17 ms·

German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

311 points by Quanttek 4y ago

pieter_mj 4y ago
see : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 related : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599
- dang 4y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: German state of Hesse has banned the use of Microsoft 365 in its schools - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 - Nov 2022 (115 comments) Germany Forces a Microsoft 365 Ban Due to Privacy Concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 - Nov 2022 (11 comments) France bans Office 365 and Google Docs from schools and public administration - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 - Nov 2022 (183 comments)
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    The first one is a partial copy of the full article (and of a much bigger discussion) : German state of Hesse has banned the use of Microsoft 365 in its schools (techgenix.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 - Nov 2022 (115 comments)
    - dang 4y ago
      Thanks! I've added that one to the list.
bayesian_horse 4y ago
This will have absolutely zero impact. Everybody knows you must use Microsoft products and if those don't comply with regulations, the regulations will have to change...
- ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
  And what would be the alternative? LibreOffice with its 90s UI/UX?
  - janmarsal 4y ago
    I wish I had ms office with its 90s UI/UX instead of whatever garbage it evolved into.
    - ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
      It's available to download at libreoffice.org
      - InCityDreams 4y ago
        Ms office is available to download 'at libreoffice.org'?
        gtirloni 4y ago
        They're joking that LibreOffice looks like MS Office in the 90's
    - Kwpolska 4y ago
      Office 95 works on Windows 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSfIroiFdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSfIroiFdA So you can buy a copy of your favourite old Office version on eBay or whatever and use that.
      - 2-718-281-828 4y ago
        going from obscure binary to zipped xml was the one good improvement one would miss out on.
    - Qem 4y ago
      I prefer LibreOffice Calc to Excel thanks to the sane 90s UI/UX as well.
sendfoods 4y ago
At this points, isn't it pretty safe to assume very few Silicon Valley services conform to GDPR? Another example was shared recently: Shopify is technically illegal in Germany [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33561222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33561222
- dgellow 4y ago
  Isn’t California data privacy law more or less equivalent to GDPR? If Silicon Valley’s companies don’t conform to GDPR, I would expect them to face the same type of issues locally. That will maybe come in the future, GDPR is still fairly new, that type of stuff can take a long time to develop.
  - vdfs 4y ago
    I think most of the problems came from EU data being sent to US located servers, that won't be a problem for silicone Valley and California laws
  - jkaplowitz 4y ago
    No, California's data privacy law is far weaker than the GDPR, though far better than what most of the US has.
- BjoernKW 4y ago
  At this point, virtually no digital service - or in fact in business - can be considered to be compliant with GDPR. The reason for this is an ECJ case ruling informally known as Schrems II (https://www.gdprsummary.com/schrems-ii/ https://www.gdprsummary.com/schrems-ii/ ). That ruling not only invalidated the Privacy Shield agreement, but in fact prohibits the transfer of any data to any company affiliated with a US-based company in any way (including subsidiaries or even mere suppliers or customers), which comprises pretty much every company out there - US-based or not - because in today's globalized economy you'd be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn't in some way at least transitively deal with US-based companies. Technically, the reason for this is the US CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act ), which requires US-based companies to hand over any data, regardless of where that data is stored geographically. This also means that the common naïve assumption that you're safe in terms of GDPR as long as your data is stored in EU-based data centres is false as well. So, when following GDPR and this court ruling to the letter, we'd (as in "everyone") pretty much have to stop trading and doing business altogether. Since that's (hopefully) not going to happen, none of this is enforced, at least not consistently or according to the rule of law (which in a way is even worse because at that point law and law enforcement becomes arbitrary and fines will be imposed based on how eagerly local authorities pursue these matters rather than universal principle). Now, it can be argued that the EU and GDPR really aren't to blame because it's the US CLOUD Act that created this issue, after all. That CLOUD Act indeed is hugely problematic, to say the least. However, the problem remains and it's on the EU to negotiate an agreement with the US that allows companies to legally do business in the real world (as opposed to an ideal world according to GDPR) again.
throwaway294566 4y ago
Problem as always is, it's all talk and (almost) zero enforcement in Germany. Complaints to a data protection official take forever, are usually dismissed at first, even if counter to published opinions or decisions such as TFA. And only if you still care after a few years of waiting and at least one appeal you might get a decision, however usually a very cheap one for the perpetrator.
- dgellow 4y ago
  GDPR fines can be massive, look at the list here: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ (sort by the fine amount)
  - hobofan 4y ago
    So 3 enforcements in Germany in all of 2022, and the highest fine in Germany was 35mil. 35mil is how much for Microsoft? The yearly Office 365 fees of one of their DAX customers?
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      It's nothing, but once one of their customers gets a 5 millioj euro fine for using Office365 for sensitive data, the impact will be significantly higher. Microsoft can take the hit but most of its customers can't. Microsoft's incompatibility with the GDPR puts some of its customers at risk. A fine or two and businesses might stop paying for those lucrative cloud subscriptions.
      - aliqot 4y ago
        This will literally, not figuratively, but -literally- never happen. A smaller business will never be punished as a signal to Microsoft.
        someweirdperson 4y ago
        A websites using wordpress got fined for including google fonts. Not the organization that provides wordpress using google fonts by default. Likewise, a company using O365 to store customer or employee data will get in trouble, not Microsoft for offering that service.
dhdgrygev 4y ago
These people keep acting like they're so clever for figuring this out, yet in reality all they're doing is giving death sentences to European companies by making them unable to use industry standard products.
- baxtr 4y ago
