15 reactions on “The Proposed EU Digital and Data Legal Framework”

1. @ton that’s a very useful summary thanks.

2. @wfm thank you, you’re welcome!

3. @ton I get a 500 error on your ‘EU Digital Rights and Principles’ link. Is that a temporary server error or is the link ‘not ideal’? (The link to ‘EU Digital Compass’ doesn’t have some random number in it)That error page mentions this:”The request was rejected because the URL contained a potentially malicious String ‘%25′”Your link does have a ‘%27’ (not ‘%25’), so maybe that’s where the issue is at?Question: Is the consultation only for EU DRaP and not for EU DC?

4. @FreePietje it seems the page has changed, and a url redirect no longer is working. It’s both DC and DRaP in the current text at https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13017-Verklaring-over-digitale-beginselen-de-Europese-aanpak%E2%80%9D-voor-de-digitale-samenleving/public-consultation_en IIRC that text was different before. Will correct my blogpost.
   Initiative

5. Amazon has been fined 746 million Euro by the Luxembourg DPA (where Amazon’s EU activities reside). In its response Amazon shows it isn’t willing to publicly acknowledge to even understand the EU data protection rules.
   There has been no data breach, and no customer data has been exposed to any third party. These facts are undisputed., said an Amazon spokesperson according to Techcrunch.
   Those facts are of course undisputed because a data breach or exposure of data to third parties is not a prerequisite for being in breach of GDPR rules. Using the data yourself in ways that aren’t allowed is plenty reason in itself for fines the size of a few percentage points of your global yearly turnover. In Amazon’s case the fine isn’t even a third of a percentage point of their turnover, so about a day’s worth of turnover for them: they’re being let-off pretty lightly actually compared to what is possible under the GDPR.
   How Amazon uses the data it collects, not any breach or somesuch, is the actual reason for the complaint by La Quadrature du Net (PDF) filed with the Luxembourg DPA: the complaint “alleges that Amazon manipulates customers for commercial means by choosing what advertising and information they receive.” (emphasis mine)
   The complaint and the ruling are laying bare the key fact Amazon and other tech companies aren’t willing to publicly comment upon: adtech in general is in breach of the GDPR.
   There are a range of other complaints along these lines being processed by various DPA’s in the EU, though for some of those it will be a long wait as e.g. the Irish DPA is working at a snail’s pace w.r.t. complaints against Apple and Facebook. (The slow speed of the Irish DPA is itself now the subject of a complaint.)
   Meanwhile two new European laws have been proposed that don’t chime with the current modus operandi of Amazon et al, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, which both contain still bigger potential fines than the GDPR for non-compliance w.r.t. e.g. interoperability, service-neutrality, and transparency and accountability measures. And of course there are the European anti-trust charges against Amazon as well.
   Amazon will of course appeal, but it can only ever be an attempt to gaslight and gloss over the fundamental conflict between adtech and GDPR. Let’s hope the Luxembourg DPA continues to see through that.

