7 ms·

While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can

While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can be worse in some ways. For example, they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection'[1] [1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_ATA(2026)782618 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_AT...

kaon_2 5mo ago
Of course. But then again, it was the US that threatened the EU with military invasion, so if you want your service to continue uninterrupted, it helps being prepared.
traceroute66 5mo ago
> they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection' Just like with encryption, there will always be an idiot politician somewhere discussing banning it. Mr Google tells me, for example, that lawmakers in Michigan (US) recently proposed " Anticorruption of Public Morals Act" which contained VPN banning clauses. Frankly, until such time as it actually NEARS, let alone BECOMES legislation, the only thing posts such as yours are doing is spreading FUD. The clue is in the URL you post "thinktank". It not even EU parliament, let alone been through the parliament debates, let alone passed to votes, let alone passed to being implemented by member states .... its just a random idea someone wrote down. And quite frankly, I would still much rather be in the EU's digital environment than that of the US.
- AlecSchueler 5mo ago
  Not only that but if you actually read the linked document it isn't calling for a VPN ban. It's a general report on what VPNs are and how they're perceived by various bodies. It does make reference to the UK Child Safety Commissioner's suggestion that they should be restricted to adult use only but it also talks about how essential they are for business etc. On the whole it's quite balanced and the existence of such a report seems very reasonable.
  - fp64 5mo ago
    [dead]
- fp64 5mo ago
  > its just a random idea someone wrote down. It's a result from the "European Parliamentary Research Service", hosted on the official website of the European parliament. And it is fully inline with recent attempted and success legislation of the same parliament. I am not sure why you would call this a "random idea" and an established member of the Parliamentary Research Service as "someone".
  - blipvert 5mo ago
    Research. Not implementation.
    - fp64 5mo ago
      My understanding is that the research service is providing legislation with research to inform them on how to implement. What is your claim? That the parliamentary research service is just a bunch of people writing documents nobody cares about and if you look just long enough you will find for each of their results something that claims the opposite?
      - traceroute66 5mo ago
        > My understanding is that the research service is providing legislation with research to inform them on how to implement. Dude, just go read the damn website. The research service does not operate on its own volition. An MEP requests a piece of research to assist them in their parliamentary work because they require independent, objective and authoritative analysis of a topic. Please stop with the damn conspiracy theories. Sheesh. A random MEP asked for this research. The MEP may or may not ever table anything based on the research. Ergo, it may or may not ever progress into the parliamentary debate, let alone votes, let alone member state implementation. Its just RESEARCH. Stop with the FUD.
        fp64 5mo ago
        I am not aware I was spreading conspiracy theories, and I do not understand why you have to be so aggressive and simultaneously defensive. An independent, objective, and authoritative analysis requested by a MEP speculates that a restriction or ban on VPN is likely. I think this is valuable information. You are saying this is worth nothing until it actually gets up to a vote. I disagree, I see your point and maybe it's fine to panic only when it actually comes to a vote, but I prefer to know what to expect, and what the Research Service considers an "independent, objective, and authoritative analysis" on this topic.
bayindirh 5mo ago
Currently, if you want the internet-climate of the 1990s or even 2010s, you need to build yours, preferably on a different planet, with your own hardware. We don't have any "ideal" places anymore. And we need to defend what we support and believe.
- throw9304044949 5mo ago
  Have you been around at that time? NSA had recording boxes at ISP routing places, every few days guy would come to swap hdds. Most com was unencrypted. Or read about echolon...
  - bayindirh 5mo ago
    I was four when I was programming my Commodore 64. I have seen "parallel [dial-up] modem banks" for "lawful interception", then specialized Ethernet cards for DPI, watched traffic analysis dashboard of a REDACTED country live, did DPI on powerful-enough systems myself for personal testing. I have gone through USENET, flame wars, IRC; did my own MITM, etc. Always knew about echelon, how escrow based Encryption canceled last moment, etc. etc. etc. At least, the barriers were higher then. These barriers required people to be considerate, well-targeted and selective. Now we don't have any of these. The overhead is almost non-existent for these things. Doing dragnet operations were costly, and this allowed curious yet good-hearted people to understand the environment they lived in. Now, we're all blacklisted by default and whitelisted as long as we don't touch the wrong paving stone on the internet. It used to be other way around. TL;DR: I'm not 15 years old.