  People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    Well Im european and I can tell you from the inside, it's not the same mindset at all. We dont want to grow companies, in fact we barely give a fuck at all. It s hard to understand for capitalists, and I disliked this mindset so much I moved to Hong Kong, but that s what the people vote for: they d rather have no growth and no Microsoft 365 than put their data there. People in most of Europe are truly convinced finance, money and growth are mirages made to enslave them in eternal pursuit of an unreachable state, and instead prefer to cool it down. It's not a pragmatic strategy because it ignores we re not alone.
    - baxtr 4y ago
      I’m also European. Thanks for the insight. I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.
      - admissionsguy 4y ago
        I am an European, too, and I do agree with xwolfi. Therefore "most European" is an accurate statement.
        baxtr 4y ago
nathias 4y ago
finally, this is really great news for anyone european, I hope it won't take long to determine there are a whole lot of other MS products that should also be illegal
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  How is that great news? The competition is literally decades behind. This is crippling Europe.
  - forgotusername6 4y ago
    Microsoft products haven't really changed in 20 years. What are you referring to? The fact that you can access them anywhere?
    - iLoveOncall 4y ago
      Can you clarify your usage of Office products? I'm assuming that 100% of people saying "it's fine we have LibreOffice" or "it's fine we have Office 2014 installed locally" don't use it beyond basic PowerPoints and the occasional resume update on Word. Just as an example, the world pretty much runs on Excel, and each version brings valuable additions.
      - beebeepka 4y ago
        We must live in completely different worlds if you can't imagine a reality without MS crap
      - forgotusername6 4y ago
        Good guess! I use PowerPoint and word. I occasionally use excel for a quick spreadsheet but for data storage we have databases and for visualisation we have grafana. The only time I use the live edit feature of excel is when we are coordinating pizza orders.
  - beebeepka 4y ago
lgreiv 4y ago
My personal favorite outcome of this would be a joint public and corporate funded leap in open source development. This would do much for the budget, privacy and probably also security of businesses and private users. A good example where this principle is already in use is the Matrix protocol.
- Arathorn 4y ago
  Getting the balance of this right to prevent a tragedy of the commons turns out to be hard. Element (who funds most of Matrix dev) has released almost everything we do as permissive-licensed FOSS open source. As a result, there's a huge ecosystem of folks building commercial solutions on Matrix. But surprisingly little $ actually gets back to Element (or the Matrix Foundation) from those commercial solutions, if any.
  - jokowueu 4y ago
    I don't have any proof but I'm certain Germany must have made some sort of funding for matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/07/21/germanys-national-healthcare-system-adopts-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/07/21/germanys-national-healthc...
    - yorwba 4y ago
      > TI-Messenger is gematik’s technical specification for an interoperable secure instant messaging standard. The healthcare industry will be able to build a wide range of apps based on TI-Messenger specifications knowing that, being built on Matrix, all those apps will interoperate. The ones getting most of the money will probably be third-party developers integrating Matrix into their gematik-certified healthcare products.
      - Arathorn 4y ago
        Ironically very little of the $ seems to be propagating back to Matrix itself…
    - 4y ago
firefoxkekw 4y ago
365 is the cloud base suite of Microsoft Office, you can still use the Microsoft Office 2021 Professional or older versions. 365 is a nice way of collaborate at work, if you are a small business is a nice product, for the big companies this is just going to be more headache for their I.T department, so now instead of relying in the Microsoft servers to allocate and store the documents, they will use any other server from who knows what company and hosted who knows where, some will be hosted with e2ee including at rest while others will end up using some shit show of servers from a company owned by some dude from not so friendly countries. I understand that privacy for companies is a big risk, but regulating it this way can easily end with a cobra effect.
- tommica 4y ago
  Yeah, the file storage is so messy - I still don't know if the file I saved is in SharePoint or onedrive, and that they seem to be the same but different at the same time
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  I've found these cloud editing solutions great for working with your colleagues but terrible for collaborating externally. You can't share a doc with their company for policy reasons and likewise they can't share with you. I've resorted to sending docx back and forward instead.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > I've found these cloud editing solutions great for working with your colleagues but terrible for collaborating externally. You can blame this on your O365 admins rather than Microsoft. For admins who want to generally restrict external sharing, it can even be limited to select Document Libraries. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/collaborate-with-people-outside-your-organization?view=o365-worldwide https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/co...
    - forgotusername6 4y ago
funstuff007 4y ago
I would argue it's basically impossible to have an internet connected app that does not run afoul of GDPR in one way or another. It's really just a question of how much of GDPR can you comply with at a reasonable cost or a better strategy is to do your best to comply with the spirit of GDPR, if not the letter.
dontbenebby 4y ago
I don't really understand the GDPR, maybe because I'm not a lawyer. For example, the GDPR states: >An establishment's failure to designate an EU Representative is considered ignorance of the regulation and relevant obligations, which itself is a violation of the GDPR subject to fines of up to €10 million or up to 2% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater. The intentional or negligent (willful blindness) character of the infringement (failure to designate an EU Representative) may rather constitute aggravating factors.... Businesses must report data breaches to national supervisory authorities within 72 hours if they have an adverse effect on user privacy. In some cases, violators of the GDPR may be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater... Why have neither of these been done? Speaking as an American who has spent his entire adult life advocating on these issues, it personally offends me when I basically get myself punted out of so called civil society trying to get a law like this enacted, and then our so called "allies" across the pond refuse to utilize it. Here in "The States", folks used to joke "I'll believe corporations are people when they execute one in Texas"... given the EU's views on the death penalty, maybe some of these companies should be given what the Chinese would call "death with a suspended sentence"[1] -- fine them the full two to four percent, and use that money to fund things like universal health care, pensions, and the rebuilding of critical infrastructure instead of... well, based on my last trip to Tim Hortons[2], it looks like the new hotness is building a buncha condos that sit empty and drive up the rents -- but it's been a while, so I'll let any Canadians who want to wander in below and give their thoughts the floor. The above is what I like to call "venture socialism". It is not communism, it is not even really socialism, more just... republicanism. But I can understand why even that feels violent and oppressive to... some people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve [2] Fun fact: for many Americans, the cost of a passport, let alone an international vacation is out of bounds -- once you understand this, a lot of the past four to forty years begins to make sense.