6. Op 20 oktober vindt de FOSS4Geo Nederland conferentie plaats, met daags ervoor op 19 oktober een middag vol workshops om zelf aan de slag te gaan met open source geo-tools. Gastgever is het wereldvermaarde ITC in Enschede.
   Vorig jaar kon de conferentie geen doorgang vinden vanwege de pandemie, maar dit jaar lijkt het te gaan lukken. Zet 19 en 20 oktober dus in je agenda om een duik te nemen in open source geo.
   Tot 10 september kun je je bovendien aanmelden als je een presentatie of workshop wilt geven.
   Drie jaar geleden in 2018 had ik het genoegen de openingsspreker te mogen zijn. Onder de titel “Een kaart is de mooiste van alle epische gedichten” (een quote van Gilbert Grosvenor, eerste editor van National Geographic), hield ik een betoog over hoe data een geopolitieke hoofdrol heeft gekregen en hoe geografische gegevens (vaak als ‘linking pin’ van andere gegevenssoorten) daar centraal in staan. Hoe dat betekent dat je je eigen werk met geo-data ook in het licht van die geo-politieke context moet beschouwen, en de consequenties daarvan voor de rol van geografische data in ethische vraagstukken, data-governance en databescherming. (In 2016 hield ik een presentatie voor de wereldwijde FOSS4G conferentie.)
   Inmiddels zijn we een paar jaar verder, en heeft de Europese Commissie een breed pakket aan nieuwe wetten voorgesteld die de Europese geopolitieke positionering t.a.v. digitalisering en data vaste vorm geven. Tegelijk is er beleid gelanceerd, zoals de Europese Green Deal, dat nadrukkelijk bouwt op wat er m.b.t. digitalisering en data gebeurt, en zijn er financieringsinstrumenten om dat te versnellen en voort te stuwen. Wat in mijn verhaal van 2018 nog vooral een oproep was aan de geo-professional om als ‘bril’ op te zetten, krijgt nu vaste vorm in de eisen die aan de dagelijkse praktijk van die professional gesteld gaan worden. Aan een deel van die nieuwe regels werkte ik vorig jaar actief mee door voor aardobservatie, milieu en meteorologie voor de EC te onderzoeken welke gegevens in heel Europa voortaan verplicht voor iedereen vrij herbruikbaar moeten zijn. Regels, die als het goed is, later deze maand eindelijk worden gepubliceerd.
   Tijd dus, wat mij betreft, voor uitleg en een update. Ik heb me als spreker aangemeld om de nieuwe Europese regels uit de doeken te doen, en in te gaan op welke kansen daarin voor de FOSS4G community verpakt zitten. Dat doe ik vanuit mijn huidige werk voor Geonovum, de overheidsstichting die de overheid beter laat werken met geo-informatie. Binnen Geonovum volg ik, in opdracht van het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, actief de Europese ontwikkelingen t.a.v. digitalisering en data, en de impact daarvan op bijv. (inter)nationale standaarden, de verdere evolutie van INSPIRE, en de beschikbaarheid van overheidsdata voor iedereen. Die help ik vertalen naar kansen en handelingsperspectief voor Nederlandse datahouders en datagebruikers.

7. The first week now that the summer vacation period is fully over. Y started in group 2 in primary school this week. The weather was increasingly nice throughout the week, so I spend a lot of time outside and in the garden.
   This week I

   Started the week with a braindump after the hiatus and back got myself back into work routines
   Worked on a Dutch language wiki describing the coming EU legal changes w.r.t. data. The wiki is to be a public resource for a client and their network.
   Made a ‘month map’ for September, for the first time in some months. It’s a helpful way of helping myself to start tasks more easily.
   Prepared and participated / presented in a meeting of the Dutch tactical council for EU data policies.
   Went out for lunch with E, wander around town a bit, and allow plenty time for conversation
   Had a conversation with someone at the Ministry for Economic Affairs about the coming EU data laws.
   Participated in a session in which a client brought together all the external consultants they work with to talk about how we experience working for them, what could improve, what to keep as is etc, also in light of the coming shift from working from home only to a more hybrid situation where the office can be used part-time as well.
   Donned the summer party suit I was supposed to wear for H and R’s wedding. As Y was ill, she and I missed E’s brother’s wedding. But they both came to us in their wedding suits, and we made a little party at home with Y. It was fun and Y was very happy about it.
   Donned my wading suit to clean the sheeting at the water’s edge on our downstairs terrace, and remove saplings that sprouted on our balcony’s wall which stands in the water course behind our house.

