9 ms·

> we fragment and destroy the entire Internet I would call fragmenting these things rebuilding the internet. Not sure how consolidating everyone on a few Mailc

> we fragment and destroy the entire Internet I would call fragmenting these things rebuilding the internet. Not sure how consolidating everyone on a few Mailchimp type services is in anyone's interest.

brahadeesh 5y ago
Exactly. If this make European startups build their own ecosystem and provides me with an alternative for the services I use but don't track me, I'm going to switch - simple as. I see this as a win for the internet.
- mediascreen 5y ago
  Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? I think we underestimate just how difficult it is just to replicate existing services, let alone keep up with the innovation. It's like the Argentinian effort to stimulate its own computer manufacturing by banning Apple products.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    It'd help if the United States wasn't allowed to aggressively brain drain most of the rest of the world.
    - visarga 5y ago
      That's nice for countries and bad for people.
    - crehn 5y ago
      It’d help if the rest of the world tried to aggressively prevent brain drain by making the respective countries more attractive for work.
      - pvarangot 5y ago
        Or by making getting citizenship something that's attainable in my lifetime. Everyone complains about the US immigration system and of course it's not great but when I came here I kinda knew what the path forward was and how long stuff will take, for a lot of European countries there's no way to ever get citizenship and the path to permanent residency changes every three or four years.
        maccolgan 5y ago
        Why are you importing New World thinking to the Old World?
        rendall 5y ago
        In what European country specifically is there no way to ever get citizenship?
        dmitriid 5y ago
        I guess Switzerland. Pretty much every other country offers you citizenship after a time.
        snovv_crash 5y ago
        Switzerland is 10 years and then you need to pass a language and general knowledge test. The contents of the test depend on the region you live. Honestly I don't see it as that ridiculous.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        I heard stories that it's still nigh impossible because you need good references from your local commune, and those are really hard to get. Note: I'm only spreading rumors :)
        snovv_crash 5y ago
    - toqy 5y ago
      The rest of the world could also brain drain the US if it was easier to get into. The US -> EU/UK immigrants that I personally know have had a pretty hard time getting there permanently.
      - withinboredom 5y ago
        I moved from the US to the NL. Love it but I can’t get dual citizenship and getting permanent residence requires knowing the language well enough to pass a test, so why stay? It’s kind of a bummer because my son speaks native-fluent Dutch now. Next up will probably be Ireland.
        freeflight 5y ago
        > Love it but I can’t get dual citizenship and getting permanent residence requires knowing the language well enough to pass a test, so why stay? Why did you move there in the first place, raising a kid there, when just learning the language is apparently a hurdle too big to take?
        withinboredom 5y ago
        Learning the language isn’t the issue, learning the language well enough to pass a test when classes cost nearly €2k a pop is the issue.
        smoe 5y ago
        To my knowledge to get naturalization in the Netherlands you must have stayed there for ~5 years and the required language level is A2, which is beginner level. This doesn't sound like a crazy requirement to me. The giving up other nationalities would be a deal breaker for me thought.
        asdadsdad 5y ago
        Well, if you don't even bother to learn the language of the country you want to become a citizen of, then, yes, why stay indeed...
    - FredPret 5y ago
      Countries do not own their citizens. If they want their brainy citizens to stay, they should incentivize them. The US is "allowed" to offer whatever it wants for people to move there.
  - ATsch 5y ago
    > Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? That is completely unrelated though. The only thing this ruling confirms is that you can not process data of EU residents when you can not be adequately protect them due to local laws i.e. the CLOUD act. If your laws allow you to keep the data safe, you can offer your cloud services to the EU market as much as you want. If they wanted to, the US could easily allow companies to guarantee those protections too. I would not be surprised when, if no solution is found, some of the major cloud providers in the EU end up being e.g. japanese, israeli or canadian.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    > Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? Careful, there is such a thing as network effect for knowledge. More fractured systems mean more different approaches means less aftermarket documentation means less people being able to work for you.