- aliqot 4y ago
  From your own profile bio: "Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
f_devd 4y ago
I'm not sure why there is such a doomer sentiment (mostly from the US community but also some EU) about stepping away from Office 365. There are already existing replacements which do comply with GDPR for all of their service (modulo any vendor lock that I can't think of right now). The ruling is mainly for Gvt and Edu sectors since those handle PII regularly through these services, so the main challenge will be packaging the currently relatively fragmented market in such a way that these sectors can migrate and adopt easily, which if done right is a single-time investment from the EU.
- olivermuty 4y ago
  Any examples? Finding mail and cloud storage alternatives is fairly easy, but as a business operator having this bundled into good identity management is what makes it hard to replace. OIDC provider support with mail and a secure way to store documents and I would be good. Then slack could be wired in via SAML or apis for account management etc. Right now its just a huge undertaking to replace the convenience of GSuite or O365 :(
  - f_devd 4y ago
    Maybe in your case self-hosted/on-premise OnlyOffice is an option[0][1], but as I implied earlier the main issue currently isn't that there aren't alternatives for each individual service but that often a combined package is not there yet. It's very likely that (if this becomes a bigger issue within the EU), the EU itself will provide more convenient options. [0]:https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/installation.aspx https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/installation.aspx [1]: https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2018/06/how-onlyoffice-enterprise-edition-helps-you-be-gdpr-compliant/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2018/06/how-onlyoffice-enter... EDIT: I missed part of your comment for OIDC provider there is Ory[2] (but again not bundled) [2]: https://www.ory.sh/ https://www.ory.sh/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pluc 4y ago
Is it me or does Germany switches (back?) to open-source every few years? I remember being excited they were switching to Linux (or was it Munich?) years ago
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  You are more or less. LiMux started in 2004. Last two points on its long timeline[0]: * November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros. * May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    You forgot the quite important September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich
- oytis 4y ago
  Last time I've heard about it, it ended with users (i.e. bureaucrats) complaining about missing features and/or differences between MS and the open source alternative and forcing switching back to MS
- FlorianRappl 4y ago
  It was Munich - and it only happened once. I shared the excitement, but as so often it was only executed half-way. In essence, instead of recreating processes from the ground up to fit the new reality, they tried to make everything as beforehand. Unsurprisingly, that was a huge uphill battle - in the end they spend more money than beforehand and had a lot of trouble in maintenance etc. (Regarding the 2020 public announcement; nothing has happened since then IIRC so I would not count that in - just talk no actions)
throwaway4good 4y ago
Microsoft just needs to place data from EU customers on EU soil and in a manner that is inaccessible to US authorities. Why is this so hard?
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  US law, specifically the CLOUD Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act :(
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- pkz 4y ago
  It involves sub licensing the entire suite to a EU entity. It is happening in France with Bleu (MS365 run by Capgemini and Orange): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/orange-and-capgemini-launch-french-cloud-company-bleu-will-sell-microsoft-services-from-local-data-centers/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/orange-and-capgem...
smeej 4y ago
I'm not European, and maybe this is why I struggle to understand this, but why do people want regulators to say, "This doesn't comply with our regulations, so you aren't allowed to use it?" I understand the hope is that companies will comply rather than forego the entire European market, but if they don't, the last consequence is ultimately on the consumer, not the company. It seems like the same type of thing as when Quebec recently decided any service that serves customers in Quebec must offer a French version of all their services. Quebec is a much smaller market than Europe, so the effect was that companies just stopped offering services to people in Quebec, but it seems like these are the same kind of issue. Government wants services to be provided in a certain way. Service provider declines. Consequences disproportionately impact the consumer, not the service provider. Why should it be up to a governmental agency to tell you you are not permitted to use a service because they think the service is being provided in a way they don't like?
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > I'm not European, and maybe this is why I struggle to understand this Put it another way. Most sensible Americans would rather have European employment law and healthcare provisions. Well, the same goes for privacy legislation....
- pixl97 4y ago
  For the same reasons you're not allowed to sign particular contacts, such as enslaving yourself. Without restriction companies will do every illegal thing they can get away with via their collective power of size versus your weak individualism. In some cases it's rather trivial, in other cases its dependent on the survival of the nation state to enforce the rules on the corporation.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Hmm that is a good point. It is forbidden to sign contracts of enslavement in every country I know of, even if the potential contractee is making it free from duress. Therefore forbidding some types of contracts for everyone does have established precedent. However, there does not appear to be a limit to this. For example, can governments ban their residents from signing contracts to distribute or host porn, gambling, etc.?
