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US threatens EU digital services market access
- luis_cho 10mo agoIf American companies don’t respect Europe regulation it’s time to Europe invest in dedicated software competing with office 365, social networks, even android/apple/windows os.
- closewith 10mo agoMany EU Governments run entirely on MS/Meta/Amazon and to a lessor extent Google services. Many (most?) government services run on Azure or AWS, and huge parts of the continent run on WhatsApp.
- RobotToaster 10mo agoWhich is a huge mistake. We should have learned that the USA can't be trusted when Nixon ended bretton woods so it didn't have to give France it's gold back.
- closewith 10mo agoAgreed, and all the worse for being completely foreseeable.
- 4gotunameagain 10mo ago“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” Henry Kissinger ― US secretary of state, Nobel peace prize laureate, war criminal.
- rdm_blackhole 10mo agoThe EU countries had decades to build and foster alternative companies yet they did not manage to do so. China did though. Was it a lack of political will or short-termed-ness? Maybe both but the end result is the same. You can't undo 20 years of inaction in a few years. It will take decades before viable EU competitors emerge and begin to rival US giants and that's if they even are allowed to do so in the first place.
- muro 10mo agoChina blocked (many) US companies though, that enabled/forced the local companies to fill the void.
- rdm_blackhole 10mo agoThat's my point. This was a decision by China. European countries were happy to just let the US in and not have to worry about building their own alternative versions of the US services. Now the same EU countries are waking up and realizing that having pieces of your digital infrastructure in someone else's hands was bad bet but unfortunately, it will take decades to build the same thing in the EU.
- Europas 10mo ago[dead]
- tremon 10mo agoThe EU countries had decades to build and foster alternative companies yet they did not manage to do so They did so quite a few times, and then they let the home-grown alternatives be bought out by US capital.
- techterrier 10mo agoAnd are rushing to get away! I work on a product thats source available and self hosted. Many of our new customers are EU gov agencies.
- closewith 10mo agoGood to hear, but probably depends on the country. Ireland is all-in on Azure and only deepening ties.
- wkat4242 10mo agoSame with Holland. The tax office is moving away from their own office package onto m365 right now. They apparently had an alternative all this time, which I find very surprising (the media didn't really elaborate on this). But Holland, Ireland, UK are the most neoliberal countries in Europe, they worship America and believe that the market solves everything. The rest of europe doesn't share that sentiment to the same extent.
- techterrier 10mo agoDutch gov is one of our recent customers! govs are big things and have lots of parts that dont always talk to each other.
- wkat4242 10mo agoHell yes I hear you on that. I've been sideways involved with some of their projects too. It's always a minefield because they don't know what they want, what they do think they want makes no sense and they don't care about what's technically possible or is streamlined, maintainable and affordable (us engineers try to find a solution that is also robust and straightforward, not just to tick a maze of boxes). Governments tend to write the legislation of everything under their purview and they don't really have to deal with forces of nature so they think they can just decree water to not be wet and that's sorted then. So their resulting solutions tend to be pretty awful. Oh and the decision makers tend to be there because they're great at spouting hot air, not because they have a clue what they're doing. Not fun projects to work on. Most corporates are much more flexible. They come to you with a vision and you discuss how to best make this happen. And an 'Actually, it would be a lot simpler if you do ...' is very appreciated.
- mooiedingen 10mo ago[dead]
- bigyabai 10mo agoThere has never been a smarter time to replace everything you just mentioned.
- pera 10mo agohttps://xcancel.com/ustraderep/status/2000990028835508258 https://xcancel.com/ustraderep/status/2000990028835508258
- f_devd 10mo agoRemind me to never look at twitter replies again, by far most counterproductive threads I've seen
- cyberlad24 10mo agoMutatis mutandis, the same applies in the opposite direction.
- luis_cho 10mo agoSince when Accenture is European? It’s this because these companies are not Palantir?
- Brajeshwar 10mo agoBeing officially HQ-ed in Dublin, Ireland might be the reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture
- jeroenhd 10mo agoAccenture is operating from Ireland, legally speaking. It may be in American hands, serving American shareholders and American interests, and it may have been started as a European front for an American business, but it's technically an EU company. I don't think those kinds of details matter to a government looking to start yet another trade war, though. The list is based on the question "what legally European tech companies do business in America, sorted by income".
- torginus 10mo agoBy this logic, FAANG is also EU
- arethuza 10mo agoAccenture has its HQ in Dublin - FAANG companies have their HQs in the US?
