EU To Open New Silicon Valley Office To Figure Out Better And Better Ways To Destroy The Internet
from the new-sheriff-in-town dept
The EU is well on its way to fundamentally destroying the internet. Two giant new regulations are set to become law soon: the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. And while neither is ridiculous in the same way that laws in the US and the UK and some other places are just pandering to grandstanding nonsense, that doesn’t make these laws good. Both regulations went through long, convoluted bureaucratic processes… and came out with long, convoluted bureaucratic regulations that simply don’t match with an internet that is designed to be an open system for innovation.
Between the DSA and the DMA, the EU is basically setting up a fundamental shift in the internet, away from the permissionless innovation that allowed anyone to experiment, and iterate, and figure out what people wanted… to a new, “mother, may I” approach to innovation overseen by fearful bureaucrats.
To basically put an exclamation point on how these two new regulations are designed to bring Silicon Valley companies to heel, the European Commission has announced that it’s setting up shop in Silicon Valley, to allow its bureaucrats to get closer to the services they wish to tie down with overly burdensome compliance requirements.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union government, is opening a San Francisco office on Sept. 1 that will liaise with Silicon Valley companies affected by EU tech regulation.
While the Commission is trying to frame this as a chance for “improved relationships” between the Commission and tech companies — and a chance for both sides to learn from each other — it sure feels a lot like a foreign regulator setting up shop to watch over its new regulated industry.
A central part of Mr. de Graaf’s work in San Francisco will be meeting with companies that must comply with EU tech rules because they do business in the 27-nation bloc. Big tech companies often bring more than a dozen lawyers to meetings, and Mr. de Graaf said he could help ensure companies adopt a more strategic approach to EU laws and not one that is driven by lawyers alone. Still, he expects companies to file lawsuits against coming tech legislation. “A relationship between the regulator and the regulated is always a bit complicated. A regulator is always like a bit of a policeman,” he said.
Yes. A regulator is always like a bit of a policeman. So, welcome to Silicon Valley, our new internet overlords.
Filed Under: digital markets act, digital services act, dma, eu, regulators
Comments on “EU To Open New Silicon Valley Office To Figure Out Better And Better Ways To Destroy The Internet”
I know it won’t happen because money, but the tech companies really need to just stop trying to placate these people.
If a country passes laws that make it too onerous to do business there, the company needs to just say “If that’s how you want it, then we won’t do business here anymore” and leave.
I mean, the EU is always saying they want to give European tech companies a chance to compete, right? Surely companies would step up if Twitter/Facebook/Google/Microsoft/whoever was gone?
And if the EU citizens have a problem with that, they can speak with their vote.
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“Surely companies would step up if Twitter/Facebook/Google/Microsoft/whoever was gone?”
Perhaps, but the value of those services is their international nature. An EU only FB or Google would be less useful no matter how good it was on the backend. It’s useful to work with the major services, many of whom have a major local presence in the EU already.
“And if the EU citizens have a problem with that, they can speak with their vote.”
I vote for reality, where decades of brain drain and relative favouritism toward Silicon Valley are eroding for various reasons, and it’s more possible for people to collaborate and compete without necessarily having to relocate. Legalities will be a problem, but also reality states that most people aren’t going to vote for their EU representative based purely on how they affect a few websites.
Re: Agreed
Placating the EU is nonsense for a private company based in the US. There is no need to stop doing business in a country or otherwise pull out. I fail to see why tech companies actually need to establish a physical business presence in the EU. If a US company is compliant with US laws, foreign judgements can’t be enforced (fines, etc.). Is the EU going to be able to make visa stop processing payments for Google services or Twitter ads from EU citizens or businesses? I think not. Is the EU going to block access to US internet companies? Doubtful.
I guess my point is this:
There is no need to take your ball and go home on the internet. If you operate legally in the USA, there is basically nothing a foreign country can do short of taking extreme (site blocking, legislation to regulate banking a payment processors) measures that will ultimately be ineffective.
I just wish american big tech would grow a pair!
Re: Re:
So you’re basically saying that since we put robots on Mars, we should put robots on Betelgeuse as well?
“Nerd Harder” isn’t an option.
Re: Re:
“Placating the EU is nonsense for a private company based in the US”
I know that neither Trump or Johnson realised this, but dealing with a large trading partner instead of insulting them isn’t a bad thing.