    - baridbelmedar 5y ago
      I happen to be European but with that said, I also get the feeling that many western European HN-users here seem to fancy the idea of having many small local service providers that have challenges providing anything beyond basic hosting. And that totally fine, if you think European companies have no competitive disadvantage on the global market to being forced to use traditional VPS providers or build and set up everything themselves. But I imagine it'd be very challenging if other companies outside the EU can go to market faster, deliver better services for lower cost, etc. than their European counterparts because they can use American cloud providers like GCP or AWS.
      - DocTomoe 5y ago
        In all fairness, the faster, better, cheaper argument sounds too much like marketeese to me, and I have not yet seen that effect in real life. You can find dedicated people who are sufficiently good to manage some Linux server infrastructure relatively easily - all while AWS consultancies seem to pop up all over the place like mushrooms after a rain.
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    The EU as a block is pretty comparable to the US, so it wouldn't be that surprising if they came up with their own information infrastructure. I think you've answered your own question: why limit it to the EU? No moral reason, but it is a difficult project, you need a US/EU/China sized economy to have a good chance to pull it off.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Unfortunately, you will find that they'll "track" you just the same, but provide worse service due to smaller economies of scale.
- esyir 5y ago
  Sounds like protectionism when they can't compete. The EU isn't exactly a shining star for tech development, probably because the culture there kneecaps it every step of the way.
xanaxagoras 5y ago
Here here. Good riddance.
- xdennis 5y ago
  *Hear, hear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
  - xanaxagoras 5y ago
    Thanks!
mediascreen 5y ago
I already get a lot of "We are sorry, but for legal reasons we are prevented from providing this service where you live" when I'm accessing American websites. Recent European judgements seems to make it illegal to embed content from YouTube or Vimeo for example. I don't see how dividing services up by region will help me anyway. I'd rather be able to choose from a few (I imagine there are more than a few at the moment) international Mailchimps than one in EU.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  I feel that the whole point of this is to mimic China’s achievement of driving out foreign competition through legislation. It’s similar to the UK’s pornography laws being more about surveillance and censorship rather than protecting children.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    If you flip the scenario around in your mind.. how would you feel if virtually every site or service you visit scoops up your data and sends it to [China|Russia|...] and hosts all your private data on servers operated by the [Chinese|Russians|...] and are subject to [Chinese|Russian|...] rule and disregard whatever laws your country has enacted? How would you feel if you couldn't opt out without virtually opting out of the entire internet, including all the services your friends and family and local associations & companies use for messaging? That's how the internet has been. That's how I feel about US tech giants getting all my data. They write their privacy policy, they dictate their terms, they follow US laws. I have absolutely no choice or voice or vote, unless one considers "yo dawg just build your own internet" a realistic choice. I don't feel like the purpose is to drive out foreign competition. I feel like the purpose is to enforce privacy as a right, and I fully support it. I also fully support the right to transmit data across borders as long as the destination country also respects my privacy and rights instead of treating me as an alien and potential terrorist. Is that too much to ask for? And in general, is following the rules of the country you offer a service in too much to ask for? Local laws apply to brick and mortar business; if Walmart wants to come to my neighborhood, sure go ahead, but please respect our laws. I don't see why internet companies should be above the law either. GDPR is replacing rules dictated by US corporations with democratically established rules written by our representatives. It's unfortunate that there's now a clash between US laws and EU laws, but it's not the end of the world.
personjerry 5y ago
Perhaps unpopular opinion, but I don't want a fragmented internet, where I have to remember 10 different options for every single service I need to run a startup. Is that really the hill we want to die on? I have enough things to worry about, I don't want to consider 10 different cloud computing options, 10 different database options, 10 different analytics services. I want to just go with the big popular option. Heck I'm willing to bet even if more options come up, the most popular option will be some aggregator site that tells you which one to use.