calculated 4y ago
For the businesses who might want to switch to an alternative. A great one is Cryptpad: https://github.com/xwiki-labs/cryptpad https://github.com/xwiki-labs/cryptpad There are hosted instances also if you're not interested in self hosting. P.S. I'm not affiliated in any way with the project.
- preya2k 4y ago
  I love Cryptpad, but suggesting it's an alternative to Microsoft 365 is a bold statement.
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  This is as much an alternative to Office as rolling on the floor while making engine noises with your mouth is an alternative to having a car.
- xrayarx 4y ago
  I can second cryptpad. It can do documents and „excel“ and „PowerPoint „ and a few other things. No experience in an „industrial „ environment though so YMMV.
Lurkars 4y ago
Statement from Microsoft https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erfuellt-und-uebertrifft-europaeische-datenschutzgesetze/ https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erfuellt-und-uebe... [in German]
- nix23 4y ago
  Is that before or after they send the content of you powerpoint file?
  - shepherdjerred 4y ago
    If you're referring to the article posted last week, you need to read more than just the headlines
    - deely3 4y ago
      Care to elaborate, instead of providing 'headline'?
      - shepherdjerred 4y ago
        Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506576 I suppose I should've said 'read the comments' considering that the particular post is very short. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506844
    - nix23 4y ago
      >you need to read more than just the headlines It's sending your contend without consent...what's the problem?
- Conan_Kudo 4y ago
  English version (PDF): https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/40/2022/11/DSK-Blog-Post_25NOV2022_ENG_FINAL.pdf https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/40/...
th3h4mm3r 4y ago
Okay. And now?
- impossiblefork 4y ago
  Well, presumably German schools and the like will make a switch to OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Collabora, Koffice, or something like that.
jonas-w 4y ago
I use onlyoffice[0] because MS Office doesn't run on Linux. It is open source and seems to have the best compatibility with MS Office. You can self host it and/or use it locally. It also integrates with e.g. nextcloud or seafile. Some features are missing yes, but the usability (IMO) is better than Libre-/OpenOffice. I don't know how good the collaboration is but they seem to advertise for it. [0] https://www.onlyoffice.com/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/
ekianjo 4y ago
Next is Windows 11 with its always log-on requirements.
rcarr 4y ago
Tech will end up exactly the same way finance is (if it isn’t already there). Employees will work for the regulatory enforcement agency for around five years on shit pay learning how the system works from the inside and making contacts in the industry before leaving and being ushered into a tech firm with a nice six figure salary. Meanwhile, no regulations will really get enforced apart from the odd token case against a big company so the agency can continue to justify its existence and funding. The fine against the big company will be a complete drop in the ocean and will have already been accounted for well in advance by said company as a natural cost of doing business. No-one will go to prison for any wrong doing unless it’s a fraud case where someone’s tried to cheat the company and the regulators for their own individual gain in which case there’ll be made an example of to ensure all the other players stay in line and don’t rock the apple cart. Repeat until the end of the time. Any attempts to appoint new leadership to reform the existing corrupt agencies will most likely end up being sabotaged from within by bureaucrats who gain from the system remaining dysfunctional. The only two ways you can effectively change it are: - setting up complete new ‘start up’ agencies and appointing people to wind down and distract the power players in the existing ones. - going full nuclear like Elon just did at Twitter and firing the majority of the workforce
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago
  I've never seen such a cynical comment like this one here. On what basis are you theorizing this?
  - rcarr 4y ago
    So I first heard about it as a young man in the early 2010s when I encountered a woman who worked in the financial regulation sector in the UK who told me exactly what I just summed up in the first paragraph. Google “revolving door $INDUSTRY” and you’ll get a pretty good feel for how widespread it is. Naturally it’s downplayed by the official narrative such as in the last of the following three links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Personnel_%22revolving-door%22_with_U.S._government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Personnel_%22r... https://cspl.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/08/regulators-and-the-revolving-door/ https://cspl.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/08/regulators-and-the-revol... If you’re based in the UK, buy an issue or two of Private Eye who will often name such people as well as the staggering amount of general corruption at play in UK politics. As for the last paragraph, I recently heard some system thinkers express similar sentiments based on how FDR managed to enact real change and how most presidents have failed to achieve much in comparison since. > During his first term, FDR quickly found that the federal bureaucracy, specifically at the Treasury and State Departments, moved too slowly for his tastes. FDR often chose to bypass these established channels, creating emergency agencies in their stead. https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/domestic-affairs https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/domestic-affa... In time however, these new agencies become bloated bureaucratic nightmares themselves. In my opinion, the circle of life extends to organisations as well life forms. I view economic booms and busts as a “changing of the seasons”: old organisations that can no longer compete die and new ones take their place. The problems start occurring when government intervenes to keep zombie companies around because they’re “too big to fail”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company
SpaceManNabs 4y ago
Aren't CDNs against GDPR in some cases? Seems like an overly broad regulation that is enforced by often dismissed in judgement. Changing nothing, adding headache, and preventing meaningful regulation from taking its place... And when you request data from companies, you don't even get what you want a lot of the time because it is often aggregated.
lizardactivist 4y ago
Good. The sooner this data-siphon is cut off from the EU the better.
ganesh7 4y ago
It should be possible to put these bureaucrats into place. After all Germany is just another client state.
grammers 4y ago
This is not surprising as Austria, France and Denmark have already concluded the same.