“I fail to see why tech companies actually need to establish a physical business presence in the EU”
Do you think that Huawei need to have a presence in the US and follow US rules to trade there? Do you think that the US has no control over how China does things if they choose to enforce local rules?
“Is the EU going to block access to US internet companies? Doubtful.”
Until recently, in Spain, we still couldn’t access Google News directly because they did just that. It was Google’s decision rather than the EU, but it’s possible. It will lead to a sudden interest in VPNs, but they can do that.
It’s very complicated now, but there’s a reason why most of the companies you refer to do indeed have an EU presence and why smaller companies might need more local attention.
“If you operate legally in the USA, there is basically nothing a foreign country can do short of taking extreme (site blocking, legislation to regulate banking a payment processors) measures that will ultimately be ineffective”
Which for most businesses is likely less lucrative than trying to negotiate with other regions.
“I just wish american big tech would grow a pair!”
If by that you mean “bully them into accepting whatever you want with no choice on their end”, you’re likely going to be disappointed.
Re: Just stop
I wish they did! Facebook “threatened” to shut down facebook.com in the EU next week, I can’t wait.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/meta-repeats-threat-it-may-pull-facebook-instagram-from-europe-1.1798780
Re: Another little American ...
Of course US companies can ignore the EU if they want. The problem is that although the US economy is large, very large in fact, it is not the whole World’s economy. The EU market is more or less exactly the same size as the US and US companies like money, that means they are not happy to throw away a market the same size as their own. US companies also worry that if they ignore a market and local start-ups move in they may prove more popular than the US versions in other countries, they do not want to compete with sites that have an enormous uncontested home market when trying to sell in all the other markets worldwide, would the UK, Australia, India, China, African nations, South American nations and even neighbours like Canada and Mexico prefer the US version or a version from a market that understands multinationalism and multilingualism?
Yes the EU is a horrible bureaucratic mess run by idiots who do not understand the Internet and want it to be something different, but then the US is a horribly nationalistic nation run by bureaucrats who have no regard for anyone else’s laws or customs. With a national security service that believes it has the right to spy on anyone anywhere in the World and will not respect any international treaties or courts.
Both sides need to grow up and work on a compromise because seen from outside they are like a pair of 11 year old bullies demanding each others lunch money.
Re: Re: Electrons Know No National Boundaries
Thanks to the nature of the internet, web services are pretty much available wherever the internet reaches. There are exceptions, such as Red China with its ``great firewall”, and potential exceptions, where EU countries could erect something similar, but in general there is no need to have a physical presence across the pond for your web site to be accessible across the pond.
What politicians cannot control they will destroy.
Well… it’s all about interpretation right now I suppose. There’s plenty of companies that just decided to block the EU entirely when the GDPR passed rather than try to comply, even though doing so might have been trivial, so it would benefit both sides to work out a compromise or clarify the actual requirements with a local representative.
I don’t necessarily trust that’s what the reason is here, but there are reasons to have such a liaison without trying to block or destroy.
Re: GDPR in unenforceable
There was no need to block EU traffic for companies that didn’t have a physical business presence in the EU. The GDPR is not a US law. A fine predicated on a GDPR violation is not enforceable in the US.
Re: Re:
Exactly, yet there seems to have been a lot of confusion. A local liaison who can clarify such things seems to be a good move, surely?
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We beat those tea drinking asses several times before, let’s do it again.
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Kettle, kettle.
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@A/C
Does your babysitter bow you are using your mothers computer?
'How dare you properly prepare for this meeting?!'
Big tech companies often bring more than a dozen lawyers to meetings, and Mr. de Graaf said he could help ensure companies adopt a more strategic approach to EU laws and not one that is driven by lawyers alone.
Gee, I wonder why companies might bring lawyers to a meeting all about the laws and regulations they’ll be facing and will be penalized for not complying with…
If you threaten someone with a gun don’t be surprised when the next time they show up it’s wearing a bulletproof vest.
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“Gee, I wonder why companies might bring lawyers to a meeting all about the laws and regulations they’ll be facing and will be penalized for not complying with…”
This might just be a cultural thing. Most countries aren’t as litigious as the US, and it can be problematic for negotiations if you’re only dealing with lawyers. Sure, you need them, but if you’re only dealing with them and not reps from other fields, things can get weird.
