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Comments (291)

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  Tyrubias
  I can’t imagine how any country would think the US is trustworthy enough to be the place where everyone stores their data. If companies cannot comply with data sovereignty laws then they shouldn’t exist at all. Personally, even as a US citizen, I’m hoping tech companies in Europe and Asia become independent enough to no longer be beholden to US interests. It’s clear that the era where any one country has global hegemony should end.
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  forinti
  How can you be so confrontational and still want people to give you business and data?I really don't envy the diplomats' job at the moment.
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  deaux
  Misleading title by Reuters.The title should be "US orders diplomats to fight _EU_ data sovereignty initiatives".Why? Because the US is far too pussy to fight the other countries that have such initiatives - some of them reaching further than the EU's - knowing that unlike the EU those countries are definitely not going to take their shit.I can tell you that if the US says to Japan or Korea, just to name two such examples, "stop enacting privacy/sovereignty laws that interfere with US big tech or we tariff you" , there's absolutely zero chance they're going to be listened to and the only thing it will do is make people hate the US.
• aenis
  And in related news, major European democracies are spending real money architecting sovereign cloud tech - planning on replacing not just the infra, but also the key parts of commonly used SaaS stacks. (How do I know? I got a job offer from one of those governments to help them architect that; exciting times).
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  orwin
  We are pivoting out of a huge number of US services at my job. I think windows, Google, PaloAltoNetworks and Aws will be the last we leave, but infoblox is out next year (that's part of my job right now), and old Cisco hardware will stop being replaced by new Cisco hardware in 6 months.
• bradley13
  It's not even just data stored on US servers. According to the CLOUD Act, any data stored by a US company, regardless of location, can be demanded by any authority in the US.No sovereign nation should use US companies for data storage or processing. Period.The attempts to shift to open source or non-US services are inevitably hobbled by US companies lobbying (read: bribing) politicians.
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  cedws
  Like an abusive spouse.'No, you can't leave me, you need me.' Actually, we don't. We used to have a good relationship and you lit it on fire. Bye, US.
• everdrive
  It's difficult to imagine the US diplomats themselves have any real levers to pull here. The bridges have already been quite burned, and any attempt at a carrot or a stick may just speed up countries' data sovereignty initiates.
• sega_sai
  That is useful information to pursue data sovereignty even more.
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  bad_haircut72
  The shame of all this is that now every country will have a worse, more expensive - but yes, soveriegn - solution, and the US makes less money through trade. Everyone loses, except people who want to hurt western economies.
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  gip
  Similarly, in the 2000s, the US pushed back against the development of Galileo and preferred that Europe continue relying on GPS. That created tensions between the US and the EU.Fighting data sovereignty is a losing battle for the US: data are too strategic to outsource, even to allies.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)
• flr03
  If it's so cumbersome why don't US companies pull out the EU market? bet they make money anyway don't they
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  esafak
  I wonder if he would go so far as to withhold access to US tech to this end.
• aitacobell
  Could be a huge opening for Mistral and other European LLM providers who are okay at adhering to data sovereignty requirements
• siruncledrew
  This is like putting your money in a bank ran by a cartel and expecting them not to steal it as soon as it benefits them.
• BLKNSLVR
  Imagine if the EU builds it's own alternative services to those provided in the US, and these EU services do not rely on advertising revenue and don't shove AI in our faces at every opportunity.Europe, please Make the Internet Great Again!