  - repelsteeltje 5mo ago
    Yeah echelon seemed overwhelming at the time, and encryption was to be the answer. But it turn out surveillance works just fine if you only focus on the meta data. Knowing who takes to whom, and which sites people visit is much more valuable (and much cheaper) than scanning the actual payload. And why collect all that data yourself if ad companies are happy to sell it to you, ie to the government? (Huh, maybe that's why Facebook changed its name to Meta, come to think of it)
sevenzero 5mo ago
Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. Lots of laws allow people to protect themselves from digital exploitation. I agree that there is a ton of bullshit as well though. Gotta dox myself with imprints for example, so I cant share my work with people without also doxing myself. Also as a hobbyist you pretty much need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore. Also gotta make sure that data of European citizens never leaves Europe and and and... Lots of things to remember. And before anyone asks, yes I know an imprint usually is only required for businesses, but nowadays pretty much everything could have business intent.
- auggierose 5mo ago
  Imprint is not needed everywhere in Europe. You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK.
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    True, I guess Germany has a lot of extra layers to all this. It's really not easy to actually publish anything without being in risk of some bored lawyer making your life hell.
  - traceroute66 5mo ago
    > You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK Erm, dude.... - Companies Act 2006 - Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 - Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 Applies to business letters, order forms, websites, emails .... Might not be called "imprint" in UK-speak, but its basically the same thing.
- wolvoleo 5mo ago
  I'd never heard of that imprint stuff but that's pretty Draconian yeah. If it will start being required for foreign sites I'll block all German IPs. I avoid doing any business in Germany these days. I tried to get a VPS from Hetzner but they demanded a copy of my ID and didn't accept that I blanked out my citizen number. Which is actually recommended by our national police for identify theft risk. I moved to Scaleway instead. Much better company.
cjs_ac 5mo ago
The author isn't just moving their personal setup; they're also moving their business operations. It's not some slacktivism 'I don't like the US any more' issue; it's a 'how can I maintain my income now the US is firing all its glass cannon' issue.
- xienze 5mo ago
  Yeah except he made multiple exceptions and justified them with "OK well I guess these can stay because they're better than what's available in Europe." So it's not exactly "I have my values and I'm sticking with them no matter what."
IanCal 5mo ago
I think that's a very different kind of concern, and its also been very predictable and slow. I would also say though, you have to be a bit careful about "they are discussing" because there are many people across different countries with different agendas, and a huge amount of discussion between people. Your link for example is a pretty good bit of background info, clearly saying VPNs aren't just about accessing porn > In the corporate world, VPNs are essential for secure remote work, allowing employees to access company systems without compromising sensitive information. For individual users, VPNs prevent tracking by internet service providers, advertisers and potential cybercriminals. They are also used to access educational or entertainment content that may be restricted in certain countries, including authoritarian regimes, supporting freedom of information and digital inclusivity, as censorship becomes more difficult to enforce through VPN use. It links off to sites discussing possible approaches to age verification which highlights that various approaches in France didn't meet the regulators requirements because of a lack of privacy. I think this is a different kind of concern about how your products must work compared to worrying that with little to no notice your country may be cut off due to a diplomatic spat from some specific service.
hankerapp 5mo ago
Also, the "open your app store to competitors" was just bullshit, eyewash, cop out. The apps on these "alternative app stores" still need to jump through all the hoops, pay apple development fees, get approved etc.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  American company maliciously complying with the law, thinking they can get away with it? Never heard about such thing! Jokes aside, the long arm of the law takes some time, it took us long time go get Apple to even allow alternative app stores. Eventually they'll get fined and actually start following the spirit of the regulations, but it'll take time as they try to drag it out as much as they can.
- dgellow 5mo ago
  You do realize all those hops are what Apple decided to set up? It’s not from the regulations. They could have allowed 3rd party stores with zero restrictions but are instead trying to fake compliance
panzi 5mo ago
So are certain states of the USA: https://www.ipvanish.com/blog/ban-vpns-us-privacy/ https://www.ipvanish.com/blog/ban-vpns-us-privacy/ It's horrible everywhere. If you're in the EU go donate to: https://epicenter.works/ https://epicenter.works/ They're a citizen rights NGO working against all that BS in the EU (and in Austria, where they're from).
wolvoleo 5mo ago