311 points by Quanttek 4y ago

see : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 related : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599

dang 4y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: German state of Hesse has banned the use of Microsoft 365 in its schools - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 - Nov 2022 (115 comments) Germany Forces a Microsoft 365 Ban Due to Privacy Concerns - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741300 - Nov 2022 (11 comments) France bans Office 365 and Google Docs from schools and public administration - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33686599 - Nov 2022 (183 comments)
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  The first one is a partial copy of the full article (and of a much bigger discussion) : German state of Hesse has banned the use of Microsoft 365 in its schools (techgenix.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741537 - Nov 2022 (115 comments)
  - dang 4y ago
    Thanks! I've added that one to the list.

bayesian_horse 4y ago

This will have absolutely zero impact. Everybody knows you must use Microsoft products and if those don't comply with regulations, the regulations will have to change...

ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
And what would be the alternative? LibreOffice with its 90s UI/UX?
- janmarsal 4y ago
  I wish I had ms office with its 90s UI/UX instead of whatever garbage it evolved into.
  - ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
    It's available to download at libreoffice.org
    - InCityDreams 4y ago
      Ms office is available to download 'at libreoffice.org'?
      - gtirloni 4y ago
        They're joking that LibreOffice looks like MS Office in the 90's
  - Kwpolska 4y ago
    Office 95 works on Windows 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSfIroiFdA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSfIroiFdA So you can buy a copy of your favourite old Office version on eBay or whatever and use that.
    - 2-718-281-828 4y ago
      going from obscure binary to zipped xml was the one good improvement one would miss out on.
  - Qem 4y ago
    I prefer LibreOffice Calc to Excel thanks to the sane 90s UI/UX as well.

sendfoods 4y ago

At this points, isn't it pretty safe to assume very few Silicon Valley services conform to GDPR? Another example was shared recently: Shopify is technically illegal in Germany [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33561222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33561222

dgellow 4y ago
Isn’t California data privacy law more or less equivalent to GDPR? If Silicon Valley’s companies don’t conform to GDPR, I would expect them to face the same type of issues locally. That will maybe come in the future, GDPR is still fairly new, that type of stuff can take a long time to develop.
- vdfs 4y ago
  I think most of the problems came from EU data being sent to US located servers, that won't be a problem for silicone Valley and California laws
- jkaplowitz 4y ago
  No, California's data privacy law is far weaker than the GDPR, though far better than what most of the US has.
BjoernKW 4y ago
At this point, virtually no digital service - or in fact in business - can be considered to be compliant with GDPR. The reason for this is an ECJ case ruling informally known as Schrems II (https://www.gdprsummary.com/schrems-ii/ https://www.gdprsummary.com/schrems-ii/ ). That ruling not only invalidated the Privacy Shield agreement, but in fact prohibits the transfer of any data to any company affiliated with a US-based company in any way (including subsidiaries or even mere suppliers or customers), which comprises pretty much every company out there - US-based or not - because in today's globalized economy you'd be hard-pressed to find a company that doesn't in some way at least transitively deal with US-based companies. Technically, the reason for this is the US CLOUD Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act ), which requires US-based companies to hand over any data, regardless of where that data is stored geographically. This also means that the common naïve assumption that you're safe in terms of GDPR as long as your data is stored in EU-based data centres is false as well. So, when following GDPR and this court ruling to the letter, we'd (as in "everyone") pretty much have to stop trading and doing business altogether. Since that's (hopefully) not going to happen, none of this is enforced, at least not consistently or according to the rule of law (which in a way is even worse because at that point law and law enforcement becomes arbitrary and fines will be imposed based on how eagerly local authorities pursue these matters rather than universal principle). Now, it can be argued that the EU and GDPR really aren't to blame because it's the US CLOUD Act that created this issue, after all. That CLOUD Act indeed is hugely problematic, to say the least. However, the problem remains and it's on the EU to negotiate an agreement with the US that allows companies to legally do business in the real world (as opposed to an ideal world according to GDPR) again.

throwaway294566 4y ago

Problem as always is, it's all talk and (almost) zero enforcement in Germany. Complaints to a data protection official take forever, are usually dismissed at first, even if counter to published opinions or decisions such as TFA. And only if you still care after a few years of waiting and at least one appeal you might get a decision, however usually a very cheap one for the perpetrator.

dgellow 4y ago
GDPR fines can be massive, look at the list here: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ (sort by the fine amount)
- hobofan 4y ago
  So 3 enforcements in Germany in all of 2022, and the highest fine in Germany was 35mil. 35mil is how much for Microsoft? The yearly Office 365 fees of one of their DAX customers?
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    It's nothing, but once one of their customers gets a 5 millioj euro fine for using Office365 for sensitive data, the impact will be significantly higher. Microsoft can take the hit but most of its customers can't. Microsoft's incompatibility with the GDPR puts some of its customers at risk. A fine or two and businesses might stop paying for those lucrative cloud subscriptions.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      This will literally, not figuratively, but -literally- never happen. A smaller business will never be punished as a signal to Microsoft.
      - someweirdperson 4y ago
        A websites using wordpress got fined for including google fonts. Not the organization that provides wordpress using google fonts by default. Likewise, a company using O365 to store customer or employee data will get in trouble, not Microsoft for offering that service.

dhdgrygev 4y ago

These people keep acting like they're so clever for figuring this out, yet in reality all they're doing is giving death sentences to European companies by making them unable to use industry standard products.

