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> The only solution seems to be to ensure that they are two different companies. If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follo

> The only solution seems to be to ensure that they are two different companies. If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate. Furthermore if people based in the USA have physical access to the servers located in the EU, then if the US government wants that data, it will probably be exfiltrated to the USA, regardless of what EU governments want. The solution is for EU governments to have control over their own computing infrastructure. This obviously includes cloud computing and datacenters. But it also needs to include operating systems and chips, because otherwise the risk of a foreign power putting a backdoor in them is too great. Ditto for all countries, of course.

hellisothers 8y ago
Here lies humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways and squandered their resources doing so. (Not saying you’re advocating for this, just that it is the current plan it seems)
- gumby 8y ago
  Here stands humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways as a way of figuring out what was best for various situations.
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    And then there were 16: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- d-sc 8y ago
  Humans are good at building houses and have many standard plans detailing how to do so. Yet we still hire architects to design custom homes. I’m ok with that. Efficiency doesn’t always need to be the end all goal.
- hopler 8y ago
  Humanity built the tower of Babel, all speaking one language, and was struck down and fragmented for their hubris.
- cabalamat 8y ago
  > Here lies humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways and squandered their resources doing so. Polities that don't retain control over their computing infrastructure will in the future have effectively ceded independence to others. Because controlling the full stack from silicon to cloud services is expensive (fabs can cost c. $20 billion), this has geo-political implications: namely that in the future there will only be a small number of loci of independent power. The USA will be one, China another. Does Europe want to make itself a third, or will it be content to be subservient to others?
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    The EU won't be content with it, but they still won't do anything about it.
    - ionised 8y ago
      Why not? Safe Harbour was shot down after the Schrems case. Google and Facebook are being taken to task currently. The huge fines for GDPR violations will come if the companies cited as in breach of the regulations fail to do what the EU asks. The EU is doing a lot. Just because it can't act with immediacy it doesn't mean nothing is happening.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Well, yes. Merely duplicate effort is a great improvement over last century's plan to be able to destroy civilization at 45 minutes notice. Speaking of which, I believe Pakistan had two mutually distrusting nuclear weapons programs, reflecting the internal conflicts between parts of the state security apparatus.
- irrational 8y ago
  That does seem to be a common occurrence when there is a sufficiently large number of people. I work for a large Fortune 150 company. At least once a year a new department is created that duplicates what my department has been doing for 15 years. Inevitably someone who knows of us tells the other group and they get in touch with us to find out what we actually do. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where the other group finds out that we already do 100% of what they've been tasked to do. They always look at each other with expressions of confused disbelief, wondering what they are supposed to do now. Sometimes they find some niche (on occasion we've thrown them some scraps of things we used to do that we no longer have any interest in pursuing), usually they are quickly dissolved. The worst was a group that had existed for more than a year and had already spent millions of dollars, only to be dissolved as soon as higher ups found out they existed and were trying (unwittingly) to duplicate our mature solution.
zepearl 8y ago
>>If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate. Maybe the US company could be a holding which would "only" own 100% of its independent EU subsidiary (which would be its own legal entity, reporting in EU)?
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  The question is: does America care about international law and treaties or will they just do whatever they want? Ten years ago I knew the answer to this question. Today not so much. This is why the EU should hedge its bets and keep the door open for Chinese companies.
  - cabalamat 8y ago
    > Ten years ago I knew the answer to this question. Today not so much. 10 years ago, the NSA existed., Now the NSA exists. The USA, like other big powers, is going to want to try to get access to information and computer systems. > This is why the EU should hedge its bets and keep the door open for Chinese companies. You appear to be saying that because the USA gets its hands on Europe's data, Europe should let China do so as well. That doesn't make sense to me, so I wonder what it is you are saying.
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    Ah yes, the Chinese, those paragons of upholding international laws and agreements. They certainly won't end up just doing whatever they want to do.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    Ten years ago the answer was also no, but with a bit more lip service. The US hasn't bothered with such things as the ban on landmines, the ICC for war crimes, and the U.N. convention on rights of the child. The U.S. is only interested in law that binds other countries.
  - ionised 8y ago
    The USA is by all accounts a 'rogue' state by its own definition of the term (China is too). It doesn't abide by international conventions or laws, it engages in wars of aggression, it bullies smaller nations into accepting laws and trade agreements favourable to itself. It pushes crap like the DMCA globally. Of course it doesn't care about international law. Superpowers get away with this for a time, until everybody else wises up to the fact that nobody is following the rules.
TuringNYC 8y ago
>> If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate. Accenture and other US consultancies with global operations faced this problem when bidding for government contracts. They created a global parent corporation (in Accenture's case it was Luxembourg and in many cases it is Bermuda.) The US portion of the business is owned by the global parent. The EU portion of the business is owned by the global parent as well. Same for other subsidiaries.
Mirioron 8y ago
Good luck trying to explain this to EU politicians. They'll just cry and demand to know European competitors to those services.