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  neilv
  What kind of success are countries having finding technical talent with the right savvy fighter mindset to sever the dependence on an aggressive and culturally-entrenched threat?(Even the ordinary open source world has a lot of intrigue to be careful of. And most developers still think nothing of pulling in a fleet of dependencies from PyPI/NPM/Cargo/etc. as well as third-party network services. Everyone is being taught in school to play to FAANG interview rituals, and many go on to a career style of performative sprints. HCI is almost lost as a field to UX euphemism. Almost no one can deploy a system that won't be compromised, and most don't even try, except for some mandated ineffective theatre. AI homework-cheating mindset isn't helping. Etc. Not to complain, but to be clear the kind of inertia a country is facing.)Do the countries wanting to fight this have enough of they right homegrown talent already, and know how to find and nurture it?If they're importing additional talent, do they know how to find and incentive the right people, while turning away the ones with the wrong mindsets for this mission?(ProTips: Look for the hardcore privacy&security non-careerist nerds. The left-leaning, societal-minded ones. Give them what they've been looking for, or support to help make what they've been looking for. Don't offer to pay too well. Anyone who asks "Why would I want to live in your country, when I can make more money elsewhere?" gets a permaban.)
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  CrzyLngPwd
  It increasingly feels like the US sees everyone as an enemy.Is it just the government that feels this way, or do the general population of the US feel like everyone else on the planet is an enemy?
• JackDanMeier
  Just started exporting my data from google, guess this is the start of my uncoupling journey.Looking forward to changing my bank card to a EU alternative when its available.I don't feel like I have major usage issues, but maybe once I have decoupled from the big players, it will be clearer what I had gotten used to, for which there was another way to approach.The biggest pain points will probably be YouTube, Claude, Gemini and Google docs. The main issues will probably stem from collaborating with others, rather than my own personal usage.
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  cs702
  Sigh. Anecdotally, more Europeans no longer want their governments to rely on software and data controlled by US companies, because they no longer trust the US to act as a reliable ally, defending the same values. Whether you agree or disagree with these concerns, they are valid for many Europeans.In an ironic twist of fate, the US government's actions could end up causing long-term damage to US tech companies.This is all based on anecdotal evidence, so I could be wrong, but I have to call it like I see it.See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47149701
• roger110
  Sure if they can pull it off, but how can they do this without scaring away all future customers?
• speedgoose
  I bet it’s too late now. They will need very very persuasive arguments to kill all the initiatives, and while they may convince some governments and lobbying groups, I doubt they will manage to convince every IT responsible.
• ahartmetz
  Step 1: Piss away soft power built over the last century or soStep 2: Ask for favorsStep 3: Profit?
• tracker1
  Even as a US citizen... fuck that... it'd be like saying the US should open its' data up for China without any restrictions at all, even if they are slurping up everything they can as a state actor.While, if you choose to use a US service, it shouldn't be required to host data in your country, if you know it's a US service with data in the US... government data is another thing entirely.. and $cloud provider should be required to accommodate if they want that business, or for companies in a given country for that matter.
• meffmadd
  As an EU citizen I really hope we can gain some meaningful distance to the US asap. I hope my leaders feel the same. And if everything works out I think this will be great for the EU.This is really some sort of diplomatic Streisand effect. If the US would not have been so aggressive and just string us along they could have continued to feed us their slop indefinitely without us noticing.
• kevincloudsec
  standard kyc doesn't run on dedicated infrastructure isolated from the vendor's main cloudflare stack. you don't build a separate gcp cluster for routine age checks. the architecture tells you what the data is worth before anyone admits it.
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  WarmWash
  Europe, if you want good tech businesses you need to create a tech business friendly environment.Banning US tech companies without creating (really) fertile grounds for business is just going to be shooting yourself in the foot. A replacement Google won't grow on a farm only fed worker/consumer fertilizer.It's almost diabolical that the only way Europe can get rid of the US, is to be more like the US.
• jacquesm
  Interestingly, fighting it like this will only make the resolve stronger.
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  yborg
  This just accelerates the Balkanization of the Internet, which already is segregated by China and Russia. Maybe it was inevitable. Corporations benefit the most from open access and as they have demonstrated with unrestricted AI scraping they obey no morality, ethics, or law they are not compelled to by force.
• krunck
  That the US doesn't like it is the best justification for it.