baxtr 4y ago
People think this will hurt MS, but in reality it will also make doing business in Europe more expensive. Almost all big companies use M365. It will keep these already slow organizations busy trying to find and implement alternatives. Instead they could focus on growing their businesses. Good luck Europe.
- xwolfi 4y ago
  Well Im european and I can tell you from the inside, it's not the same mindset at all. We dont want to grow companies, in fact we barely give a fuck at all. It s hard to understand for capitalists, and I disliked this mindset so much I moved to Hong Kong, but that s what the people vote for: they d rather have no growth and no Microsoft 365 than put their data there. People in most of Europe are truly convinced finance, money and growth are mirages made to enslave them in eternal pursuit of an unreachable state, and instead prefer to cool it down. It's not a pragmatic strategy because it ignores we re not alone.
  - baxtr 4y ago
    I’m also European. Thanks for the insight. I don’t agree with you. So think about that next time you say “most Europeans”.
    - admissionsguy 4y ago
      I am an European, too, and I do agree with xwolfi. Therefore "most European" is an accurate statement.
      - baxtr 4y ago

nathias 4y ago

finally, this is really great news for anyone european, I hope it won't take long to determine there are a whole lot of other MS products that should also be illegal

iLoveOncall 4y ago
How is that great news? The competition is literally decades behind. This is crippling Europe.
- forgotusername6 4y ago
  Microsoft products haven't really changed in 20 years. What are you referring to? The fact that you can access them anywhere?
  - iLoveOncall 4y ago
    Can you clarify your usage of Office products? I'm assuming that 100% of people saying "it's fine we have LibreOffice" or "it's fine we have Office 2014 installed locally" don't use it beyond basic PowerPoints and the occasional resume update on Word. Just as an example, the world pretty much runs on Excel, and each version brings valuable additions.
    - beebeepka 4y ago
      We must live in completely different worlds if you can't imagine a reality without MS crap
    - forgotusername6 4y ago
      Good guess! I use PowerPoint and word. I occasionally use excel for a quick spreadsheet but for data storage we have databases and for visualisation we have grafana. The only time I use the live edit feature of excel is when we are coordinating pizza orders.
- beebeepka 4y ago

lgreiv 4y ago

My personal favorite outcome of this would be a joint public and corporate funded leap in open source development. This would do much for the budget, privacy and probably also security of businesses and private users. A good example where this principle is already in use is the Matrix protocol.

Arathorn 4y ago
Getting the balance of this right to prevent a tragedy of the commons turns out to be hard. Element (who funds most of Matrix dev) has released almost everything we do as permissive-licensed FOSS open source. As a result, there's a huge ecosystem of folks building commercial solutions on Matrix. But surprisingly little $ actually gets back to Element (or the Matrix Foundation) from those commercial solutions, if any.
- jokowueu 4y ago
  I don't have any proof but I'm certain Germany must have made some sort of funding for matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/07/21/germanys-national-healthcare-system-adopts-matrix https://matrix.org/blog/2021/07/21/germanys-national-healthc...
  - yorwba 4y ago
    > TI-Messenger is gematik’s technical specification for an interoperable secure instant messaging standard. The healthcare industry will be able to build a wide range of apps based on TI-Messenger specifications knowing that, being built on Matrix, all those apps will interoperate. The ones getting most of the money will probably be third-party developers integrating Matrix into their gematik-certified healthcare products.
    - Arathorn 4y ago
      Ironically very little of the $ seems to be propagating back to Matrix itself…
  - 4y ago

firefoxkekw 4y ago

365 is the cloud base suite of Microsoft Office, you can still use the Microsoft Office 2021 Professional or older versions. 365 is a nice way of collaborate at work, if you are a small business is a nice product, for the big companies this is just going to be more headache for their I.T department, so now instead of relying in the Microsoft servers to allocate and store the documents, they will use any other server from who knows what company and hosted who knows where, some will be hosted with e2ee including at rest while others will end up using some shit show of servers from a company owned by some dude from not so friendly countries. I understand that privacy for companies is a big risk, but regulating it this way can easily end with a cobra effect.

tommica 4y ago
Yeah, the file storage is so messy - I still don't know if the file I saved is in SharePoint or onedrive, and that they seem to be the same but different at the same time
forgotusername6 4y ago
I've found these cloud editing solutions great for working with your colleagues but terrible for collaborating externally. You can't share a doc with their company for policy reasons and likewise they can't share with you. I've resorted to sending docx back and forward instead.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > I've found these cloud editing solutions great for working with your colleagues but terrible for collaborating externally. You can blame this on your O365 admins rather than Microsoft. For admins who want to generally restrict external sharing, it can even be limited to select Document Libraries. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/collaborate-with-people-outside-your-organization?view=o365-worldwide https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/solutions/co...
  - forgotusername6 4y ago

funstuff007 4y ago

I would argue it's basically impossible to have an internet connected app that does not run afoul of GDPR in one way or another. It's really just a question of how much of GDPR can you comply with at a reasonable cost or a better strategy is to do your best to comply with the spirit of GDPR, if not the letter.

dontbenebby 4y ago

I don't really understand the GDPR, maybe because I'm not a lawyer. For example, the GDPR states: >An establishment's failure to designate an EU Representative is considered ignorance of the regulation and relevant obligations, which itself is a violation of the GDPR subject to fines of up to €10 million or up to 2% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater. The intentional or negligent (willful blindness) character of the infringement (failure to designate an EU Representative) may rather constitute aggravating factors.... Businesses must report data breaches to national supervisory authorities within 72 hours if they have an adverse effect on user privacy. In some cases, violators of the GDPR may be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater... Why have neither of these been done? Speaking as an American who has spent his entire adult life advocating on these issues, it personally offends me when I basically get myself punted out of so called civil society trying to get a law like this enacted, and then our so called "allies" across the pond refuse to utilize it. Here in "The States", folks used to joke "I'll believe corporations are people when they execute one in Texas"... given the EU's views on the death penalty, maybe some of these companies should be given what the Chinese would call "death with a suspended sentence"[1] -- fine them the full two to four percent, and use that money to fund things like universal health care, pensions, and the rebuilding of critical infrastructure instead of... well, based on my last trip to Tim Hortons[2], it looks like the new hotness is building a buncha condos that sit empty and drive up the rents -- but it's been a while, so I'll let any Canadians who want to wander in below and give their thoughts the floor. The above is what I like to call "venture socialism". It is not communism, it is not even really socialism, more just... republicanism. But I can understand why even that feels violent and oppressive to... some people. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve [2] Fun fact: for many Americans, the cost of a passport, let alone an international vacation is out of bounds -- once you understand this, a lot of the past four to forty years begins to make sense.

