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Comment by Saphyel | Hacker News Reader

This is bad news for EU and the world but I guess congrats for meta and google.

Depends what you mean by bad news really. If it turns out that transferring personal data between the EU and US is fundamentally impossible due to irreconcilable differences in data protection legislation then it'd have huge consequences for businesses and consumers world wide. Short term it'd almost certainly be a net loss for consumers.

Personally (and probably naively), I do hope the EU and US can find enough common ground. It'll make everyone's lives a lot easier [1].

[1] ...if the US can get out of the habit of rifling through the data of EU citizens at the drop of a hat.

> it'd have huge consequences for businesses and consumers world wide. Short term it'd almost certainly be a net loss for consumers.

I think this would pretty much only be a net loss for EU consumers and businesses. Maybe no longer having access to American tech companies' services would be beneficial long-term but only if EU entrepreneurs build domestic alternatives, which we know is pretty unlikely. I think the reality is that they'll just loosen their laws so they don't get shut out. As we're seeing them do here.

"if EU entrepreneurs build domestic alternatives, which we know is pretty unlikely"

Why is it unlikely?

The EU has had a spotty history competing with SV. A large part of that is the different investment and regulatory environment for better or worse makes it much harder for tech startups to get going, especially after the fact when there are established players.

It would have been difficult to get funding to build the first Google or Facebook. Given how much money they make, it would be relatively easy to get funding for a privacy respecting copycat.

There's been dozens of "Google, but French" started by smart business people, they're very efficient at collecting millions in EU funding and producing almost nothing of worth.

Sure, but that's performative nonsense. If Goog/FB were actually banned, there'd be a real commercial motive to build a clone.

If the US tech companies are shut out I would say it is very likely.

Just an example: The EU wanted to have a domestic cloud, which would solve the privacy issues with US companies processing EU data. Then there was the decision which companies should get contracts to build the infrastructure. And obviously they chose Microsoft, among others. If an US company is involved, the data is again subject to unreasonable laws like US cloud act.

> Short term it'd almost certainly be a net loss for consumers.

Maybe? I think that depends on how you're measuring "loss".

> if the US can get out of the habit of rifling through the data of EU citizens at the drop of a hat

They won't. They have made it pretty clear that all your data are belong to us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLOUD_Act

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