Though, the hilarity of the recent Alex Jones hearings might indicate that they’re not that scary and might even help your own case.
Re: Re:
Most countries aren’t as litigious as the US, and it can be problematic for negotiations if you’re only dealing with lawyers. Sure, you need them, but if you’re only dealing with them and not reps from other fields, things can get weird.
Depends on the ‘negotiations’ I’d say. If the politicians aren’t interested in acknowledging that what they’re asking for/demanding is a terrible, dangerous if not flat out impossible idea then bringing along some experts isn’t likely to work out so well, whereas when a company is being told ‘these are the laws/regulations you’ll be working under’ having people experienced in the law is pretty much always going to be helpful and might allow them to spot problems ahead of time.
Re: Re: Re:
“Depends on the ‘negotiations’ I’d say”
True, it would be rather naive to assume that everything would be done in good faith.
My prediction.
The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union government, is opening a San Francisco office on Sept. 1 that will liaise with Silicon Valley companies affected by EU tech regulation.
Today the EU, tomorrow the PRC.
If a company charges for services or apps in the EU they will have to comply with EU regulations or else they will be fined. I think the EU can also have a certain amount of control over app stores google and apple can’t afford to leave the EU market. And most apps are downloaded from the apple or Google play store
It do, snt make a difference if the have an EU office or store.
Even when regulations are passed its not always clear how they will be enforced by regulators
It’s seems sensible to me to open an office in the USA since most big tech company’s have offices in America
Yes many newspapers websites decided to block EU customers ip adress, s rather than comply with gdpr rules
The U.S. don’t own or control the Internet and should not be allowed to. I always welcome moves by EU to take down American Cultural Imperialism. We in Canada have enough of our “dear neighbor” cramming your stinking evil Copyright culture down our throats. I’m all for permissionless innovation culture, But American Cultural Imperialism has to go too. So I’m all for EU liberating the rest of us from your suffocating cultural hegemony.
At least the EU has 4 Pirate Party members sitting in Parliament right now if I recall correctly. You Americans dont support your Pirate Party which is for permissonless innovation culture. Have they even ever won a seat in any lawmaking and policy making bodies in your country? You love so much your idiotic and corrupt Donkeys and Elephants, it’s crazy. At least there’s some support for permissonless innovation culture in the EU.
You refer the EU regulators of Big Tech as “foreign” which tell me about your problematic American-centric attitude. So you regard Big Tech as Anerican corporations instead of multinational corporations? Well, your Big Tech is too Big Tech and too much global. It needs to be taken down a peg. We are tired of your corrupt regulators regulating the Internet through your Big Tech. If the Internet must balkanize to get rid of your toxic Cultural Imperialism then so be it and good riddance.
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So to fix the “problem” you’re willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Good to know.
Also if you want to complain about copyright, talk to the major studios who lobby for permission culture.
Re: Re:
Yes the baby is pretty ugly.
Dont misunderstand me. I dont support immediate abolishment of the blanket copy prohibition right away as I know America is pretty addicted to Copyright no matter how bad it’s for culture, like with fossil fuel no matter how bad it’s for environment. Going cold turkey sounds bad for the economy. I believe we need to have a transition period to wean America off its Copyright addiction while ee hopefully develop and implement more enlightened abd more modern innovation policy more fitting to a free Digital Society based on evidence to replace Copyright and we need to fund innovation in business models to replace the Copyright Industry.
Innovation policy should be based on evidence rather than on the dogma of the Copyright Cult. I don’t support Copyright as it is not justified enough. If there’s not enough justification, Copyright should be abolished. So if the baby dont belong, it should go with the bathwater. The burden is not on me to justify abolishment. The burden is on the Copyright Cult to justify Copyright. Its not me who makes the positive claim. In my opinion, the Cult fails to justify Copyright as valuable enough to justify for the economic inefficiency, inequality, social and cultural costs, diminishment of free speech and other democratic values it incurs.
You may disagree as you see the baby as precious and valuable. I dont drink the Copyright Cult’s Kool-aid like you so I see the baby as a monster who needs to be rid of so sorry I disagree.
I complain about Copyright whenever I can but not to people who drank too much of the Copyright Cult’s Kool-Aid or to intellectually dishonest people with closed minds.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” It’s useless in my opinion to complain to the major studios.
