Comment by bestham
11 hours ago
I really oppose the notion that “European legislation … disproportionately impacts American tech companies”. US tech has a profound impact on the lives of everyday Europeans while the US has almost no checks and balances in place for the tech industry. Europeans are ought to be able decide how they want to live their lives and build a society. This must include deciding how much influence American tech companies shall be allowed to have by passing laws for Europe.
The whole premise ignores how much the same companies are fined and settling for in the US, for many of the same reasons: privacy abuse, market abuse, societal abuse, worker abuse, etc. Pound for pound the recent Meta settlement has certainly skewed the numbers much higher for the US too.
Also, most US citizens want the same regulations as EU citizens, but only one of them have a functioning government.
No they don't.
Roughly half of American states have passed extensive internet regulation in the last few years to the point of entire businesses exciting their states, and that's the conservative parts of America.
The American public, of various creeds and political orientations is as, if honestly not more skeptical of US tech companies. They simply have no control over their government, which is captured by tech CEOs.
The recent anti datacenter activism extends to IIRC over 40 states now and has roughly 70% largely bipartisan support.
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Isn't part of " Europeans are ought to be able to decide how they want to live their lives" that they have the choice of using products of US tech companies?
If my manager's manager's manager decides, for any number of reasons, to buy a product which is using US-based technology, then I don't reasonably have the option to "vote with my feet", but I do have a fallback called Regulation, which works its way all the way up the chain automatically.
Why would you ever expect that you would have a choice of what products you use at work? You are being paid to work there. And yes, if you feel that strongly, you absolutely do have the option to vote with your feet at any time.
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