aliqot 4y ago
From your own profile bio: "Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

f_devd 4y ago

I'm not sure why there is such a doomer sentiment (mostly from the US community but also some EU) about stepping away from Office 365. There are already existing replacements which do comply with GDPR for all of their service (modulo any vendor lock that I can't think of right now). The ruling is mainly for Gvt and Edu sectors since those handle PII regularly through these services, so the main challenge will be packaging the currently relatively fragmented market in such a way that these sectors can migrate and adopt easily, which if done right is a single-time investment from the EU.

olivermuty 4y ago
Any examples? Finding mail and cloud storage alternatives is fairly easy, but as a business operator having this bundled into good identity management is what makes it hard to replace. OIDC provider support with mail and a secure way to store documents and I would be good. Then slack could be wired in via SAML or apis for account management etc. Right now its just a huge undertaking to replace the convenience of GSuite or O365 :(
- f_devd 4y ago
  Maybe in your case self-hosted/on-premise OnlyOffice is an option[0][1], but as I implied earlier the main issue currently isn't that there aren't alternatives for each individual service but that often a combined package is not there yet. It's very likely that (if this becomes a bigger issue within the EU), the EU itself will provide more convenient options. [0]:https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/installation.aspx https://helpcenter.onlyoffice.com/installation.aspx [1]: https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2018/06/how-onlyoffice-enterprise-edition-helps-you-be-gdpr-compliant/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2018/06/how-onlyoffice-enter... EDIT: I missed part of your comment for OIDC provider there is Ory[2] (but again not bundled) [2]: https://www.ory.sh/ https://www.ory.sh/
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pluc 4y ago

Is it me or does Germany switches (back?) to open-source every few years? I remember being excited they were switching to Linux (or was it Munich?) years ago

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
You are more or less. LiMux started in 2004. Last two points on its long timeline[0]: * November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros. * May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  You forgot the quite important September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich
oytis 4y ago
Last time I've heard about it, it ended with users (i.e. bureaucrats) complaining about missing features and/or differences between MS and the open source alternative and forcing switching back to MS
FlorianRappl 4y ago
It was Munich - and it only happened once. I shared the excitement, but as so often it was only executed half-way. In essence, instead of recreating processes from the ground up to fit the new reality, they tried to make everything as beforehand. Unsurprisingly, that was a huge uphill battle - in the end they spend more money than beforehand and had a lot of trouble in maintenance etc. (Regarding the 2020 public announcement; nothing has happened since then IIRC so I would not count that in - just talk no actions)

throwaway4good 4y ago

Microsoft just needs to place data from EU customers on EU soil and in a manner that is inaccessible to US authorities. Why is this so hard?

kayodelycaon 4y ago
US law, specifically the CLOUD Act. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act :(
MichaelCollins 4y ago
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pkz 4y ago
It involves sub licensing the entire suite to a EU entity. It is happening in France with Bleu (MS365 run by Capgemini and Orange): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/orange-and-capgemini-launch-french-cloud-company-bleu-will-sell-microsoft-services-from-local-data-centers/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/orange-and-capgem...

smeej 4y ago

I'm not European, and maybe this is why I struggle to understand this, but why do people want regulators to say, "This doesn't comply with our regulations, so you aren't allowed to use it?" I understand the hope is that companies will comply rather than forego the entire European market, but if they don't, the last consequence is ultimately on the consumer, not the company. It seems like the same type of thing as when Quebec recently decided any service that serves customers in Quebec must offer a French version of all their services. Quebec is a much smaller market than Europe, so the effect was that companies just stopped offering services to people in Quebec, but it seems like these are the same kind of issue. Government wants services to be provided in a certain way. Service provider declines. Consequences disproportionately impact the consumer, not the service provider. Why should it be up to a governmental agency to tell you you are not permitted to use a service because they think the service is being provided in a way they don't like?

traceroute66 4y ago
> I'm not European, and maybe this is why I struggle to understand this Put it another way. Most sensible Americans would rather have European employment law and healthcare provisions. Well, the same goes for privacy legislation....
pixl97 4y ago
For the same reasons you're not allowed to sign particular contacts, such as enslaving yourself. Without restriction companies will do every illegal thing they can get away with via their collective power of size versus your weak individualism. In some cases it's rather trivial, in other cases its dependent on the survival of the nation state to enforce the rules on the corporation.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Hmm that is a good point. It is forbidden to sign contracts of enslavement in every country I know of, even if the potential contractee is making it free from duress. Therefore forbidding some types of contracts for everyone does have established precedent. However, there does not appear to be a limit to this. For example, can governments ban their residents from signing contracts to distribute or host porn, gambling, etc.?

calculated 4y ago

For the businesses who might want to switch to an alternative. A great one is Cryptpad: https://github.com/xwiki-labs/cryptpad https://github.com/xwiki-labs/cryptpad There are hosted instances also if you're not interested in self hosting. P.S. I'm not affiliated in any way with the project.

preya2k 4y ago
I love Cryptpad, but suggesting it's an alternative to Microsoft 365 is a bold statement.
iLoveOncall 4y ago
This is as much an alternative to Office as rolling on the floor while making engine noises with your mouth is an alternative to having a car.
xrayarx 4y ago
I can second cryptpad. It can do documents and „excel“ and „PowerPoint „ and a few other things. No experience in an „industrial „ environment though so YMMV.

