Google Warns EU Risks Undermining Own Competitiveness With Tech Sovereignty Push (ft.com)
- Reference: 0180788038
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/13/1844218/google-warns-eu-risks-undermining-own-competitiveness-with-tech-sovereignty-push
- Source link: https://www.ft.com/content/0847914c-be27-4573-8600-8cdb54e604b7
He warned against erecting walls that make it harder to use some of the best technology in the world, especially as it advances quickly. EU leaders gathered Thursday for a summit in Belgium focused on increasing European competitiveness in a more volatile global economy. Europe's digital sovereignty push gained momentum in recent months, driven by fears that President Donald Trump's foreign policy could force a tech decoupling.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/0847914c-be27-4573-8600-8cdb54e604b7
What competitivness? (Score:3)
Just the fact that EU has no own major companies like Google, Microsoft or Amazon means that it is not competitive already.
So what does it have to lose?
Re: (Score:1)
How difficult is it to put up a website with an LLM?
And European companies already have their own search engines and cloud providers, they're just not as big as the Amazons of the world.
I don't think you realize the magnitude of the stupidity of Trump's shenanigans. Europe is just coming out of a millennium of savage, brutal wars. The EU started as a treaty organization for coal and steal. It was a peace project to intertwine European economies. We enjoyed an unprecedentedly high standard of living while th
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There's still a little bit of exceptionalism in your hair. Sorry.
Re:What competitivness? (Score:4, Informative)
> We enjoyed an unprecedentedly high standard of living while the US could go off and be exceptional all they wanted
Because Americans were paying to defend you so you could afford to follow crazy policies and fund bloated welfare states.
A typical EU country rakes in 40-50% of GDP in taxes of one form or other. Just to increase defence spending from 2%-5% of GDP means cutting 6-8% from the rest of government spending. Most of that will have to come out of welfare.
At the same time your industrial corporations are moving elsewhere due to insane energy prices.
> You threatened our borders.
Dude, you opened your borders to everyone with a pulse.
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Can you cite any sources?
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Sorry Lavandera, I replied to the wrong post.
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Oh no, who will rent terrible software and sell counterfeit products without Google, Microsoft, and Amazon?
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Maybe because it's harder for google or others to have the appearance of impartial motivation when they push digital ID on the public in their own country. It's much easier if the europeans are using it first. hell, Sam Altman's company trained their retina scanners on people in Kenya, since there's no expectation of pushback..
Corpo Panopticon (Score:2)
Do not leave us.
Doom, DOOM, DOOOOOOOM I say!
Tech bros so pathetically desperate... (Score:3)
Don't want to lose business outside the U.S. ? The solution is simple: Stop supporting psycopathic child-rapists who threaten with military action the sovereignty of allied nations.
And to the republicans out there: Choose your presidential candidates better. The rest of the world don't give a fuck if your president is a democrat or a republican. They do care, however, if he's an authoritarian bully and wannabe dictator. Haven't you noticed yet that no previous U.S. president, democrat or republican, has ever caused such an international uproar before ? It's no longer a R vs D thing, it's a "at least seemingly decent, competent human being taking his job seriously" vs "one of the most narcissic, sociopathic, childish, disgusting american public figure" thing.
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Where are my mod points when I need them? You summed things up nicely. I never followed US politics until trump came along and started threatening it's allies.
Put the money toward using/developing Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
Then everyone benefits, at lower overall costs (because there won't be the inevitable rent-seeking from greedy corporations, U.S. or otherwise).
Finland (Score:1)
Exactly. Linux comes from Finland and is GPL. Android runs Linux. Best technology in the world? Not a problem for Europe!
Isolationism does that (Score:3)
Isolationism cuts off the ability to benefit from others advances, but what choice do you have but to become self sufficient when your greatest ally and largest trading partner becomes hostile?
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The thing is, we're not trying to be self-sufficient. There's a whole world out there willing tohave healthy trade and strategic relations with Europe. We just struck deals with Australia, India and Mercosur. We're just cutting off the US since it's behaving like a hostile power, the rest of the world is welcome.
He has a point (Score:3)
I'll say this as a developer working for years in the US for a EU-based company.
Ignoring GDPR, we spend a significant amount of time developing solutions that maintain compliance EU or country-specific laws (Germany and France are pretty notorious). We do charge for these compliance levels - it's not free. We do the same for other parts of the world too, from Argentina to Australia. But the EU is on a whole other level for regulation and other geopolitical restrictions.
In our specific field, many of our competitors just choose not to deal with it and I think that's what the OP is getting at. If you are a company in Germany shopping for software or SaaS solutions, the market is much smaller and more expensive than if you are in US, Canada, Brazil, or Singapore. That is a drag on your ability to build and sell whatever you are doing.
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> the market is much smaller and more expensive than if you are in US, Canada, Brazil, or Singapore
Is it really more expensive in the long-term, given the inevitably increasing rent-seeking by the greedy "Big Established Tech" corporations?
"Google warns..." (Score:3)
Gee, nothing self-serving there, is there?
Actually this is gold! (Score:2)
When big tech complaints to me it looks we're on the good track.
Dear Google, we've seen the alternative... corrupted politicians bribed by big tech in government contracts with millions of licenses for text editors and paying am arm and a leg for "cloud storage".
Dear Google (Score:2)
It's their risk to take. Let them take it.
Just imagine how great American would be with an noncompetitive Europe.
Whether it's good or bad for Europe is yet to be seen. That it will be bad fro Google's sales is not in dispute. Suck it.
We don't want competition (Score:2)
Is what they're really saying. Because you better believe that if the EU develops better software platforms that people outside of the EU will want to use them.
We're not restricting the technologies... (Score:2, Insightful)
... we're going to buy them from European companies
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Also, Google is about the last company I would think of as offering any outstanding technology that could not be replaced by something built domestically. It's not like their "annoy people with ads"-business would add any substantial value for the people. Nothing of value would be lost if their services became unavailable in the EU.
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You don't understand. Not using Microsoft's cutting edge super advanced technology chat app or Google's, um, spreadsheet I guess, will clearly cripple any business, country or even a whole continent!
I'm having trouble thinking of any of these irreplaceable software technologies, at least ones that aren't tiny niche things.
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like?