Utah has already implemented this. But yes this and Chatcontrol is very bad. The EU is not all good and we need to keep fighting such government overreach.
GJim 5mo ago
> they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection Oh FFS! Governments discussing such things doesn't _remotely_ mean there is a political will for them, or that they will be voted into law. Governments are expected to research and discuss paths of legislation (and in this case, come to the conclusion banning VPNs is both harmful and ridiculous). This is how our democracies work! Implying government discussions will be approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling.
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > Implying government discussions will be approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling. Don't get too much up in your arms about it, any topic about Europe and EU on HN ends up with huge swaths of American commentators seemingly willfully misunderstanding or spreading FUD in these comment threads. You'll get used to it eventually, so you can identify what's the real criticism and worthwhile discussions, vs the easy trolling attempts.
- whywhywhywhy 5mo ago
  Why do you think entirely different countries and states with entirely different politics across Europe Canada and America all pushing the same policy coincidentally within the space of 6 months has anything to do with democracy. It’s people being paid off and it’s obvious.
  - 9dev 5mo ago
    External influence and lobbyism is part of the democratic process for sure. Stable democracies have self-correcting mechanisms to defend against too much pressure from any side. There is no reason (yet) to doubt the effectiveness of the European Union's self-correcting mechanisms. IMHO, you're both right: There is an active, covert political campaign for more online surveillance under the guise of child protection going on world-wide right now; so much is clear to anyone following the various attempts everywhere. Yet as of now, this campaign hasn't lead to actual, harmful legislation in the EU.
vrganj 5mo ago
While it's worrying this is being discussed, it's just that, a discussion, for now. Utah, meanwhile, has an actual law in place that makes site owners (!) responsible for their users using VPNs: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first-us-state-to-target-vpn-use-with-age-verification-law https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first...
xienze 5mo ago
> While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can be worse in some ways. It makes a lot more sense if you realize pretty much the sole motivation behind all this digital virtue signaling is "put my data somewhere Trump isn't." Notice how no one really lists contingencies for "what if the EU goes off the rails"? There's always an implicit assumption that EU politics will always be "sane" (read: "aligned with my personal politics").
- embedding-shape 5mo ago
  > Notice how no one really lists contingencies for "what if the EU goes off the rails"? Where did you try to find this? And what does "EU goes off the rails" actually mean here? There are a bunch of contingencies already in place for economic instability both for individual members states and EU-wide, there is "Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union" in case there is one rogue member, and then each member state has a bunch of their own contingencies already too. What exactly is missing here? > There's always an implicit assumption that EU politics will always be "sane" (read: "aligned with my personal politics"). I think you might severely misunderstand how decisions are made in EU, and also how regulations and such are actually implemented. I don't think there is any such assumptions at all, that's why we have elections, votes and referendums, because people and states have different opinions about what is sane vs not. Where are you even getting these misconceptions from?
  - xienze 5mo ago
    I think you misunderstood what I was talking about, or perhaps you're an example of it. > And what does "EU goes off the rails" actually mean here? It means, "what if the EU starts acting belligerently to other countries like the US has?" Where, hypothetically, would someone move their data since now the US and EU are off the table? And if your answer is "well, you see that would simply be impossible because <waves hands about EU policy making>", then I guess you're an example of someone believing that EU politics will forever remain sane. > that's why we have elections, votes and referendums, because people and states have different opinions about what is sane vs not. Same situation as the US...
vanschelven 5mo ago
If you/your company is already inside the EU, you can't really escape the EU's unpredictability, but you can to some extend reduce the blast radius of the American government's whims.
seydor 5mo ago
The funny thing is that the EU will tout this move away from US clouds as one of their successes, even though they have done literally everything to cripple EU tech ecosystem.
contagiousflow 5mo ago
US: Threatens own democracy, invades other nations, threatens sovereignty of long standing allies. EU: Slowly makes laws with consideration of how much power the largest companies have over consumers. Surely you can tell the difference between these two things.
bborud 5mo ago
As someone pointed out: the risk is not so much spying but the chances of someone pulling the plug and your systems going dark. First the systems have to be up. Then we can deal with the spying and nonsense.

