How exactly are they overplaying their hand?

If, and that is a big if, American big tech decided to pull back from Europe, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended up being a good thing for the local market in anything but the short term.

It’s very hard to compete with them (even in the local US market). Their disappearance from a market as big as the EU would likely spark competition.

They aren't overplaying their hand, or at least they aren't according to anything presented in that article. The author frets about some balance of power, but does not make a convincing case that the EU position is threatened in any way.

Less we also forget that US public sentiment is shifting. If anything, big tech needs to be careful.

What happens then? They leave a vacuum and then what? Noone fills that vacuum? Assuming there is zero competence in the EU, which is highly unlikely since both the best image generation model right now and very respectable open source llms are from the EU, and on top of this several countries in Europe have exceptional tech talent (especially in the East), the Chinese would jump in immidiately.

If your concern is privacy, moving to Chinese services is not the answer.

Okay, but this isn't about privacy since Telegram isn't even end to end encrypted by default where it matters.

This has nothing to do with Telegram.

The counterpoint to that article is: US Big Tech could also abide to EU laws and avoid fines altogether.

While the CLOUD Act exists, and in general while the US refuses to recognize privacy rights of foreigners and grant them sane due-process protections, it seems logically impossible to comply with US and EU legislation at the same time (the European Commission’s repeated but non-binding pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding). That US companies aren’t exactly in a hurry to try looks to mostly be a distraction.

US companies literally cannot abide by EU laws, because they are subject to US laws, which conflict with EU laws. This is what all these European judgements are disagreeing with.

The companies are not at fault here. The governments are at fault for dropping the ball on coming to an agreement. We’re on like the 5th round of this. Compliance is impossible.

Until the two governments fix this, US companies cannot operate in the EU without being at risk for pilfering from EU government.

In fact were talking about a Dutch company, Uber BV. If it can't abide by EU law then it shouldn't exist!

And does US law really prevent them from handling EU customer data in a compliant way? Could you give a specific example?

You could argue that the CLOUD act is in direct conflict with European data laws.

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

However, it does not prevent data at rest being stored in the EU. Only that if requested the american company has to exfiltrate it to the states.

Thanks, it seems like indeed the US government could request that an EU subsidiary of a US entity provide data on an EU subject. This request could be lawful under US law but not EU and hence you'd have a conflict.

https://www.edps.europa.eu/sites/default/files/publication/1...

The action by Uber was complettly avoidable.

Couldn't they have kept the data stored in the EU? What US law prevents that?

Im curios: The author claims to be a EU - citizen, yet has an English name, has lived his whole life in the US and his thinking is deeply American (this made me chuckle: "You can view this almost like a class-action lawsuit, where some compensation is sought for harm done to a large group of people. But for a class-action lawsuit to be legitimate, it must reward the consumers!")

So where is he from? Which country?

Where does it say that I lived in the US my whole life? You're getting ahead of yourself.

From another blog post:

> I grew up in Europe (mostly Germany, Denmark, Switzerland). I had never even set foot outside the continent until I was 18, when I moved to the United States. I have lived here for 12 years now, with most of that in San Francisco.

Dankeschön für die Antwort!

You might understand that I read only Bio and LinkedIn, not your whole blog. Also again very very American thinking. Im just amused.

And which kind of thinking led you to assert he lived in us his whole life on the basis of what little you read?

Class suite actions as only moral option to protect consumers (which is not common in Germany), Citing Kissinger as a god like authority in intra - countries relationships, lack of knowledge in pro - market / competition regulation (very strong in Germany, EU [for different reasons]),

I regularly read German and Swiss newspapers. The arguments are very different (and in many cases more nuanced)

I never cited Kissinger as a "god like authority", and to insinuate that I did is offensive.

Furthermore, you made an earlier false statement about bias -- claiming I had lived in the US all my life -- and backing it up claiming that you had read my LinkedIn. My LinkedIn features my European high school. You're either lying or lazy; you can tell me which.

Making bombastic and trivially false statements doesn't help your arguments. Good luck with your "nuance".

Let’s get that number up! I want to see some CEOs opting for the E-Class vs the S-Class because they intentionally, willfully, knowingly treated citizens like plebeians.

You guys can get with the program now, or you can wait for one of those tent camps to abruptly rise up and drag you out of your Plaid Tesla and beat you to death with your own iPhone.

Two of your last three comments refer to loeber.substack.com

I think it rather shows that they make a fortune off of European customers if they can afford those fines so it's still terrible deal for Europe.

Although I support European privacy laws, I also detest their push for censorship of social media, the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, and this feeling that they’re milking US companies for tax revenue. I do think this can end up being overplaying their hand - why should US taxpayers fund NATO and the EU’s defense disproportionately, for example, if the EU is also going to steal from US companies and not holding up classically liberal values like free speech? Is it really in American interest to tolerate this status quo?

I admit I didn't cross check every detail here, but this article reads a lot like American "pro business" literature that cries about regulation stifling innovation, hurting American international competitiveness, etc.

The conclusion that the EU must stop fining American tech businesses does not follow from the evidence presented. I am willing to take them at their word that EU regulators are overly fixated on Meta and Google specifically... except here we are in a thread about Uber.

The principle that fines for bad behavior should be doled out to citizens is noble, but laughable. Is there any precedent for that anywhere in any developed nation state in the last 50 years? I'm not talking about damages in civil suit, I'm talking about proceeds from fines being directly redistributed to citizens.

Overall, I am very happy that, as an American, the EU is stepping up to govern and regulate American businesses, while the US federal government itself continues to extend its decade-long vacation from governing.