8. A pretty regular week, with nice weather during the weekend.
   This week I

   Started preparing for a training on the use of data w.r.t. corruption and integrity, which I will provide in two weeks time for an international group of government officials and NGO employees from around the world
   Prepared two presentations on the European legal framework for data
   Had the weekly client meetings
   Got about half way with replacing Flickr embeds (half way in terms of postings, not images)
   Sat in on an interesting presentation on energy transition by Arash Aazami, which I need to look for online and rewatch
   Started ordening and reading the EU Green Deal legal package, to find the connections with the EU legal framework for data.
   Met with Y’s teacher face to face for a conversation about how Y is doing
   Couldn’t make our monthly all hands meeting, this time actually face to face in Amsterdam, but did join the group for the end of the afternoon and a shared Indian dinner.
   Gave the two presentations I prepared earlier in the week
   Took care of Y for a full day, as she had two days of while her teacher was going on a training
   Removed my LinkedIn timeline
   Decided on a date for a next Dutch Obsidian users meet-up, on October 9th
   Went to the frame maker with E and Y to pick up two framed photos by Elliott Erwitt, two large posters we bought at the Louisiana museum in the summer, and the especially beuatifully framed Hockney print by the RA for E’s birthday.
   Gave all the newly framed artwork a place in our home.
   As the weather was very nice today, I spent time in the garden doing some pruning.

   Picasso’s mother and child, poster of the Louisiana exhibition Mor! The other Louisiana poster we got framed was an A0 sized poster of ‘Dagen Efter’ by Mamma Andersson

9. A regular week, with ongoing nice weather. This week I

   did some additional invoicing, discussed a project proposal with a client, and saw another proposal accepted
   visited Amsterdam for a conversation with two businessowners I know through Mensa, about connecting business activities to the SDGs
   removed more Flickr embeds from this blog
   helped prepare a series of 4 sessions within a ministry on data usage, to take place late next month
   reviewed a client project both internally, and with the client, and came to the conclusion we’ll not be continuing it.
   paid the monthly salaries
   worked on a wiki for the upcoming EU legal framework on digital and data matters
   Talked to the board of the Dutch ‘data union’, which seeks to represent citizens against big tech, and offered them a session on how the proposed EU legal framework for data ties to the different aspects of their mission
   went out for lunch with E, to chat and hang out with the two of us
   had an extended conversation about the work being done at the Dutch Navy’s hydrographic services and how it’s connected to my work on the EU data framework
   enjoyed the great weather during the weekend with E and Y, going out for lunch, cycling, a walk in the woods, and spotting beaver tracks and gnawing marks
   picked the apples from our tree

   Passing by an old farm’s field. Duist used to be a municipality, which was dissolved in 1857

