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For a long time, countries agreed that free-trade was the best way to avoid another war. Europe was created as an economic region first, to avoid another war.

For a long time, countries agreed that free-trade was the best way to avoid another war. Europe was created as an economic region first, to avoid another war. But today I'm afraid Europe suffers memory loss. They're using coercion against another country (always the same one, the USA) for ideological reasons... which is the very definition of war. The fact they're citing money as the reason only makes it more frightening. Prosperous countries avoid war and favor trade instead, if possible. As a European citizen, I can witness the anti-american mindset: it's growing, nurtured by press and politicians. Don't think "it's not the USA, it's Google/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook": they actually cite the USA all day long until Google is a synonym for the USA in people's mind. A quick check with the first article I can find in my Google newsfeed: in the french press, about Apple Music, the article starts with "Le géant américain de l'informatique Apple" (The american IT giant/behemoth Apple) The internet is an amazing promoter of free-trade, so unsurprisingly it's the perfect target for Europe. Please don't call it a conspiracy theory: it's not one, because I hope I'm wrong ;-)

rnnr 11y ago
Totally agree. And although there is indeed an anti-american mindset, American politicians speak pretty often about the loss of 'american' jobs too... It's just the common economic illiteracy. Trade protections don't benefit any party involved, they don't make economic sense and they never did.
pgeorgi 11y ago
In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by the European Commission for Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_at_by_date http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fusea... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html Currently that covers: something about pay-TV in UK/Ireland, Qualcomm, a bunch of European cargo train operators, a pan-European retail food packaging cartel, something about a Bulgarian Energy Holding, German car heating and climate control vendors, Amazon, SkyTeam. Of these, two are American (Qualcomm, Amazon), one has a US company involved (Delta Airlines as part of SkyTeam), everything else is EU internal. That doesn't look like coercion against another country ("always the USA") to me. I guess there are two reasons why the media is mostly covering the cases where US companies are involved: First, the big tech companies are mostly American. Being big brings you on the radar of both regulators (everywhere) and the media covering the industry. Second, EU tech media takes cues from US tech media. When the US media report on something (such as a potential problem for the international business of their local industry), EU tech media pick it up. Up until today I haven't heard about the retail food packaging cartel, but with a €115M penalty that must have been a bigger issue. But why should HN (and related media) cover that? They're no household names, so it's also not covered in the general press. But I'm quite certain that the trade press of the retail food industry will cover this in great detail.
- weddpros 11y ago
  They're trying hard to make me believe you too. But please note that it's not just anti-trust cases, but also privacy cases / right to be forgotten / partnerships with newspapers / etc... When the NSA scandal was everywhere in the press, Orange (french telecom operator, former public company) said there was no need for the french administration to spy on them because they were already cooperating outside the judiciary system everyday. Yet the headlines were not about the French administration spying on its citizens, but about the NSA and the risks you take by using Facebook. That's so pathetic. Now the French government has passed a law to make it easier to spy on its own citizens. And the UK is following not far behind.
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    You may have noticed that the US media was comparably silent about US agencies. German media is relatively silent on German involvement (but reported on the US and France). That's just what the media needs to do to keep getting interviews with high ranking politicians. I doubt that the approach is to try to hurt the US, but to limit the impact on domestic relations to public officials. As for Facebook, that's one of the things that users _can_ do something about (however little the impact of such action is). If there were a French Facebook, the same could apply there as well - but besides Daily Motion (which is public by default), what is there in France where people could adapt their behavior?
9872 11y ago
Considering they are not using any violence, I think this falls a bit short of the very definition of war.
- weddpros 11y ago
  Coercion is most often the perspective of violence. Why would Google pay fines then? Because violence will be applied to make it comply even if it's a foreign entity.
  - M2Ys4U 11y ago
    If you follow that logic then simply taxing American companies on their EU business dealings is a declaration of war.
parasubvert 11y ago
Free trade unfortunately also leads to what is called a "branch plant economy" where policy decisions are made by foreigners with much less interest in your national or regional success. Trade makes everyone better off, in general, but is risky, because policies can change. Free trade in particular gets even riskier as it means the populace has fewer levers of influence against the corporations. Canada is experiencing this with auto manufacturers - many Japanese and American (some German) companies build cars in Canada and Mexico for the broader North American market because of North American free trade and lower labour costs in both countries (the exchange rate, single payer health care in Canada, more reasonable unions, etc). But now so many jobs depend on these companies, the Regional Governments can't let them leave in economic downturns. So they subsidize. Is this all a net positive? Probably, but it's hard to know. When you accept the upside of trade you need to accept the downsides - but most don't. "Let the free market choose" isn't an answer because we live in a Democracy, one feature of which is to prevent the market from getting what it wants when the people don't like it. The USA dominates technology with only a few counter-examples in Europe (SAP, Amadeus, ASOS) - but LOTS in China. If the future is going to be these companies diversifying into every other market ("software is eating the world") you can bet there's justifiable anger at the U.S. (At beating them in a new area of knowledge and practice) and a desire to put up barriers while they get their shit together as China did. This isn't war, it's competition. There's a big difference.
- weddpros 11y ago
  How many Europeans use Google? 90%. That's democracy: the people of Europe gets what it wants. When Europe says "we'll fix what's wrong with Google", do they want to convert the last 10%? If not, then it has nothing to do with the people. You think democracy is what protects people against companies? How strange. If there's no demand for a lousy french dropbox-like service, and people use Dropbox instead, it's because the market will give people what they want: they chose Dropbox. Now pass a "democratic" law to ban Dropbox because it's not hosted in France, and all we're left with is the opposite of democracy. No choice anymore, and the best product is gone. Who's winning? The french dropbox-like with its new state-guaranteed monopoly. The people has lost. A french comic once said "So you're telling me the rich are bad, and the poor are good, and all these good people want to become the bad ones?"... I mean the french "dropbox-like" would love to be Dropbox. The french Uber like would love to be Uber. Exalead would love to be Google. But it's not the good vs. the evil. It's just a matter of performance... until the law comes into play, in less than democratic ways, to cut competition.
ionised 11y ago
There are plenty of reasons anti-American sentiment is growing in Europe and it goes much, much further than a few tech companies.