- dh2022 10mo agoBut their Intelectual Property is located in Ireland :) For numerous helpings of double irish dutch sandwiches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich
- jeroenhd 10mo agoFAANG usually only operate what is necessary to collect payment and maybe do some lobbying on the side. Accenture actually has a full HQ with people on the ground in Europe. But yes, legally speaking, FAANG is also EU, same way Volkswagen is an American company. That's not really how people tend to talk about these companies, though.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- reacharavindh 10mo agoThrowing stone from a glass box eh? If I understand correctly, US is by far the largest services exporter to EU… should EU merely apply the same “tariffs” that US might impose on these goods, some healthy European alternatives would finally gain some ground..
- shellwizard 10mo agoWhat alternatives to Microsoft, Google, IBM or AWS exist in Europe?
- nephihaha 10mo agoIf these hadn't been allowed to emerge as monopolies we would have a wider selection.
- jonnybgood 10mo agoIs that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.
- fxtentacle 10mo agoLIDL the supermarket chain is German and is running a large cloud operation inside the EU. And OVH from France is also pretty big. You’re correct that few EU companies get as large as US monopolies, but that’s kind of the goal when you want a functioning market.
- concinds 10mo agoA "functioning market" doesn't prevent oligopolies. Oligopolies are natural and optimal (desirable) in many industries, if not most. That's where regulations come in.
- ivan_gammel 10mo ago
- fxtentacle 10mo agoYay, jackpot! We taunted the monkey in the glass box into throwing the first stone. The EU is just itching for any opportunity to get rid of US tech firms because they’re increasingly seen as sovereignty risks. And while the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to) appear huge on absolute terms, they are still low enough that US firms voluntarily decide to violate those laws and just pay the fines. The US sees TikTok as a risk. For the EU, it’s Microsoft Office.
- jeroenhd 10mo ago> the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to) I think the American government is mad at the DMA more than anything. Breaking up the monopolies that are currently firmly held by American tech giants goes directly against the interests of the White House, especially now that they're able to openly bribe the president.
- zoobab 10mo ago"I think the American government is mad at the DMA" It's the not the government, it's the large american companies behind it.
- array_key_first 10mo agoSame thing.
- rdm_blackhole 10mo ago> The EU is just itching for any opportunity to get rid of US tech firms because they’re increasingly seen as sovereignty risks. And while the GDPR fines (that this likely refers to) appear huge on absolute terms, they are still low enough that US firms voluntarily decide to violate those laws and just pay the fines. That is not even remotely close to the truth. The EU is not itching to get rid of Microsoft nor Windows nor Google. If these companies left tomorrow, the EU will have enormous problems replacing them if that is even possible in the first place. The EU countries should have had a homegrown version of each US service up and running and on par with their US counterparts a decade ago, then the EU would have had leverage but as it stands, they have none. Unless you think that every governmental office will switch to Ubuntu tomorrow morning, in which case I have a bridge to sell you. Not to mention that the entire EU's messaging needs are met via US companies. Let's see how long the EU can last without WhatsApp, IMessage and Facebook Messenger. My guess is not long unless you want to use Telegram which was most likely backdoor-ed by the French government not long ago. This is the problem with the EU as it stands, there is really no mea-culpa from the institutions for their inaction and getting caught with their pants down. All of this was foreseeable and could have been avoided, yet here we are.
- stakhanov 10mo agoThe E.U. making life difficult for U.S.-based monopolists, and the U.S. making life difficult for E.U.-based monopolists? For a net effect of life being difficult for all monopolists? Well, that sounds like a wonderful idea! I am all for it. Through this model, we might actually enjoy effective antitrust enforcement, and escape regulatory capture! Who would have thought that this day would ever come? Once again, it turns out I have been too cynical all my life.
- zoobab 10mo ago"effective antitrust enforcement, and escape regulatory capture" Give me an example where Antitrust was actually breaking any monopoly. In the EU and the Microsoft antitrust case, the remedy was to give the best poison to the competitors (free software Samba in that case) in that case royalties over patents. Antitrust don't work, fines are too low, remedies are not working, and the administration is biased and politicized.
- zrn900 10mo ago> The E.U. making life difficult for U.S.-based monopolists, and the U.S. making life difficult for E.U.-based monopolists? For a net effect of life being difficult for all monopolists? Its not only for monopolists. The first victims of regulatory moat-building are always small businesses and individuals.They cant pay the fines.