It’s the government who we should protest to. We should demand the government to end its injustice of favoring copyright holders over the people. Copyright is purportedly to serve the people not copyright holders. Copyright holders should not be stakeholders. The government needs to stop robbing the people of wealth to give to the too greedy and undeserving copyright landlords.
Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, uh, all that talk about babies and shit kinda melted my brain, but I was able to pick this out of your rambling…
…and I want to tell you why that’s bullshit.
I’m no fan of copyright—at least, not the version we have where accusations of infringement are as good as a conviction in a court of law so far as the law itself is concerned. But if we’re going to have some form of copyright, copyright holders must be stakeholders.
Half the point of copyright is to give creators enough of a chance to make money off their work. (The other half is ending copyright terms so that the public domain can grow and expand the culture with it.) Creators should have that chance, even if they fail to make money. Revoking copyright altogether, or locking copyright holders out of any discussion pertaining to copyright, would come off as trying to screw over creators.
The public and the people who create works for the public to consume must be equal stakeholders in copyright. Both “sides” deserve to have their say and find a solution that benefits them both, even if one side benefits a little more than the other. Balance is a bullshit construct. Compromise isn’t.
Re: Re:
Yes. You drank the Copyright Cult Kool-Aid so you see the baby as valuable. I see the baby a ugly monster who needs to go with bathwater. We can birth a more beautiful baby by basing innovation policy in evidence rather than the dogma of the Copyright Cult. We can fund innovation in business models to replace the Copyright Industry.
The burden is not on me to justify abolishment. I didn’t make the positive claim. Copyright Cult did. The implied claim Copyright Cult is making is that Copyright is valuable enough to justify the social inequality, economic inefficiency, diminishing of free speech, actual property rights and other American values, etc. Theres no evidence of an cultural apocalypse in case of Copyright abolishment. There is no good reason to disbelieve that people will create and innovate and other people will support creation and innovation without Copyright just like it was for millenniums before Copyright. If there is demand, the supply will find a way to meet the demand. Theres no evidence that Copyright is absolutely needed to make that happen in a modern Digital Society. Could a Star Trek-like utopia happen without Copyright? sure, why not? But not according to the Copyright Cult, apparently.
I wonder what an advanced and enlightened alien civilization will think of our Copyright regime in case we meet one. Will they laugh at our backwardness and our lack of imagination?
In my opinion the Copyright Cult fails to provide adequate justification to account for the costs that Copyright incurs on society. If there is not enough justification then Copyright needs to go away. It’s no way to build an utopia. It’s a way of building a dystopia where the poorest is at disadvantage in accessing culture where culture is much all locked up behind paywalls for generations. It only truly benefits the affluent. Depraved people only see the baby as good as they worship the Almighty Dollar. I don’t as I dont idolize the Almighty Dollar. I’m a humanist so I care more about humans more than I care about money. Copyright is about the money not about humans. So fuck Copyright.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
For this reason, I dont complain to major studios. The major studios dont care about humans, it’s all money for them. It’s the government whom we need to protest to as the government is at fault for the injustice its corruption incurs via Copyright. The government robs the people of its wealth to give to the too greedy and undeserving copyright landlords. Copyright is purportedly to serve the people not copyright landlords. If there must be Copyright, Copyright landlords should not be stakeholders in Copyright policy. Only the people. The government should also should not unjustly favor the copyright holders over the consumers or the people. Copyright should go away if it is not applied justly.
And I don’t complain about Copyright to intellectually dishonest people with closed minds. I complain to forums like this where intellectually honest and open-minded and fair-minded people may be found. Not to Copyright cultists. Not to gullible people who are brainwashed by the propaganda of the Copyright Cultists.
Re: Re: Re:
Yes, you drank the Copyright Cult Kool-Aid…
Better than drinking the Abolishment Cult Flavor-Aid (which is the actual poisoned one). Minimalists like you are a major part of the reason where we are today with even hardware being locked down by Digital Restrictions Malware.
Re: Re: Re:2
Copyright minimalism has nothing to do with copyright maximalists pushing for copyright to cover everything and last forever. Either explain otherwise or find an argument with some credibility.
Re: Re: Re:3
Even where maximalists conflate minimalists with pirates to inflate the numbers of *cough*potential*cough* losses and find it easy to do so because of them being so loud?
Re: Re: Re:2
“ Minimalists like you are a major part of the reason where we are today with even hardware being locked down by Digital Restrictions Malware.”