10. Last year I spent a large amount of time participating in the study that provided advice on which government data sets to include in the mandatory list that is part of the Open Data Directive.
    The Open Data Directive, which should have been transposed by EU Member States into national law by last July, but still mostly isn’t, provides a role to the EC to maintain a list of ‘high value data sets’ that all EU countries must make freely available for re-use through APIs and bulk download. This is the first time that it becomes mandatory to pro-actively publish certain data as open government data. Until now, there were mandatory ways to provide open data upon request, but the pro-active publication of such open data has always been voluntary (with various countries making a wide variety of voluntary efforts btw). Also the availability of government data builds on the national freedom of information framework, so the actual availability of a certain data set depends on different legal considerations in different places. The high value data list is the first pan-EU legal requirement that is equal in all EU Member States.
    I was part of a team that provided a study into which data sets should appear on that high value data list. The first iteration of this list (to be extended and amended periodically) by the EC covers six thematic areas: geographic data, statistics, mobility data, company information, earth observation and environment, and meteorology. I was responsible for the sections on earth observation and environment, and meteorology, and I’m eager to see how it has been translated into the implementation act as for both those thematic areas it would mean a very significant jump in open data availability if the study results get adopted. We submitted our final report by September 2020, and in the year since then we’re all waiting to see how the implementation act for the high value data will turn out. Our study only is a part in that, as it is itself an input for the EC’s impact assessment for different choices and options, which in turn forms the basis for a negotiation process that includes all Member States.
    Originally the implementation act was expected to be published together with other EC proposals, such as the Data Governance Act last December. This as the EU High Value Data list is part of a wider newly emerging EU legal framework on digitisation and data. But nothing much happened until now. First the expectation was Q1, then by the summer, then shortly after the summer, and now the latest I hear from within the EC is ‘hopefully by the end of the year’.
    It all depends on poltical will at this stage it seems, to move the dossier forward. The obstacle to getting the implementing act done apparently is what to do with company data (and ultimate beneficial ownership data). Opening up company registers has clear socio-economic benefits, outweighing the costs of opening them up. There are privacy aspects to consider, which can be dealt with well enough I think, but were not part of our study as it only considered socio-economic impacts and expected transition costs, and the demarcation between the Open Data Directive and the GDPR was placed outside our scope.
    There apparently is significant political pressure to limit the openness of such company registers. There must be similarly significant political pressure to move to more openness, or the discussion would already have been resolved. It sounds to me that the Netherlands is one of those politically blocking progress towards more openness. Even before our study commenced I heard rumours that certain wealthy families had the ear of the Dutch prime minister to prevent general free access to this data, and that the pm seemed to agree up to the point of being willing to risk infringement proceedings for not transposing the Open Data Directive completely. As it stands the transposition into national law of the Open Data Directive hasn’t happened mostly, and the implementing act for high value data hasn’t been proposed at all yet.
    Access Info, the Madrid based European NGO promoting the right to access to information, has in June requested documents concerning the high value data list from the EC, including the study report. The report hasn’t been published by the EC themselves yet because it needs to be published together with the EC’s impact assessment for which the study is an input, and alongside the implementation act itself.
    Access Info has received documents, and has published the 400+ page study report (PDF) that was submitted a year ago, alongside a critical take on the company register data issue.
    I am pleased the study is now out there informally at least, so I can point people to sections of it in my current work discussions on how to accomodate the new EU legal framework w.r.t. data, of which the high value open data is a part. Previously there were only publicly available slides from the last workshop that was part of the study, which by neccessity held only general information about the study results. Next to company registers, which I am assuming is the roadblock, there is much in the study that also is of importance and now equally suffering under the delays. I hope the formal publication of the report will follow soon. The publication of the impementing act is a key step for European open data given its first ever EU-wide mandates.
    A 2014 workshop, Virk Data Dag, at the Danish Business Authority discussing use cases for the open Danish company register, where I presented and participated.
    Finally, a declaration of interests is in order for this posting I think:

    My company was part of the consortium that did the mentioned study. I led the efforts on earth observation and environmental data, and on meteorological data.
    In current work for my company, the implementation act for high value data, and other recent EC legal proposals are of importance, as I am helping translate their impact and potential to Dutch national (open) data infrastructure and facilitating data re-use for public issues.
    I am a voluntary board member of the NGO Open State Foundation. OSF advocates full openness of company registers, and co-signed the critical take Access Info published. The board has no influence on day to day actions, which are the responsibility of the NGO’s director and team.
    I am personally in favor of opening up company registers as open data.

    I think that privacy issues can be readily addressed (something that is directly relevant to me as a sole trader business, as co-owner of an incorporated business, and as a board member of an association for which my home address is currently visible in the company register)
    I think that being visible as a business owner or decision maker is part of the social contract I entered into in exchange for being personally shielded from the business risks I am exposed to. Society is partially shielding me from those risks, as it allows social benefits to emerge (such as creating an income for our team), but in turn people need to be able to see who they’re dealing with.
    I think there is never a business case where charging fees for access to a monopolistic government database such as company registries makes sense. Such fees merely limit access to those able to afford it, causing unequality of access, and power and information assymmetries. Data collection for public tasks is a sunk cost by definition, access fees are always less over time than the additional tax revenue and social value resulting from re-use of freely available data. The only relevant financial aspect to address is that provision costs accrue with the dataholder and benefits with the treasury, which general budget financing is the remedy for
    I think that already open company registers in Europe and elsewhere provide ample evidence that many formulated fears w.r.t. such openness don’t become reality.

