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If the nation of Switzerland was singlehandedly dying on the hill of privacy concerns while the whole world laughed and moved on I think your take would be the

by munk-a 4y ago

If the nation of Switzerland was singlehandedly dying on the hill of privacy concerns while the whole world laughed and moved on I think your take would be the correct one - but Europe is a big economy and it has an immense amount of tech talent. SoCal may still be the Mecca of technology but Europe is no slouch - by taking a stand they are opening up a market for privacy conscious applications to thrive. In the best world Europe's actions will benefit us all in the long run and we might see a big player pivot to actually meaningfully adhere to the privacy concerns - in a less good world we'll probably see a fair amount of competition by small players within the Eurozone to provide the best software solutions while also respecting privacy. I think it's a fair criticism to fear that the data may end up in the hands of well intentioned but poorly secured applications that cause larger leaks, but we've seen huge leaks in the US even from companies that exist solely due to the value of their data (i.e. Equifax).

jeffbee 4y ago
You seem to be saying that it would be acceptable to impair real privacy in the present if it causes the growth of an indigenous European software/cloud industry. I can see the logic, but I don't really agree with it. To me it seems like the smaller and more local your infrastructure becomes the worse the privacy story gets. Worst of all would be a completely bespoke infrastructure self-hosted by local authorities, where a handful of petty IT guys have complete access to everyone's data. Sure, it's against the law for them to access it, but they will do it anyway, because there are no internal controls nor effective audits. Way on the other end of the risk scale is the idea that an American court will order Google to turn over the files of a Danish schoolchild to intelligence agencies. That's just a complete non-risk compared to the insider risks in the other scenario.

by munk-a 4y ago

jeffbee 4y ago

You seem to be saying that it would be acceptable to impair real privacy in the present if it causes the growth of an indigenous European software/cloud industry. I can see the logic, but I don't really agree with it. To me it seems like the smaller and more local your infrastructure becomes the worse the privacy story gets. Worst of all would be a completely bespoke infrastructure self-hosted by local authorities, where a handful of petty IT guys have complete access to everyone's data. Sure, it's against the law for them to access it, but they will do it anyway, because there are no internal controls nor effective audits. Way on the other end of the risk scale is the idea that an American court will order Google to turn over the files of a Danish schoolchild to intelligence agencies. That's just a complete non-risk compared to the insider risks in the other scenario.