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Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

> risks of handling random bureaucrats who want to become famous because they managed to fine some rich company

Do list the names of famous bureaucrats that got famous because they fined rich companies. There's Margrethe Vestager who is the commissioner for competition, and is neither famous nor famous for finning rich companies.

Also, do you have any actual criticism of specific legislation or is this a generic "laws bad because they make it harder for business which is bad" rant without any substance?

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> Do list the names of famous bureaucrats that got famous because they fined rich companies.

Thierry Breton is another name that comes to mind.

The guy who was a CEO of a top 10 digital services (?) company worldwide, Atos, and before that of the biggest French telecom (France Telecom/Orange). He was named 3 times in the top 100 CEOs by Harvard Business Review. He was a minister of economics, finances and industry for 2 years. Also has a few sci-fi books.

And for you, he became popular when he was named European Commissioner? Which company did he fine to become famous with his new position?

The dude who can't submit a post to Twitter/bsky without including a glamor shot of himself?

Never heard of her.

The only actual example I can think of is Schrems and he didn't fine anyone, he merely dismantled the shoddily constructed EU-US privacy law circumventions (Privacy Shield etc). And I had to look up his first name (Max) because I only knew his name from the court cases (notably Schrems II).

Heh, great illustration of how hollow the "politician acting for fame" accusation is: the only name you could think of is of an EFF-like activist, he's not a politician at all :D

Turns out I had him down as a "politician" because I conflated him with the Greens politician who was doing elaborate flow charts on Brexit on social media. Incidentally I also forgot his name too.

I saw he's only listed as a "lawyer" (not a political position or party membership) when looking up his full name but given that I know literally nothing else about him (the face doesn't even feel familiar) I left it at that.

Also, he's not a bureaucrat or politician.

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