kaon_2 5mo ago

Of course. But then again, it was the US that threatened the EU with military invasion, so if you want your service to continue uninterrupted, it helps being prepared.

traceroute66 5mo ago

> they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection' Just like with encryption, there will always be an idiot politician somewhere discussing banning it. Mr Google tells me, for example, that lawmakers in Michigan (US) recently proposed " Anticorruption of Public Morals Act" which contained VPN banning clauses. Frankly, until such time as it actually NEARS, let alone BECOMES legislation, the only thing posts such as yours are doing is spreading FUD. The clue is in the URL you post "thinktank". It not even EU parliament, let alone been through the parliament debates, let alone passed to votes, let alone passed to being implemented by member states .... its just a random idea someone wrote down. And quite frankly, I would still much rather be in the EU's digital environment than that of the US.

AlecSchueler 5mo ago
Not only that but if you actually read the linked document it isn't calling for a VPN ban. It's a general report on what VPNs are and how they're perceived by various bodies. It does make reference to the UK Child Safety Commissioner's suggestion that they should be restricted to adult use only but it also talks about how essential they are for business etc. On the whole it's quite balanced and the existence of such a report seems very reasonable.
- fp64 5mo ago
  [dead]
fp64 5mo ago
> its just a random idea someone wrote down. It's a result from the "European Parliamentary Research Service", hosted on the official website of the European parliament. And it is fully inline with recent attempted and success legislation of the same parliament. I am not sure why you would call this a "random idea" and an established member of the Parliamentary Research Service as "someone".
- blipvert 5mo ago
  Research. Not implementation.
  - fp64 5mo ago
    My understanding is that the research service is providing legislation with research to inform them on how to implement. What is your claim? That the parliamentary research service is just a bunch of people writing documents nobody cares about and if you look just long enough you will find for each of their results something that claims the opposite?
    - traceroute66 5mo ago
      > My understanding is that the research service is providing legislation with research to inform them on how to implement. Dude, just go read the damn website. The research service does not operate on its own volition. An MEP requests a piece of research to assist them in their parliamentary work because they require independent, objective and authoritative analysis of a topic. Please stop with the damn conspiracy theories. Sheesh. A random MEP asked for this research. The MEP may or may not ever table anything based on the research. Ergo, it may or may not ever progress into the parliamentary debate, let alone votes, let alone member state implementation. Its just RESEARCH. Stop with the FUD.
      - fp64 5mo ago
        I am not aware I was spreading conspiracy theories, and I do not understand why you have to be so aggressive and simultaneously defensive. An independent, objective, and authoritative analysis requested by a MEP speculates that a restriction or ban on VPN is likely. I think this is valuable information. You are saying this is worth nothing until it actually gets up to a vote. I disagree, I see your point and maybe it's fine to panic only when it actually comes to a vote, but I prefer to know what to expect, and what the Research Service considers an "independent, objective, and authoritative analysis" on this topic.

bayindirh 5mo ago

Currently, if you want the internet-climate of the 1990s or even 2010s, you need to build yours, preferably on a different planet, with your own hardware. We don't have any "ideal" places anymore. And we need to defend what we support and believe.

throw9304044949 5mo ago
Have you been around at that time? NSA had recording boxes at ISP routing places, every few days guy would come to swap hdds. Most com was unencrypted. Or read about echolon...
- bayindirh 5mo ago
  I was four when I was programming my Commodore 64. I have seen "parallel [dial-up] modem banks" for "lawful interception", then specialized Ethernet cards for DPI, watched traffic analysis dashboard of a REDACTED country live, did DPI on powerful-enough systems myself for personal testing. I have gone through USENET, flame wars, IRC; did my own MITM, etc. Always knew about echelon, how escrow based Encryption canceled last moment, etc. etc. etc. At least, the barriers were higher then. These barriers required people to be considerate, well-targeted and selective. Now we don't have any of these. The overhead is almost non-existent for these things. Doing dragnet operations were costly, and this allowed curious yet good-hearted people to understand the environment they lived in. Now, we're all blacklisted by default and whitelisted as long as we don't touch the wrong paving stone on the internet. It used to be other way around. TL;DR: I'm not 15 years old.
- repelsteeltje 5mo ago
  Yeah echelon seemed overwhelming at the time, and encryption was to be the answer. But it turn out surveillance works just fine if you only focus on the meta data. Knowing who takes to whom, and which sites people visit is much more valuable (and much cheaper) than scanning the actual payload. And why collect all that data yourself if ad companies are happy to sell it to you, ie to the government? (Huh, maybe that's why Facebook changed its name to Meta, come to think of it)