Lurkars 4y ago

Statement from Microsoft https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erfuellt-und-uebertrifft-europaeische-datenschutzgesetze/ https://news.microsoft.com/de-de/microsoft-erfuellt-und-uebe... [in German]

nix23 4y ago
Is that before or after they send the content of you powerpoint file?
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  If you're referring to the article posted last week, you need to read more than just the headlines
  - deely3 4y ago
    Care to elaborate, instead of providing 'headline'?
    - shepherdjerred 4y ago
      Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506576 I suppose I should've said 'read the comments' considering that the particular post is very short. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506844 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33506844
  - nix23 4y ago
    >you need to read more than just the headlines It's sending your contend without consent...what's the problem?
Conan_Kudo 4y ago
English version (PDF): https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/40/2022/11/DSK-Blog-Post_25NOV2022_ENG_FINAL.pdf https://news.microsoft.com/wp-content/uploads/prod/sites/40/...

th3h4mm3r 4y ago

Okay. And now?

impossiblefork 4y ago
Well, presumably German schools and the like will make a switch to OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Collabora, Koffice, or something like that.

jonas-w 4y ago

I use onlyoffice[0] because MS Office doesn't run on Linux. It is open source and seems to have the best compatibility with MS Office. You can self host it and/or use it locally. It also integrates with e.g. nextcloud or seafile. Some features are missing yes, but the usability (IMO) is better than Libre-/OpenOffice. I don't know how good the collaboration is but they seem to advertise for it. [0] https://www.onlyoffice.com/ https://www.onlyoffice.com/

ekianjo 4y ago

Next is Windows 11 with its always log-on requirements.

rcarr 4y ago

Tech will end up exactly the same way finance is (if it isn’t already there). Employees will work for the regulatory enforcement agency for around five years on shit pay learning how the system works from the inside and making contacts in the industry before leaving and being ushered into a tech firm with a nice six figure salary. Meanwhile, no regulations will really get enforced apart from the odd token case against a big company so the agency can continue to justify its existence and funding. The fine against the big company will be a complete drop in the ocean and will have already been accounted for well in advance by said company as a natural cost of doing business. No-one will go to prison for any wrong doing unless it’s a fraud case where someone’s tried to cheat the company and the regulators for their own individual gain in which case there’ll be made an example of to ensure all the other players stay in line and don’t rock the apple cart. Repeat until the end of the time. Any attempts to appoint new leadership to reform the existing corrupt agencies will most likely end up being sabotaged from within by bureaucrats who gain from the system remaining dysfunctional. The only two ways you can effectively change it are: - setting up complete new ‘start up’ agencies and appointing people to wind down and distract the power players in the existing ones. - going full nuclear like Elon just did at Twitter and firing the majority of the workforce

EMIRELADERO 4y ago
I've never seen such a cynical comment like this one here. On what basis are you theorizing this?
- rcarr 4y ago
  So I first heard about it as a young man in the early 2010s when I encountered a woman who worked in the financial regulation sector in the UK who told me exactly what I just summed up in the first paragraph. Google “revolving door $INDUSTRY” and you’ll get a pretty good feel for how widespread it is. Naturally it’s downplayed by the official narrative such as in the last of the following three links: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Personnel_%22revolving-door%22_with_U.S._government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman_Sachs#Personnel_%22r... https://cspl.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/08/regulators-and-the-revolving-door/ https://cspl.blog.gov.uk/2017/02/08/regulators-and-the-revol... If you’re based in the UK, buy an issue or two of Private Eye who will often name such people as well as the staggering amount of general corruption at play in UK politics. As for the last paragraph, I recently heard some system thinkers express similar sentiments based on how FDR managed to enact real change and how most presidents have failed to achieve much in comparison since. > During his first term, FDR quickly found that the federal bureaucracy, specifically at the Treasury and State Departments, moved too slowly for his tastes. FDR often chose to bypass these established channels, creating emergency agencies in their stead. https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/domestic-affairs https://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/domestic-affa... In time however, these new agencies become bloated bureaucratic nightmares themselves. In my opinion, the circle of life extends to organisations as well life forms. I view economic booms and busts as a “changing of the seasons”: old organisations that can no longer compete die and new ones take their place. The problems start occurring when government intervenes to keep zombie companies around because they’re “too big to fail”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company

SpaceManNabs 4y ago

Aren't CDNs against GDPR in some cases? Seems like an overly broad regulation that is enforced by often dismissed in judgement. Changing nothing, adding headache, and preventing meaningful regulation from taking its place... And when you request data from companies, you don't even get what you want a lot of the time because it is often aggregated.

lizardactivist 4y ago

Good. The sooner this data-siphon is cut off from the EU the better.

ganesh7 4y ago

It should be possible to put these bureaucrats into place. After all Germany is just another client state.

grammers 4y ago

This is not surprising as Austria, France and Denmark have already concluded the same.