brahadeesh 5y ago

Exactly. If this make European startups build their own ecosystem and provides me with an alternative for the services I use but don't track me, I'm going to switch - simple as. I see this as a win for the internet.

mediascreen 5y ago
Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? I think we underestimate just how difficult it is just to replicate existing services, let alone keep up with the innovation. It's like the Argentinian effort to stimulate its own computer manufacturing by banning Apple products.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  It'd help if the United States wasn't allowed to aggressively brain drain most of the rest of the world.
  - visarga 5y ago
    That's nice for countries and bad for people.
  - crehn 5y ago
    It’d help if the rest of the world tried to aggressively prevent brain drain by making the respective countries more attractive for work.
    - pvarangot 5y ago
      Or by making getting citizenship something that's attainable in my lifetime. Everyone complains about the US immigration system and of course it's not great but when I came here I kinda knew what the path forward was and how long stuff will take, for a lot of European countries there's no way to ever get citizenship and the path to permanent residency changes every three or four years.
      - maccolgan 5y ago
        Why are you importing New World thinking to the Old World?
      - rendall 5y ago
        In what European country specifically is there no way to ever get citizenship?
        dmitriid 5y ago
        I guess Switzerland. Pretty much every other country offers you citizenship after a time.
        snovv_crash 5y ago
        Switzerland is 10 years and then you need to pass a language and general knowledge test. The contents of the test depend on the region you live. Honestly I don't see it as that ridiculous.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        I heard stories that it's still nigh impossible because you need good references from your local commune, and those are really hard to get. Note: I'm only spreading rumors :)
        snovv_crash 5y ago
  - toqy 5y ago
    The rest of the world could also brain drain the US if it was easier to get into. The US -> EU/UK immigrants that I personally know have had a pretty hard time getting there permanently.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I moved from the US to the NL. Love it but I can’t get dual citizenship and getting permanent residence requires knowing the language well enough to pass a test, so why stay? It’s kind of a bummer because my son speaks native-fluent Dutch now. Next up will probably be Ireland.
      - freeflight 5y ago
        > Love it but I can’t get dual citizenship and getting permanent residence requires knowing the language well enough to pass a test, so why stay? Why did you move there in the first place, raising a kid there, when just learning the language is apparently a hurdle too big to take?
        withinboredom 5y ago
        Learning the language isn’t the issue, learning the language well enough to pass a test when classes cost nearly €2k a pop is the issue.
        smoe 5y ago
        To my knowledge to get naturalization in the Netherlands you must have stayed there for ~5 years and the required language level is A2, which is beginner level. This doesn't sound like a crazy requirement to me. The giving up other nationalities would be a deal breaker for me thought.
      - asdadsdad 5y ago
        Well, if you don't even bother to learn the language of the country you want to become a citizen of, then, yes, why stay indeed...
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Countries do not own their citizens. If they want their brainy citizens to stay, they should incentivize them. The US is "allowed" to offer whatever it wants for people to move there.
- ATsch 5y ago
  > Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? That is completely unrelated though. The only thing this ruling confirms is that you can not process data of EU residents when you can not be adequately protect them due to local laws i.e. the CLOUD act. If your laws allow you to keep the data safe, you can offer your cloud services to the EU market as much as you want. If they wanted to, the US could easily allow companies to guarantee those protections too. I would not be surprised when, if no solution is found, some of the major cloud providers in the EU end up being e.g. japanese, israeli or canadian.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  > Why limit it to the EU? Shouldn't every country have their own AWS, Azure and Google Cloud? Careful, there is such a thing as network effect for knowledge. More fractured systems mean more different approaches means less aftermarket documentation means less people being able to work for you.
  - baridbelmedar 5y ago
    I happen to be European but with that said, I also get the feeling that many western European HN-users here seem to fancy the idea of having many small local service providers that have challenges providing anything beyond basic hosting. And that totally fine, if you think European companies have no competitive disadvantage on the global market to being forced to use traditional VPS providers or build and set up everything themselves. But I imagine it'd be very challenging if other companies outside the EU can go to market faster, deliver better services for lower cost, etc. than their European counterparts because they can use American cloud providers like GCP or AWS.
    - DocTomoe 5y ago
      In all fairness, the faster, better, cheaper argument sounds too much like marketeese to me, and I have not yet seen that effect in real life. You can find dedicated people who are sufficiently good to manage some Linux server infrastructure relatively easily - all while AWS consultancies seem to pop up all over the place like mushrooms after a rain.
- bee_rider 5y ago
  The EU as a block is pretty comparable to the US, so it wouldn't be that surprising if they came up with their own information infrastructure. I think you've answered your own question: why limit it to the EU? No moral reason, but it is a difficult project, you need a US/EU/China sized economy to have a good chance to pull it off.
native_samples 5y ago
Unfortunately, you will find that they'll "track" you just the same, but provide worse service due to smaller economies of scale.
esyir 5y ago
Sounds like protectionism when they can't compete. The EU isn't exactly a shining star for tech development, probably because the culture there kneecaps it every step of the way.

xanaxagoras 5y ago

Here here. Good riddance.

xdennis 5y ago
*Hear, hear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  Thanks!

mediascreen 5y ago

I already get a lot of "We are sorry, but for legal reasons we are prevented from providing this service where you live" when I'm accessing American websites. Recent European judgements seems to make it illegal to embed content from YouTube or Vimeo for example. I don't see how dividing services up by region will help me anyway. I'd rather be able to choose from a few (I imagine there are more than a few at the moment) international Mailchimps than one in EU.

chaostheory 5y ago
I feel that the whole point of this is to mimic China’s achievement of driving out foreign competition through legislation. It’s similar to the UK’s pornography laws being more about surveillance and censorship rather than protecting children.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  If you flip the scenario around in your mind.. how would you feel if virtually every site or service you visit scoops up your data and sends it to [China|Russia|...] and hosts all your private data on servers operated by the [Chinese|Russians|...] and are subject to [Chinese|Russian|...] rule and disregard whatever laws your country has enacted? How would you feel if you couldn't opt out without virtually opting out of the entire internet, including all the services your friends and family and local associations & companies use for messaging? That's how the internet has been. That's how I feel about US tech giants getting all my data. They write their privacy policy, they dictate their terms, they follow US laws. I have absolutely no choice or voice or vote, unless one considers "yo dawg just build your own internet" a realistic choice. I don't feel like the purpose is to drive out foreign competition. I feel like the purpose is to enforce privacy as a right, and I fully support it. I also fully support the right to transmit data across borders as long as the destination country also respects my privacy and rights instead of treating me as an alien and potential terrorist. Is that too much to ask for? And in general, is following the rules of the country you offer a service in too much to ask for? Local laws apply to brick and mortar business; if Walmart wants to come to my neighborhood, sure go ahead, but please respect our laws. I don't see why internet companies should be above the law either. GDPR is replacing rules dictated by US corporations with democratically established rules written by our representatives. It's unfortunate that there's now a clash between US laws and EU laws, but it's not the end of the world.

personjerry 5y ago

Perhaps unpopular opinion, but I don't want a fragmented internet, where I have to remember 10 different options for every single service I need to run a startup. Is that really the hill we want to die on? I have enough things to worry about, I don't want to consider 10 different cloud computing options, 10 different database options, 10 different analytics services. I want to just go with the big popular option. Heck I'm willing to bet even if more options come up, the most popular option will be some aggregator site that tells you which one to use.