sevenzero 5mo ago

Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. Lots of laws allow people to protect themselves from digital exploitation. I agree that there is a ton of bullshit as well though. Gotta dox myself with imprints for example, so I cant share my work with people without also doxing myself. Also as a hobbyist you pretty much need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore. Also gotta make sure that data of European citizens never leaves Europe and and and... Lots of things to remember. And before anyone asks, yes I know an imprint usually is only required for businesses, but nowadays pretty much everything could have business intent.

auggierose 5mo ago
Imprint is not needed everywhere in Europe. You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  True, I guess Germany has a lot of extra layers to all this. It's really not easy to actually publish anything without being in risk of some bored lawyer making your life hell.
- traceroute66 5mo ago
  > You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK Erm, dude.... - Companies Act 2006 - Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 - Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 Applies to business letters, order forms, websites, emails .... Might not be called "imprint" in UK-speak, but its basically the same thing.
wolvoleo 5mo ago
I'd never heard of that imprint stuff but that's pretty Draconian yeah. If it will start being required for foreign sites I'll block all German IPs. I avoid doing any business in Germany these days. I tried to get a VPS from Hetzner but they demanded a copy of my ID and didn't accept that I blanked out my citizen number. Which is actually recommended by our national police for identify theft risk. I moved to Scaleway instead. Much better company.

cjs_ac 5mo ago

The author isn't just moving their personal setup; they're also moving their business operations. It's not some slacktivism 'I don't like the US any more' issue; it's a 'how can I maintain my income now the US is firing all its glass cannon' issue.

xienze 5mo ago
Yeah except he made multiple exceptions and justified them with "OK well I guess these can stay because they're better than what's available in Europe." So it's not exactly "I have my values and I'm sticking with them no matter what."

IanCal 5mo ago

I think that's a very different kind of concern, and its also been very predictable and slow. I would also say though, you have to be a bit careful about "they are discussing" because there are many people across different countries with different agendas, and a huge amount of discussion between people. Your link for example is a pretty good bit of background info, clearly saying VPNs aren't just about accessing porn > In the corporate world, VPNs are essential for secure remote work, allowing employees to access company systems without compromising sensitive information. For individual users, VPNs prevent tracking by internet service providers, advertisers and potential cybercriminals. They are also used to access educational or entertainment content that may be restricted in certain countries, including authoritarian regimes, supporting freedom of information and digital inclusivity, as censorship becomes more difficult to enforce through VPN use. It links off to sites discussing possible approaches to age verification which highlights that various approaches in France didn't meet the regulators requirements because of a lack of privacy. I think this is a different kind of concern about how your products must work compared to worrying that with little to no notice your country may be cut off due to a diplomatic spat from some specific service.

hankerapp 5mo ago

Also, the "open your app store to competitors" was just bullshit, eyewash, cop out. The apps on these "alternative app stores" still need to jump through all the hoops, pay apple development fees, get approved etc.

embedding-shape 5mo ago
American company maliciously complying with the law, thinking they can get away with it? Never heard about such thing! Jokes aside, the long arm of the law takes some time, it took us long time go get Apple to even allow alternative app stores. Eventually they'll get fined and actually start following the spirit of the regulations, but it'll take time as they try to drag it out as much as they can.
dgellow 5mo ago
You do realize all those hops are what Apple decided to set up? It’s not from the regulations. They could have allowed 3rd party stores with zero restrictions but are instead trying to fake compliance

panzi 5mo ago

So are certain states of the USA: https://www.ipvanish.com/blog/ban-vpns-us-privacy/ https://www.ipvanish.com/blog/ban-vpns-us-privacy/ It's horrible everywhere. If you're in the EU go donate to: https://epicenter.works/ https://epicenter.works/ They're a citizen rights NGO working against all that BS in the EU (and in Austria, where they're from).

wolvoleo 5mo ago

Utah has already implemented this. But yes this and Chatcontrol is very bad. The EU is not all good and we need to keep fighting such government overreach.