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  Beretta_Vexee
  It is incredibly stupid and counterproductive to make this kind of statement publicly. Most of the GAFAM companies are doing their utmost to try to reassure their European customers with a facade of sovereignty.All these efforts will come to nothing.Amazon sovereign cloud https://aws.eu/fr/ Azure sovereign https://www.microsoft.com/fr-fr/sovereignty Oracle soverign https://www.oracle.com/fr/cloud/eu-sovereign-cloud/ IBM https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/sovereign-cloud ...
• porknbeans00
  I can't think of a worse way to approach this.
• corygarms
  > (passing data sovereignty laws will) expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorshipThis Roger Stone playbook shit is wild. This admin will piss on your leg and tell you it's raining.
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  croisillon
  this is hilarious, just last week i heard american tourists complaining that "they" were subisidzing Europe's lazy lifestyle
• penguin_booze
  Time for an nth amendment to introduce shame to the Konstityushon?
• mark_l_watson
  >> signed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the agency said such laws would "disrupt global data flows, increase costs and cybersecurity risks, limit Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud services, and expand government control in ways that can undermine civil liberties and enable censorship."Such fine bullshit, of the highest quality.Distributing infrastructure may slightly reduce efficiency but seems like a good idea for so many reasons: national pride, increased security, more resilience to outside influences, etc.
• anon
  undefined
• midnighthollowc
  Given the socio-political climate, it's really bonkers to go bashing every ally the US has had since WW2 and then in the other hand go "No No No, trust only us with your data"What could go wrong?
• JohnTHaller
  Given that the US has basically no data or privacy protections for its own citizens let alone non-US citizens, it's not surprising that countries are moving away from keeping their data in US-owned places. US companies mine data for everything and the kitchen sink and train AI using it without any sort of notice.
• gib444
  lol position #2, to #22, in just over an hour... :) (11 -> 22 in 5 minutes)
• josefritzishere
  America has lost trust internationally because this administration is amoral, chaotic and transactional. Trust is a very expensive commodity because it takes generations to build and can be destroyed in a moment. This is a fight that America is going to lose and we're all the worse off for it.
• babypuncher
  We've been acting like a bully on the playground and now we are wondering why nobody else on the playground wants to play with us
• webdoodle
  If these countries don't want Mockingbird coordinated regime change, they should ban all U.S. social media altogether.
• guywithahat
  To be fair data sovereignty is usually just a way for governments to crack down on free speech/internet usage. They require all the company servers be in the country, then when they want to get information it's easier to get a warrant and threaten to take away all their servers. This is what they did in China/Russia and why they're doing it in the EU.It's also probably just good business for the US, but locking down on citizen freedom is the only real reason I've seen countries do it.
• Zoadian
  time to ban US tech companies
• tristor
  Great, that means its working. I hope every single country in the world builds competent IT infrastructure. Having more competition will help us to develop more and better technology and have more alternatives, and overall increase the quality and resilience of technology globally. The current effective monopsy of US cloud providers has caused an unnecessary hard convergence that prevents innovation, is dangerous to privacy and security, and unnecessarily hinders national sovereignty.
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  SilverElfin
  Why are US tech stocks not falling yet due to the trend of countries decoupling?
• otikik
  > Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approachOh. So, like, going from school bully to abusive parent?
• recursivedoubts
  are we the baddies?
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  jmclnx
  Good luck with that. I hope the EU is not stupid enough to stop this initiative.This would not be happening if it was not for the US dummy in chief. The EU was looking to do this for a while, but where taking its time until recent events.
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  surgical_fire
  > The cable said the Trump administration was pushing for "a more assertive international data policy" and that diplomats should "counter unnecessarily burdensome regulations, such as data localization mandates."For any government in Europe, it should be extremely pressing to untangle itself as quickly as possible from US-based companies as suppliers.But to be frank, even regulations should be unnecessary here. Private businesses in Europe (and elsewhere) should consider it an existential threat to depend on cloud services from the US. We are all one executive order away from having access cut.
• Sirikon
  [flagged]
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  nova22033
  Why is it wrong for US diplomats to advocate for a policy that clearly benefits US companies?