- kevin061 10mo agoPlease destroy US tech, Ursula.
- votepaunchy 10mo agoYou are asking to severely damage the economy of the country providing your defense umbrella, when your continent is mired in a 3+ year land war.
- lithos 10mo agoHello Reddit
- tokai 10mo agoKeep up. US is not an an ally to any European nation any more.
- wrxd 10mo agoIs that defense umbrella actually real? Over the last year the US acted less and less as an ally to the point I wouldn't trust to actually help out in case of an attack
- bot403 10mo agoRemind me again how committed the current administration is to providing a defense umbrella? Have they said anything interesting about it lately?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- philipwhiuk 10mo agoThe US is the only organisation in NATO to ever invoke Article 5.
- kevin061 10mo agoUS is trying to give Ukrainian land away for free to pacify Russia. EU ignored Crimea and Georgia. It didn't work. It won't work now, either.
- rvz 10mo agoThe EU can only fine US tech giants because it's good at suffocating its own European companies with some of its members states having one of the highest taxes and subject to the EU's regulations. It's no wonder AI startups like Mistral (France) are so dependent on US VCs and the same is true with Lovable (Sweden) who were able to grow faster than Europe trying to strangle them. Since there are rare startup home-runs that are from Europe, the EU instead needs find a way to impose fines on US big tech companies. They (EU) will certainly do the same with the Big AI companies very soon.
- ozlikethewizard 10mo agoYou're pretending like the fines target US companies. GDPR fines target malpractice and mishandling of data. The DMC seeks to break up artificial digital market monopolies. These apply to corporations operating in the EU, with no basis on where they operate from. Don't want to get punished for creating an uncompetitive monopoly? Don't create an uncompetitive monopoly.
- LunaSea 10mo agoRemember that the US literally sent members of the CIA to steal a french chip company and it's IP in the late 80's / early 90's. Does that sound like fair competition?
- SilverElfin 10mo agoIs this all simply spurred on by the recent fine against Musk/X? That wasn’t even about censorship but other issues. Not to mention the irony of threatening market access after throwing high tariffs on key allies while going soft on China.
- throwaway13337 10mo agoThe tariff talk was ostensibly because the EU exported more goods to the US than the US exported to EU. The US exports far more digital services to the EU, though. Understanding those things, it would seem a particularly unwise framing for the US government to focus on EU digital services exports. LLMs are rapidly commoditizing software, and in particular making it far easier to handle the regulatory compliance and regional fragmentation that have traditionally held back software companies in the EU. Combine that with growing concerns about software trust, and the EU looks like an increasingly attractive bet for future software investment. Ironic, then, that Europe seems slowest to adopt the very tool that could finally solve its fragmentation problem. Two governments, two very different strategies to cripple themselves. The race is on.
- kinematikk 10mo agoYour last sentence is funny as hell because it’s so true
- expedition32 10mo agoYou have to understand who Trump's base is. They think factories> liberals in Seattle. Globalisation has made America the richest country on the planet. The real problem is that the money doesn't reach the "deplorable" population. But that is an INTERNAL issue that could have easily be solved with voting for Bernie Sanders. People vote against their own interests is a tale as old as democracy itself.
- port11 10mo agoAre you saying trickle-down economics doesn't work? If those kids could read… what I do wonder is how tens of millions of Americans still think that it's other countries that are to blame for their poverty or struggles. Baffling. If you ARE in the richest country, wouldn't you at least blame something internal?
- qcnguy 10mo agoUh, you're planning to outsource regulatory compliance to an LLM? In the EU? Which has already banned the usage of "algorithms" that aren't "transparent" via the DMA? That isn't going to work. As for cloning the US software industry with LLMs ... with which non-US LLMs, exactly? Mistral? The best LLMs for coding (which still can't handle many important tasks) are: Gemini, Claude, GPT. All non-EU models.
- zkmon 10mo agoUS would like entire world to adapt American laws, values, norms, morals, life styles, mindset, ethics etc. Any deviation would, ofcourse, be uncomfortable.
- anomie31 10mo agoI'm not read reading that whole screed, I just want to know if there's any regulations that apply to America only. Otherwise, how can words like "discrimination" even be appropriate?