GJim 5mo ago

> they are discussing restricting VPN access for 'child protection Oh FFS! Governments discussing such things doesn't _remotely_ mean there is a political will for them, or that they will be voted into law. Governments are expected to research and discuss paths of legislation (and in this case, come to the conclusion banning VPNs is both harmful and ridiculous). This is how our democracies work! Implying government discussions will be approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling.

embedding-shape 5mo ago
> Implying government discussions will be approved legislation is, at best ignorant, at worst trolling. Don't get too much up in your arms about it, any topic about Europe and EU on HN ends up with huge swaths of American commentators seemingly willfully misunderstanding or spreading FUD in these comment threads. You'll get used to it eventually, so you can identify what's the real criticism and worthwhile discussions, vs the easy trolling attempts.
whywhywhywhy 5mo ago
Why do you think entirely different countries and states with entirely different politics across Europe Canada and America all pushing the same policy coincidentally within the space of 6 months has anything to do with democracy. It’s people being paid off and it’s obvious.
- 9dev 5mo ago
  External influence and lobbyism is part of the democratic process for sure. Stable democracies have self-correcting mechanisms to defend against too much pressure from any side. There is no reason (yet) to doubt the effectiveness of the European Union's self-correcting mechanisms. IMHO, you're both right: There is an active, covert political campaign for more online surveillance under the guise of child protection going on world-wide right now; so much is clear to anyone following the various attempts everywhere. Yet as of now, this campaign hasn't lead to actual, harmful legislation in the EU.

vrganj 5mo ago

While it's worrying this is being discussed, it's just that, a discussion, for now. Utah, meanwhile, has an actual law in place that makes site owners (!) responsible for their users using VPNs: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first-us-state-to-target-vpn-use-with-age-verification-law https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/utah-becomes-first...

xienze 5mo ago

> While I agree with him that the US is becoming more unpredictable, I don't think the EU is much better, especially with regards to digital things where they can be worse in some ways. It makes a lot more sense if you realize pretty much the sole motivation behind all this digital virtue signaling is "put my data somewhere Trump isn't." Notice how no one really lists contingencies for "what if the EU goes off the rails"? There's always an implicit assumption that EU politics will always be "sane" (read: "aligned with my personal politics").

embedding-shape 5mo ago
> Notice how no one really lists contingencies for "what if the EU goes off the rails"? Where did you try to find this? And what does "EU goes off the rails" actually mean here? There are a bunch of contingencies already in place for economic instability both for individual members states and EU-wide, there is "Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union" in case there is one rogue member, and then each member state has a bunch of their own contingencies already too. What exactly is missing here? > There's always an implicit assumption that EU politics will always be "sane" (read: "aligned with my personal politics"). I think you might severely misunderstand how decisions are made in EU, and also how regulations and such are actually implemented. I don't think there is any such assumptions at all, that's why we have elections, votes and referendums, because people and states have different opinions about what is sane vs not. Where are you even getting these misconceptions from?
- xienze 5mo ago
  I think you misunderstood what I was talking about, or perhaps you're an example of it. > And what does "EU goes off the rails" actually mean here? It means, "what if the EU starts acting belligerently to other countries like the US has?" Where, hypothetically, would someone move their data since now the US and EU are off the table? And if your answer is "well, you see that would simply be impossible because <waves hands about EU policy making>", then I guess you're an example of someone believing that EU politics will forever remain sane. > that's why we have elections, votes and referendums, because people and states have different opinions about what is sane vs not. Same situation as the US...

vanschelven 5mo ago

If you/your company is already inside the EU, you can't really escape the EU's unpredictability, but you can to some extend reduce the blast radius of the American government's whims.

seydor 5mo ago

The funny thing is that the EU will tout this move away from US clouds as one of their successes, even though they have done literally everything to cripple EU tech ecosystem.

contagiousflow 5mo ago

US: Threatens own democracy, invades other nations, threatens sovereignty of long standing allies. EU: Slowly makes laws with consideration of how much power the largest companies have over consumers. Surely you can tell the difference between these two things.

bborud 5mo ago

As someone pointed out: the risk is not so much spying but the chances of someone pulling the plug and your systems going dark. First the systems have to be up. Then we can deal with the spying and nonsense.