When a government agency (think IRS or FAA) decides on a specific interpretation of a law, rule or regulation, they don’t go after a random guy to prosecute. They publish an opinion, a guideline, or interpretation and a compliance deadline. The industry is given a choice to comply or present an alternative interpretation (through courts, lobbyists or legislative representatives).
It’s one thing if one company out of a hundred doesn’t comply, and somewhat different when the standard industry practice goes against new interpretation.
Selective encorcement is more typical of countries with weak judicial systems and endemic corruption, where “friends” of the current government get compassionate understanding, but everybody else is subject to the strict rule of the law.
That erosion is not corruption on its own, but can lead to it.
Which, granted, is something that happens but people largely regard this kind of unequal protection of the law to be a bad thing.
I don't see the point of this sort of "but johnny did it too" line of argument. So authorities are looking into a report of widespread abuse. Where's the relevance of not advertising how they may or may not look into other small-scale and lower-profile cases? In fact, aren't resources better spent by going after the single largest and more eggregious source of abuse that has a global reach and has been continuously abusing its position for over a decade?
EDIT: Downvotes? I'm stating facts. How can you downvote facts?
> How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?
You don't have to be from the US for your post to sound US centric. It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems." argument which is found everywhere online, especially on sites with a large proportion of US users (like HN).
The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.
> It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems."
Actually my comment says the exact opposite, it says that at least the western part of the EU is less corrupt than the US. Do you realize that I said the west [of EU], not the west as in the US? You're the one who is thinking US-centric after all, thinking that when someone says "the west" they mean the US even though it's in a sentence that talks about parts of EU, this possibility didn't even occur to me - that's how foreign it is to me.
Read it again. It stated much less confidence in those baseless claims, inviting sourced rebuttal. You claimed to be "obviously" right without any sources, and apparently you were not.
Edit: also, complaining about downvotes, especially without even trying to admit mistake is considered as a bad behavior here.
That kind of hand-wavy stuff doesn't fly here. If you're going to make a claim like "EU Countries are more corrupt than the US", YOU have to provide a credible source for that claim.
Telling people to go and verify for themselves a claim that you made is just lazy and disingenuous.
[0] https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...
Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.
The US is not unique. If you see something happening here, it is almost always happening in other western countries, and acting like we are the only to have a problem does a disservice to worldwide development.
[1] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...
[2] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...
Lobbying has nothing to do with donating money, and lobbying elected representatives is definitely not illegal in most democracies.
Please don't twist conversation into debates about semantics: it's not helpful.
Yes, and you said that both are illegal in most "other" counties. Except lobbying isn't illegal in any healthy democracy, including in Europe. Donating "millions of dollars" isn't really legal in the US either.
This is flat-out untrue, and repeating this incorrect meme ad nauseum simply makes it harder to address actual problems when they arise. Lobbying is simply the process of petitioning elected officials. It's a necessary part of any functioning democracy, or else there's no fundamental feedback loop connecting elected officials to their constituents in between elections.
> If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation
Corporate entities are prohibited from donating money to campaigns, whether or not a quid pro quo is implied.
The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.
As to your second part about corporate entities being prohibited from donating money to campaigns, excuse me while I set up a PAC to donate funds to a senator who is aware that I donate to the PAC and that I would really appreciate it if I got a tax break.
What the law intends != what is actually happening
Yes, and just as we ignore people who dismiss evolution because "it's just a theory", we should take the same attitude towards people who conflate lobbbying and campaign contributions, because they clearly don't understand how the democratic process works, and acting on their demands is actively harmful.
> What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money.
Yes, and the "common vernacular" is wrong and actively harmful. The two things are completely unrelated, and perpetuating the conflation makes it harder to understand what's actually going on.
If you think something is broken, you actually have to understand how it's broken in order to fix it. There's no virtue in going out of your way to make it more difficult for people to understand how things work. That's how you end up with people wasting time advocating "reforms" that span the range from "well-intentioned but redundant and/or ineffective" to "completely self-contradictory and nonsensical".
E.g. your assumptions being incorrect. You could have avoided a lot of downvotes with showing some humility. Assuming someone does not know about large shifts in EU membership seems like argument in bad faith.
Europe, Germany and France in particular, has a strong history of state involvement in large corporations.
I suppose you could call that an administrative philosophy. To me it sounds like another form of corruption.
And I guess Facebook and others have been trying to lobby it away for years already.
The entire tech industry can now consider themselves warned. Not even giant American corporations with direct links to the White House are above the law.
Still, the lawsuits should be simultaneously served to all companies. Preferably with a courtesy heads up.
GDPR had been announced 2012, implemented fully in 2016. Active enforcement will start May 2018 with again a temporary period to allow companies to correct. Refusal to comply after that can result in penalties up to a maximum of 4% of the companies global revenue.
How much courtesy lead time does a company actually need to comply?
"You have 20 seconds to comply" says the robocop :-)
The summary of the court of the case, if ruled in favor of the one suing or in favor of the public interest, will be used to prosecute all other offenders if they do not comply. If the defense wins, it can be used by others as a defense.
While not 'fair' it works as the smaller fish will probably go bottoms up trying to mount a proper defense against larger governmental or lobbying groups which results in a no-win scenario for all: The company is dead and there is still no ruling, or a ruling lacking proper defense.
Or say Intel users that are now sewing on the meltdown bug should they get involved in AMD too from some feeling of solidarity?
In this case someone did something illegal and someone else complained to the justice, should they first find all (I hope you understand what all means, aka don't forget anybody) and try to do what? start 1000 processes in justice? It makes sense to start with the bigger criminals, if the court decides favorably then you continue to the next ones.
2. Do you realize how much manpower it would take to require that all separate cases be tried at once? You might as well just come out and say you don't want any cases to be tried at all, as that would be the outcome.
Either it is enforced against Facebook first, and Facebook complains "Why don't all of the the small fries have to do it yet" and if it is enforced against the small fries, they will say, "Why doesn't Facebook have to do it yet"?
And the answer is, the justice department will probably enforce the law in the way that the expect to have the best effect for themselves. It is not necessary to wait until you are sued before you become legally compliant?