11. It’s nice when things can be frictionless, in this case thanks to Github and Respec.
    For a client I’m keeping track of the coming EU legal framework on digitisation and data, and I do that within my markdown note taking system (using Obsidian.md as viewer on text files on my computer). With the client we are doing outreach to a wide range of government data holders, and for that purpose we’ve launched a public site with current factual information about the EU legal framework for them to re-use.
    The site is hosted on Github, and we’re using Respec to incorporate markdown files as source for the web pages.
    This way maintaining the site is a breeze: I am doing my regular work, keeping notes in my own preferred environment. The folder which has my notes on the EU framework is synced with a github repository and the Respec script uses it for the site. Whenever I change something in my notes in the regular flow of work, I don’t have to also think about changing the site, that will happen when it gets pushed to Github. ‘Living’ documentation is something I regularly aim for within client projects, and the current set-up for this client makes it very easy.

12. Tijdens de Nederlandse FOSS4G conferentie op 20 oktober 2021 gaf ik een presentatie over het nieuwe Europese juridische raamwerk voor digitalisering en data.
    Een eerdere Engelstalige blogpost die dat Europese raamwerk samenvat.
    De slides vind je hieronder ingebed. Je kunt deze downloaden (PDF) of zelf weer inbedden in je eigen website.

13. Starting in 2010 I have posted an annual ‘Tadaa’ list, a list of things that made me feel I had accomplished something.
    This is the first time in 11 years I did not feel like making this list. This second pandemic year was again a year where our lives had a small and local scope mostly, where most days just carried over into the next. Additionally as I’ve been keeping day logs since April 2020, and have been posting week notes for three years now, maybe there’s less of an internal need of looking back annually, as unlike a decade ago I’ve been doing it weekly and daily for myself as well. Mostly I think it’s the pandemic, where nothing much happens during a year of staying home almost exclusively. As E mentioned this week, you miss out on so much coincidental inspiration, ideas and associative thoughts that you’d normally get from just being out in the world.
    Yet, maybe that means I really should be making the effort of writing the annual list. So here goes, in no particular order.