Hey Jhon, time to lay off the sauce bro.
Re: Re: Re:3
Why are you talking to yourself like that? Self-flagellation is so medieval.
Re: Re: Re:3
Hey, Jhon, are you trying to pretend your comment history doesn’t precede you? Don’t forget that we can all search it to see when you thought DRM on hardware was a good idea.
Re: Re: Re:2
.. said nobody mentally competent, ever.
Why is the EFF ok with the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act if its going to destroy The Internet?
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Misinformation as promoted by Trump, obviously.
Re: Re:
Yeah obviously you have to be a vile piece of scum to even post something like that, which thankfully almost nobody in the world agrees with, even in Dumbistan (US).
Re: Re: Re:
TBH, the EFF are in support of these bills “as long as they work well”. They were wholly opposed until they got fixed some, though, but they are now fixated on privacy concerns as though the GDPR isn’t bad enough with its “right to be forgotten”.
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Just because someone’s generally smart doesn’t mean they can’t be really stupid at times, this applies both to individuals and organizations.
Re: Re:
^^^ …. and entire countries/block of countries.
Re: Re: Re:
Countries are only as good as their elected leaders, and most voters aren’t voting based on this single issue.
What the EU citizen should think about is why are these bureaucrats injecting themselves into these transactions. It should be my choice as to which sovereignty I subject my personal data to.
If this wasn’t actually about power then all the EU have to do is educate their citizen to make better choices for themselves, instead of making the whole system more convoluted and expensive to develop in and thus making a wider moat so that burgeoning businesses have to overcome more to be competitors.
More expensive policies justified by puffing up simple problems.
Copyright has its place in society
Remember that the GNU GPL os a license layered on top of copyright. If you abolish copyright, the GPL would have no strength, because anyone would be able to take copies and deal with them freely and withhold improvements from the commons: The copyright establishes a no-rights starting point, and the license enables copying only if the redistributor is required to release any changes to the GPL’d components.
However, I feel that copyright lengths have failed to keep up with the pace of technology. In particular, some use copyright to deprive the Public Domain of access to works for longer than I think is healthy.
My estimate is that a 20-year copyright, strictly from date of publication, would be the best compromise… but good luck getting that through the US Government sector, as it is so beholden to corporations, and because export of US “IP” (ugh) is such a large part of the US economy.
Limited copyright is better than no copyright
Remember that the GNU GPL os a license layered on top of copyright. If you abolish copyright, the GPL would have no strength, because anyone would be able to take copies and deal with them freely and withhold improvements from the commons: The copyright establishes a no-rights starting point, and the license enables copying only if the redistributor is required to release any changes to the GPL’d components.
However, I feel that copyright lengths have failed to keep up with the pace of technology. In particular, some use copyright to deprive the Public Domain of access to works for longer than I think is healthy.
My estimate is that a 20-year copyright, strictly from date of publication, would be the best compromise… but good luck getting that through the US Government sector, as it is so beholden to corporations, and because export of US “IP” (ugh) is such a large part of the US economy.
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That only holds true if you think everyone would suddenly stop sharing information if copyright were to go away. But humanity has been sharing stories and our knowledge with one another since we were first able to do so. I promise that we’ll be doing it long after both you and I are dead, copyright be damned.
Re: Re: My comment was in relation to GPL only...
[Apologies in advance for any typos… I’m tired…]
You’ve read my post in a too-restrictive light — I was speaking strictly about how the GPL works. One of the key reasons for its success is that Copyright (Berne Convention) crosses international boundaries so seamlessly (very high, but not 100%, success rate).
I acknowledge that other sharing mechanisms, such as Creative Commons and the MIT (permissive) Licence exist and have been involved in creating vibrant communities… but they are weaker than the GPL at enforcing a sharing culture. I believe that there isn’t a single-size-fits-all; a spectrum of licenses is valuable.
Re: Re: Re:
That you seem to think a sharing culture needs “enforcement” is…sad, to say the least.
Not everyone will want to share what they’ve made. The world will keep spinning regardless; those of us who do will keep sharing with one another. No license or copyright will change the human desire to share information and culture—it can only ever change the legality of doing so.
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Only if they never published those works, which the GPL allows them to do, as once published anybody can examine and extract and reverse engineer those works. Also, you are ignoring all the software released under the BSD and similar permissive licenses, and which are part of the software commons.