I have zero trust in the competence and intentions of EU institutions
I already have to trust the firm that maintains the browser, how does adding another party help exactly?
this proposal's endgame is mandatory key escrow (attempt number #8 or so)
Why is that?
https://qz.com/1389385/article-11-and-article-13-axel-voss-i...
A foreign government (or even my own) has somewhere between zero and weak alignment with my goals. There's little reason they would want to choose good certificate authorities and strong reasons why they would choose ones their intelligence agencies can backdoor. Why should I add them to the chain of trust?
Their stock in trade is being easier to use and more feature-rich than the competition. Trust doesn't factor into it, in the sense that trust in a browser does not come from track record: It's all marketing, all the way down. Thus, if they screw up it does not matter. This point is easy to see because they frequently do screw up and it hasn't had any impact so far. There's no reason to assume it will have one some day.
Compromise will be required.
The article presents several arguments why the proposed legislation would be worse than what we have now. Perhaps those who support these plans could try countering these arguments, rather than trying to force a "compromise" while accusing the other side of tyrannical behavior.
Some might argue that the government enforcing which websites are trusted looks a lot like a tyranny.
These discussions are being had, as part of the EU process. This is a proposal, not a decree, and is being submitted by a body with some democratic legitimacy.
> Some might argue that the government enforcing which websites are trusted looks a lot like a tyranny.
As long as the government is an actual expression of popular will, mediated through the various mechanisms of social democracy, it's hard to argue that it would be a less democratic stance than letting an unaccountable foreign company in charge of things.