- grunder_advice 10mo agoLong term, it would be good for the EU if tech market access was restricted. The reason there aren't EU tech giants is because the US and EU are basically one market, so naturally, all tech giants end up being American. So it's not in the interest of the US to restrict market access in anyway and these tech giants know it.
- thefz 10mo ago> U.S. services companies provide substantial free services to EU citizens Ignoring that if the service is free, YOU are the product, is childlike
- brador 10mo agoEU has the capital but does it have the knowledge workers to build out alternatives?
- lm28469 10mo agoThe problem isn't knowledge workers, we have plenty. The problem is that given the choice between being paid $55k for a EU based company and spend half your salary in rent vs making $200k+ working for a US based company most people chose money. Even without relocating, working for a US based company in Europe makes more sense... Working for Dassault or Rheinmetall on high tech military equipment will net you less than half what you'd get helping Facebook come up with the most effective way to cram as many ads as physically possible in your fellow citizens' lives... it's like we got our priorities backward and reward things than shouldn't even exist
- ivan_gammel 10mo agoA lot of people work comfortably for EU companies. Yes, there’s more money somewhere else in this world, but when your income is good enough other things matter more. I think you are exaggerating the problem. Europe can certainly handle building the core tech stack to achieve sovereignty.
- lm28469 10mo agoThe internship I had half way through my studies for a US based company (10+ years ago) paid more than most tech jobs you can land in Paris with a masters degree (right now)... I think you're underestimating the problem. Tech workers are seen as an expense, not a resource, and certainly not as assets.
- Hutrecht 10mo agoThere are plenty of developer jobs in Europe paying 70k+ €. While salaries may be lower than in the US, your real quality of life can be much better because: 1. Lower food costs. Groceries are cheaper and healthier and eating out is more affordable (+ tipping is not necesary) 2. Generally lower rent. Unless you live outside a few very expensive cities (but it would compensate with higher salaries) 3. No need for a car. Public transport usually costs around 40 to 60 € per month. 4. No need to save for college. Public universities are free or very cheap 5. Healthcare is covered. No huge insurance premiums or surprise medical bills. 6. Less working time. Shorter workweeks, fewer unpaid overtime hours, and stronger limits on burnout. 7. More paid vacation. 25 to 30 days off per year is standard plus public holidays 8. Paid parental leave for both parents without risking your job. 9. Stronger worker protections including notice periods and unemployment benefits. 10. Child benefits and subsidized childcare in many countries. 11. Lower overall stress due to less financial anxiety around health and education. 12. Better work life balance and healthier company culture. 13. High quality public services and safer cities. 14. Easy and cheap travel across many countries. ... I guess I will stop here. Lower salary does not mean lower standard of living.
- Europas 10mo agoAh man i hate the USA... I really don't mind sitting on a table and discussing things but having the biggest military power on the planet becoming suddenly hostile and pushy like this is really really fucked up. fu usa...
- LeChuck 10mo agoA bit of a tangent here. I'm not a native English speaker but is it me or is this text badly written? > The European Union and certain EU Member States have persisted in a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives against U.S. service providers. Persisted in a continuing course, saying the same thing twice. > In stark contrast, EU service providers have been able to operate freely in the United States for decades, benefitting from access to our market and consumers on a level playing field. "Benefiting" is spelled with one t. > If the EU and EU Member States insist on continuing to restrict, limit, and deter the competitiveness of U.S. service providers through discriminatory means... Again, restricting and limiting mean the same thing. Also, can you deter competitiveness?
- Avshalom 10mo agoAuthoritarianism selects against competence.
- qcnguy 10mo agoBenefitting can be spelled with two Ts. It's more commonly a British English spelling, and British English is often taught to non-native speakers in school. Using "harassing" as an adjective is also the kind of mistake non-native speakers make. Probably whoever wrote this tweet didn't learn English in America.
- josefritzishere 10mo agoImperfect as they are, the EU has some of the best consumer data privacy protections in the world —GDPR. The US should emulate their model, not pressure the EU to degrade protections.
- lifestyleguru 10mo agoNone of the service providers listed as European delivers B2C products or services as many American ones. Maybe only Spotify. Few of these companies provide respectable IT/tech careers, every time it's brutal race to the bottom with nearshoring and outsourcing. Especially French and German ones where you have to speak French or German and have local postgraduate degree to step out from the software sweatshop in the basement. As an EU citizen I don't mind if Americans take them down a notch.
- grimblee 10mo agoGreat, give us more reasons to cut ties with you, uncle sam !