elects directly.

Not sure where the issue is? It all seems more democratic to me than, say, the Electoral College.

It should be tested on Firefox, but its global usage share is hovering around 3.3% and dropping. At this time, even Opera is comparable at 1.7%.

sounds like very different groups of people. a few danish developers vs 27 politicians from across europe (european commission)