    Made sure that Y got to fully enjoy playing in the snow, and skating on the ice, for the few days in February that both were possible. Important memories to make with her.
    E and I made it work well at home, despite irregular school closures, a quarantine, and having Covid breach our household. I appreciated our house a lot, allowing us space as it does to both have our own home office, being able to sit in the garden under the apple tree or at the water’s edge watching the swans, ducks and coots. We complemented each other well, and E even completed a half year training program on data and AI on top of all of it.
    Went away when we could, e.g. to Zeeland over the easter weekend, enjoyed some lunches in town, visited a few museums.
    We spent two weeks in Copenhagen in the summer in a beautiful house we rented. Cycling through the city, just hanging out, meeting up with friends and having a nice place to return to or stay at and relax for a day was a great break. I am very glad that I booked the rental early in the spring, when it wasn’t at all clear that it would be even possible to travel across inner-EU borders. Just the act of having booked it was valuable as it put something on the horizon a few months out.
    A week in Versailles and Paris at the end of summer was an unplanned but huge pleasure. We enjoyed camping out in a forest area on the edge of Versailles, while having Paris within 30 mins by train and the railway station a 10 minute walk away. We got to be outside a lot, played around with Y in the camp ground’s swimming pool, while also exploring Paris (which Y loved), taking in (a small section of) the Louvre, and having lunch and coffee any place we liked. Paris wasn’t very busy, but not empty either, the perfect setting to roam as we pleased in a city that was lively enough to feel its pulse. It was a very energising week, and the best spur of the moment decision we made this year.
    Volunteered to speak at the FOSS4G Netherlands conference this fall, that fell in the brief period where such events could take place face to face.
    My company had a good year, again well above the pre-pandemic 2019. Our team I think grew tighter, and we managed to have a lot of fun despite the pandemic measures taking a mental toll on all of us at times. That financially things went well helped as stabilising factor, reducing uncertainty in uncertain times. Renting cabins in a holiday park in June, so we could work together for a week while each having our own cabin, is something to do during regular years as well. Last month it was a decade ago that we started our company, and in fact I feel these past years, despite the pandemic, were the best ones as a group and for me personally had most meaning.
    I got to work this year on a topic that I really enjoy, learning to work with and within the coming EU digital and data legal framework. The work evolved from a study I did last year, advising the European Commission on the planned open data obligations for EU countries. This important wave of 6 pieces of legislation is the biggest influence on data governance in Europe since the original PSI Directive and INSPIRE Directive 10-15 years ago. It goes much deeper and is much wider in scope than what came before though. There’s a renewed elan, and I feel the type of energy that my work 10 years ago generated around European open data efforts. This new wave will be key to any data work for at least five years, if not for the rest of the decade.
    For next year, I’ve already signed a contract with a client to keep track of those European developments, help Dutch dataholders and users to leverage their potential, and build bridges to initiatives elsewhere in Europe. It provides me with even more time to do that, which allows me to organise it more as a program of continuous work, not like one project out of several. I hope and intend to use this opportunity to help drive the momentum from this new batch of data legislation in 2022.
    I’ve been writing my blog here for 19 years now. Again this year it was an important instrument in having and generating conversations with a wide variety of people. In these stay at home times having a way of connecting to people all over the world is very valuable, and doing it all from my own domain is a source of agency. Thank you to all I had the opportunity to interact with this year, to all who dropped by in my inbox.
    Last year I started making a notes system (in Obsidian) having revamped my personal KM system. Last year I made some 800 conceptual notes mostly gleaned form existing blogposts and presentations I wrote the past 20 years. That number hasn’t grown very fast this year, to a 1050 plus about 200 more factual notes. Together with an ideas collection, and book notes they make some 1650 notes, or about a third of the total number of 5000 notes in my PKM system. Other notes are work related notes, day logs and an annotated library of things that caught my eye this year. I am happy it felt effortless to keep the note making going this year, even if I feel I had too little time to actually sit down and think and write, growing the conceptual part of it all. I’ve also done little non-fiction reading, an annual complaint I have though it was more than in previous years. Such reading provides input that could let my notes grow. Having dusted off my PKM system last year has really helped me this year in keeping track of my work, and being able to keep building on little things I started earlier and then had to leave alone for a while. What pleases me no end, in terms of reducing friction and the sense of ‘magic’ that I got it to work, I now run two client websites, where I publish information for them directly from my notes collection. It allows me to work in my own notes on my own laptop, and in the background GitHub ensures that those notes get published as a website.
    I’m what is called the ‘programming equivalent of a home cook. Making small adaptations to my laptop’s working environment, and little pieces of code to help me do some tasks is gratifying (if sometimes frustrating during the process of creation), and let’s me incrementally reduce friction in my workflows. This year I enjoyed rummaging around the back-end of my feed reader, and experimenting with what I call federated bookshelves, and a few other small things. The federated bookshelves stuff will be a topic of discussion and, I hope, making during a tentatively planned online IndieWeb meet-up in February on distributed libraries.

    In terms of work hours, I mostly worked about 3 days per week in the first six months, using the rest to balance the logistics of a household in times of pandemic and find some space for myself. The rest of the year I worked more or less fulltime.
    As we’ve been home mostly I had ample time to read, just over 70 books, of which a handful non-fiction. Fiction reading is something I worked into my day well in the past years (at least 30 mins before sleeping, an easy to arrange habit). The non-fiction reading is still something I want to find a working flow and rhythm for (and have been for years). It requires making time in a way that is less easy (reading, noting, thinking) than it is for fiction. On the plus side, the non-fiction I did read I also much more actively made notes on.
    We will spend some days around New Year in Switzerland, visiting dear friends. A tradition we couldn’t adhere to last year, but can do this year (if we test negative before leaving).
    Ever onwards! (After having the first week of January off that is)
    2021 wasn’t a piece of cake, but like the one pictured despite its imperfections and cracks still held beauty. I enjoyed this raspberry and chocolate confection towards the end of a joyful day with E and Y in Tivolo Gardens in Copenhagen last August.

