New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework Largely a Copy of “Privacy Shield”

[autoexec]

I wish that all of our governments would just be honest and admit that they are involved in massive amounts of illegal data collection, that they really love spying on their own citizens because it gives them a lot more power, and that they will never do anything to protect the people if it might mean they have to give up even a little of that power.

Any discussion about what can be done to help protect people's privacy and safety would go a lot smoother and progress faster if they'd skip all the theater and stopped pretending to take meaningful action. It's a waste of everyone's time.

[TekMol]

Here in Europe, we are in a paradoxical downward spiral. And unfortunately, I see no end to it.

Understandably, we don't want our citizens to be spied upon by the US and have all that data stored in the US.

Unfortunately, our "solution" is to create regulations which cause so much disadvantage to European tech companies, that we will see our citizens use even more US built tools in the future.

We already live in a mostly US-built internet. Throwing more and more regulations at it only cements this situation.

It seems there is nothing to get out of this rut. Looks like we will keep feeding the patient a treatment that worsens their condition.

[autoexec]

> Unfortunately, our "solution" is to create regulations which cause so much disadvantage to European tech companies, that we will see our citizens use even more US built tools in the future.

What is the "disadvantage" to European tech companies who don't want to spy on anyone? What advantage do Europeans who don't want to be spied on gain by using US services that will spy on them instead of using European ones that couldn't spy on them as easily/completely due to pro-privacy laws?

[jcfrei]

It's not like having fewer regulations in tech would be an instant panacea. The bigger reasons for US dominance are the larger capital and consumer market - both still fragmented in the EU. Add on top of that a more flexible labour market in the US (someone from California is more likely to work in New York than someone from Lithuania to work in Portugal). Regulations do matter but there's so many other things that make it harder in Europe.

[Garvi]

EU regulations are not a monolith of good or bad. The cookie law is dumb beyond comprehension. On the other side GDPR is just great and I have yet to hear a good argument against it. The criticisms usually sound like listening to creationists talk about how silly evolution is (by that I mean they don't understand it).

The only way I see Europe develop it's own internet tech and big businesses, is to copy what China did by simply blocking the foreign competition. Today there would be no Weibo, Baidu, Alibaba or Aliexpress without it. And I don't see a problem in that approach, but wouldn't mind being educated otherwise.

Edit: I wish at least some of the people downvoting would have the intellect to form a paragraph of counter arguments, so I could understand why. It's like a sports event in here.

[WeylandYutani]

The Chinese succesfully kept the Americans out so it's totally doable.

[camgunz]

I think it's more EU tech protectionism. Basically the law is saying, "you can't use US tech services." So this creates a local market for EU tech services. There's probably an argument between capitalists in the EU who want to develop that market (while complying with EU privacy regulations) and security people in the EU/US who want to continue to use tech to facilitate mass surveillance.

Trying to guess who will win out is interesting. The privacy vs. surveillance discussion always feels one crisis away from tipping to surveillance (see: 9/11), but the EU privacy lobby is remarkably strong. I also think a market for tech services that don't spy on you is probably pretty huge; by itself it's not a big selling point, but contrasted against services that definitely spy on you (not to mention net neutrality concerns) they look pretty good, plus being able to tap the EU market is a huge incentive. So--no jinx--I think I'm bullish on privacy here, because it seems likely an unholy alliance of capitalists and privacy advocates would be decisive.

[FinnKuhn]

So the current approach is just to implement the same law after it was deemed illegal with minor changes as it takes some time until the courts decide it is illegal? What a joke.

[kergonath]

Unfortunately, yes. The Commission is playing dumb and hoping we’ll get tired before they do.

[jjgreen]

It seems there is no cost to those who repeatedly implement these illegal frameworks. A modest proposal: Jail-time of twice their duration (from implementation to judicial strikedown) for the EU negotiators involved.

[tmikaeld]

It still doesn't help EU businesses navigate the clash between the US Cloud Act and the EU's GDPR, and seems more focused on appeasing US interests than safeguarding European rights.

[creshal]

Yeah, looks like this will be valid for just as long as it takes Schrems to drag it through the courts.

Again.

[abwizz]

fool me once, shame on you.

fool me twice, shame on me.

fool me thrice, ???

profit

[Havoc]

>the US still takes the view that only US persons are worthy of constitutional rights.

Lovely. That makes me feel all warm & fuzzy about data privacy...

/s