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Comment by VMG | Hacker News Reader

Plus there's no reason to assume a EU company doesn't spy on you. Europe has secret services too.

But this (the article) is not necessarily about spying. It's about (1) large US companies gaining too much power over crucial infrastructure used by EU citizens; and (2) tax evasion schemes.

The EU wants to regulate the tech sector more, treating companies that provide critical infrastructure as utility companies. Given that internet has become as important in many companies (and even households) as electricity and water, something's to be said for that.

IMO it would for example be better if lock-in was reduced through requiring that large tech companies adhere to standards. Choice is good, and it would be awful if you couldn't move e-mail from Google Mail to another service because Google removed IMAP support (which is a future possibility).

Got it, good old protectionism. I noticed Springer in the article, no surprise there.

Just looking out for my best interests and giving me choice by restricting what products companies can offer.

Well the EU do not consider for example creating the GSM standard to be "protectionist" but a great success in setting standards that created a reasonably non fragmented industry that was world class.

GSM was not created by European governments though. It was created by ETSI which is independent. And newer standards are international collaborations: as is so often the case as technology gets more complicated, it ends up being a creation of humanity rather than one geographical region vs another.

ETSI is part of the EU mechansims, as the telecom standards body, and the EU decided to mandate a shared standard.

The only person who caught on to protectionism, and yet, so many down votes. My one insignificant upvote to you sir or madam.

To be fair, I'm partially being downvoted for my sharp tone.

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