hellisothers 8y ago

Here lies humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways and squandered their resources doing so. (Not saying you’re advocating for this, just that it is the current plan it seems)

gumby 8y ago
Here stands humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways as a way of figuring out what was best for various situations.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  And then there were 16: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
d-sc 8y ago
Humans are good at building houses and have many standard plans detailing how to do so. Yet we still hire architects to design custom homes. I’m ok with that. Efficiency doesn’t always need to be the end all goal.
hopler 8y ago
Humanity built the tower of Babel, all speaking one language, and was struck down and fragmented for their hubris.
cabalamat 8y ago
> Here lies humanity, they tried to do the same things 15 different ways and squandered their resources doing so. Polities that don't retain control over their computing infrastructure will in the future have effectively ceded independence to others. Because controlling the full stack from silicon to cloud services is expensive (fabs can cost c. $20 billion), this has geo-political implications: namely that in the future there will only be a small number of loci of independent power. The USA will be one, China another. Does Europe want to make itself a third, or will it be content to be subservient to others?
- Mirioron 8y ago
  The EU won't be content with it, but they still won't do anything about it.
  - ionised 8y ago
    Why not? Safe Harbour was shot down after the Schrems case. Google and Facebook are being taken to task currently. The huge fines for GDPR violations will come if the companies cited as in breach of the regulations fail to do what the EU asks. The EU is doing a lot. Just because it can't act with immediacy it doesn't mean nothing is happening.
pjc50 8y ago
Well, yes. Merely duplicate effort is a great improvement over last century's plan to be able to destroy civilization at 45 minutes notice. Speaking of which, I believe Pakistan had two mutually distrusting nuclear weapons programs, reflecting the internal conflicts between parts of the state security apparatus.
irrational 8y ago
That does seem to be a common occurrence when there is a sufficiently large number of people. I work for a large Fortune 150 company. At least once a year a new department is created that duplicates what my department has been doing for 15 years. Inevitably someone who knows of us tells the other group and they get in touch with us to find out what we actually do. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in where the other group finds out that we already do 100% of what they've been tasked to do. They always look at each other with expressions of confused disbelief, wondering what they are supposed to do now. Sometimes they find some niche (on occasion we've thrown them some scraps of things we used to do that we no longer have any interest in pursuing), usually they are quickly dissolved. The worst was a group that had existed for more than a year and had already spent millions of dollars, only to be dissolved as soon as higher ups found out they existed and were trying (unwittingly) to duplicate our mature solution.

zepearl 8y ago

>>If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate. Maybe the US company could be a holding which would "only" own 100% of its independent EU subsidiary (which would be its own legal entity, reporting in EU)?

Tsubasachan 8y ago
The question is: does America care about international law and treaties or will they just do whatever they want? Ten years ago I knew the answer to this question. Today not so much. This is why the EU should hedge its bets and keep the door open for Chinese companies.
- cabalamat 8y ago
  > Ten years ago I knew the answer to this question. Today not so much. 10 years ago, the NSA existed., Now the NSA exists. The USA, like other big powers, is going to want to try to get access to information and computer systems. > This is why the EU should hedge its bets and keep the door open for Chinese companies. You appear to be saying that because the USA gets its hands on Europe's data, Europe should let China do so as well. That doesn't make sense to me, so I wonder what it is you are saying.
- deadmetheny 8y ago
  Ah yes, the Chinese, those paragons of upholding international laws and agreements. They certainly won't end up just doing whatever they want to do.
- pjc50 8y ago
  Ten years ago the answer was also no, but with a bit more lip service. The US hasn't bothered with such things as the ban on landmines, the ICC for war crimes, and the U.N. convention on rights of the child. The U.S. is only interested in law that binds other countries.
- ionised 8y ago
  The USA is by all accounts a 'rogue' state by its own definition of the term (China is too). It doesn't abide by international conventions or laws, it engages in wars of aggression, it bullies smaller nations into accepting laws and trade agreements favourable to itself. It pushes crap like the DMCA globally. Of course it doesn't care about international law. Superpowers get away with this for a time, until everybody else wises up to the fact that nobody is following the rules.

TuringNYC 8y ago

>> If the EU comany is a subsiduary of the US company, then it will have to follow its orders and won't really be separate. Accenture and other US consultancies with global operations faced this problem when bidding for government contracts. They created a global parent corporation (in Accenture's case it was Luxembourg and in many cases it is Bermuda.) The US portion of the business is owned by the global parent. The EU portion of the business is owned by the global parent as well. Same for other subsidiaries.

Mirioron 8y ago

Good luck trying to explain this to EU politicians. They'll just cry and demand to know European competitors to those services.