rnnr 11y ago

Totally agree. And although there is indeed an anti-american mindset, American politicians speak pretty often about the loss of 'american' jobs too... It's just the common economic illiteracy. Trade protections don't benefit any party involved, they don't make economic sense and they never did.

pgeorgi 11y ago

In my experience, the clashes of European companies with EU regulators just don't create as much press. The most recent anti-trust/cartel activity is listed by the European Commission for Competition: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fuseaction=dsp_at_by_date http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/index.cfm?fusea... http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/cases/cases.html Currently that covers: something about pay-TV in UK/Ireland, Qualcomm, a bunch of European cargo train operators, a pan-European retail food packaging cartel, something about a Bulgarian Energy Holding, German car heating and climate control vendors, Amazon, SkyTeam. Of these, two are American (Qualcomm, Amazon), one has a US company involved (Delta Airlines as part of SkyTeam), everything else is EU internal. That doesn't look like coercion against another country ("always the USA") to me. I guess there are two reasons why the media is mostly covering the cases where US companies are involved: First, the big tech companies are mostly American. Being big brings you on the radar of both regulators (everywhere) and the media covering the industry. Second, EU tech media takes cues from US tech media. When the US media report on something (such as a potential problem for the international business of their local industry), EU tech media pick it up. Up until today I haven't heard about the retail food packaging cartel, but with a €115M penalty that must have been a bigger issue. But why should HN (and related media) cover that? They're no household names, so it's also not covered in the general press. But I'm quite certain that the trade press of the retail food industry will cover this in great detail.

weddpros 11y ago
They're trying hard to make me believe you too. But please note that it's not just anti-trust cases, but also privacy cases / right to be forgotten / partnerships with newspapers / etc... When the NSA scandal was everywhere in the press, Orange (french telecom operator, former public company) said there was no need for the french administration to spy on them because they were already cooperating outside the judiciary system everyday. Yet the headlines were not about the French administration spying on its citizens, but about the NSA and the risks you take by using Facebook. That's so pathetic. Now the French government has passed a law to make it easier to spy on its own citizens. And the UK is following not far behind.
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  You may have noticed that the US media was comparably silent about US agencies. German media is relatively silent on German involvement (but reported on the US and France). That's just what the media needs to do to keep getting interviews with high ranking politicians. I doubt that the approach is to try to hurt the US, but to limit the impact on domestic relations to public officials. As for Facebook, that's one of the things that users _can_ do something about (however little the impact of such action is). If there were a French Facebook, the same could apply there as well - but besides Daily Motion (which is public by default), what is there in France where people could adapt their behavior?

9872 11y ago

Considering they are not using any violence, I think this falls a bit short of the very definition of war.

weddpros 11y ago
Coercion is most often the perspective of violence. Why would Google pay fines then? Because violence will be applied to make it comply even if it's a foreign entity.
- M2Ys4U 11y ago
  If you follow that logic then simply taxing American companies on their EU business dealings is a declaration of war.

parasubvert 11y ago

Free trade unfortunately also leads to what is called a "branch plant economy" where policy decisions are made by foreigners with much less interest in your national or regional success. Trade makes everyone better off, in general, but is risky, because policies can change. Free trade in particular gets even riskier as it means the populace has fewer levers of influence against the corporations. Canada is experiencing this with auto manufacturers - many Japanese and American (some German) companies build cars in Canada and Mexico for the broader North American market because of North American free trade and lower labour costs in both countries (the exchange rate, single payer health care in Canada, more reasonable unions, etc). But now so many jobs depend on these companies, the Regional Governments can't let them leave in economic downturns. So they subsidize. Is this all a net positive? Probably, but it's hard to know. When you accept the upside of trade you need to accept the downsides - but most don't. "Let the free market choose" isn't an answer because we live in a Democracy, one feature of which is to prevent the market from getting what it wants when the people don't like it. The USA dominates technology with only a few counter-examples in Europe (SAP, Amadeus, ASOS) - but LOTS in China. If the future is going to be these companies diversifying into every other market ("software is eating the world") you can bet there's justifiable anger at the U.S. (At beating them in a new area of knowledge and practice) and a desire to put up barriers while they get their shit together as China did. This isn't war, it's competition. There's a big difference.

weddpros 11y ago
How many Europeans use Google? 90%. That's democracy: the people of Europe gets what it wants. When Europe says "we'll fix what's wrong with Google", do they want to convert the last 10%? If not, then it has nothing to do with the people. You think democracy is what protects people against companies? How strange. If there's no demand for a lousy french dropbox-like service, and people use Dropbox instead, it's because the market will give people what they want: they chose Dropbox. Now pass a "democratic" law to ban Dropbox because it's not hosted in France, and all we're left with is the opposite of democracy. No choice anymore, and the best product is gone. Who's winning? The french dropbox-like with its new state-guaranteed monopoly. The people has lost. A french comic once said "So you're telling me the rich are bad, and the poor are good, and all these good people want to become the bad ones?"... I mean the french "dropbox-like" would love to be Dropbox. The french Uber like would love to be Uber. Exalead would love to be Google. But it's not the good vs. the evil. It's just a matter of performance... until the law comes into play, in less than democratic ways, to cut competition.

ionised 11y ago

There are plenty of reasons anti-American sentiment is growing in Europe and it goes much, much further than a few tech companies.