> It still boils down to general guidelines that it’s impossible to know if you’re violating before the fact, and they will not even approve/reject proposals in advance. It’s basically “go read the act yourself, and ship what you think is compliant, and you’ll know whether we interpret the words the same way by whether or not we fine you.”

Companies want to know exactly where the line is so they can figure out how to comply with the letter of the law while doing as much as possible to get around the spirit of the law. This has been demonstrated over and over again. It isn't the job of the regulator to help companies with this process.

So you’d be cool with speed limit signs that said “hey, don’t go too fast” and no specific limits? And the cops decide who to pull over on vibes, reputation, mood?

I’m more of a rule of law person myself. If there’s a law that must not be broken, and breaking it results in penalties, it seems insane to me to not specify it in advance.

Sure, big tech is largely evil. Arrest ‘em, find them, IDGAF.

But pretending that DMA and related regulations provide enough information to ensure compliance is willfully ignorant. The regulations are designed to allow selective enforcemen.