14. Such a strange week. It started normally enough, but Thursday our 5yo woke up ill, and Russia started a war by invading Ukraine. The second half of the week therefore felt very much out of tilt.
    This week I

    converted my Amazon book purchases into a CSV file, as follow up to the personal libraries session last week.
    participated in a session on the reference architecture of the Dutch national digital twin for the built environment. The session was the kick-off for the public consultation that runs until April.
    had the weekly client meetings, one of which was in person again
    worked on turning the EU Digital Rights and Principles communication into Dutch language notes to share with the network of Dutch data holders.
    started reading the EU Data Act, published this week. This is the final piece of the framework that formulates the European geopolitical proposition w.r.t. digitisation and data, which will determine the context of most of my work for the next 10-15 years.
    had a conversation with Y’s teacher about her progress in school
    decided to move our company’s rocket.chat instance to a Dutch hoster on a managed VPS, and signed the proposal for it. To be done in the coming few weeks.
    met payroll, and paid the preliminary 2022 company taxes and personal income taxes.
    had a conversation with a company in our network about their current activities and where we might work together.
    had a conversation with someone who might be interested in applying to work in our company
    took care of Y as she was ill, resulting in two sleepless nights. Negatively impacted my concentration and alertness.
    did some pruning in the garden, as the weather during the weekend was very nice after weeks of storm and rain.

15. Wired talks about the potential consequences of the EU Digital Markets Act which will enter into force later this year. It requires amongst others interoperability between messenger services by so-called tech ‘gatekeepers’ (Google, Apple, Facebook/Meta etc). The stance taken is that such interoperability is bad for end-to-end encryption. Wired uncritically accepts the industry’s response to a law that is addressing Big Tech’s monopolistic and competivity problems by regulating lock-in. Wired even goes hyperbolic by using ‘Doomed To Fail’ in the title of the piece. What stands out to me is WhatsApp (Facebook/Meta) gaslighting with the following:

    “Changes of this complexity risk turning a competitive and innovative industry into SMS or email, which is not secure and full of spam,”
    Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, gaslighting the public about the DMA.

    A competitive and innovative industry you say? Incapable of dealing with a mere rule change that just happens to break your monopolistic chokehold on your customers, you say? Nice dig towards e-mail and SMS too.
    Meanwhile the non-profit Matrix has scoped out ways forward. Not easy, but also not impossible for the innovation and competivity inclined, as per the previous boasts of the competitive and innovative.
    It reminds me of a session I with colleagues once had years ago with most providers of route navigation services, where it was about opening up real time traffic and road information by the Dutch government, specifically changes to roads. The big navigation providers, both of the consumer products, as well as the in-car providers, generally struggled with anything that would lead to more frequent changes in the underlying maps (adding stuff to dynamic layers on top of a map is easier, changing the map layer is harder). It would mess up their update cycles because of months long lead times for updates, and the tendency of the general public to only sporadically update their maps. This is the reason you still come across traffic signs saying ‘situation changed, switch off navigation’, because of your navigation provider’s ‘competitive and innovative’ attitude towards change.
    There was one party in the room who already was able to process such deeper changes at whatever frequency. It wasn’t a ‘gatekeeper’ in that context of course but a challenger. It was the non-profit in the room, Open Street Map. Where changes are immediately rolled out to all users and services. Where interoperability is built in since the start.
    “Situation changed, navigation on”, the type of response you’d expect instead of the usual ‘situation changed, navigation off’. This photo taken in 2016 or 2017 in Leeuwarden, where I’ve been working on open data. Image Ton Zijlstra, license CC BY NC SA
    (The EU DMA is part of a much wider package of regulation, including the GDPR, expressing a geopolitical position w.r.t. everything digital and data.)
    (I’m looking forward to the fits thrown when they close read the Data Act, where any consumer has the right of access to all data created through their use of a product of service, and can assign third parties to share it with. PSD2-for-everything, in short)

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• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 FOSS4G NL 2021 – Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra
• 💬 Ton Zijlstra