>> Finally!

You are behind the curve. You read here first. Lets revisit this comment in 2 years...

This will be overturned by both Dutch and European courts after the company appeals, and specially after Mark Rutte Daddy calls. The only purpose of this action is for the Dutch government to save face, and its for internal consumption. They already have the internal legal advice stating this, hidden away in some closet. But then they will say: You see, we wanted to do it but a court blocked us.

>>Of course there's still plenty of sensitive data in the hands of Microsoft, Amazon and other US companies.

The WHOLE Dutch diplomatic and broader civil service, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, runs extensively on Microsoft infrastructure for its daily operations, cloud services, and email. And they leak....

"Microsoft Accused Of Sharing Dutch Officials’ Data with U.S. Government" - https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-accus...

This will also be the core legal argument by the appealing company. They will argue that the decision was politicized, insufficiently reasoned, or disproportionate because binding technical/legal safeguards would have solved the risks... And they will use as example, the diplomatic service extensive use of Microsoft :-)

So is nothing more than another Polder hypocritical take, by the Dutch government.

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Aaargh20318 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They will argue that the decision was politicized,

It’s not ‘politicized’, it’s the gateway to all Dutch government services and as such it is inherently political.

> insufficiently reasoned, or disproportionate because binding technical/legal safeguards would have solved the risks...

There are no legal safeguards against the CLOUD act. There can be no technical or legal safeguards as long as the physical hardware is owned by a US company.

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Muromec 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>The WHOLE Dutch diplomatic and broader civil service, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, runs extensively on Microsoft infrastructure for its daily operations, cloud services, and email. And they leak....

There is a broad digital strategy to migrate off from American infra. Will take 10 years, but this stuff has inertia once it starts moving.

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noirscape 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In 2 years the contract is up for renegotiation to a different entity (and there's now plenty of political pressure to go with a different one), so I don't think it's a problem by then.

Tying the process up in the courts for that period is also a political victory, since by the time it'd be resolved, Solvinity wouldn't have the contract anymore anyways.

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mcv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> This will also be the core legal argument by the appealing company. They will argue that the decision was politicized, insufficiently reasoned, or disproportionate because binding technical/legal safeguards would have solved the risks... And they will use as example, the diplomatic service extensive use of Microsoft

How would that argument support a sale to the US? It sounds like the perfect argument against it. Those technical/legal safeguards clearly didn't work for Microsoft either.

	▲	tcp_handshaker 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You are using logic to argue for the best and most correct outcome, I am using logic, to state how and why, this will play the way it will...

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j_maffe 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Mark Rutte Daddy calls

Mark Rutte, the chief of NATO and ex-PM, that has nothing to do with civilian tech? Can we please leave unfounded conspiracy theories to Reddit?

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tosti 15 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Dutch and belgian citizens are being misled over and over again. The more you'd dig into it, the less it all makes sense.

All we get are documents with nearly everything censored except for very benign things. Only time will tell what's going on, but I doubt I'll live the day

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tcp_handshaker 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[1]- NATO Secretary General responsibilities:

"...Above and beyond the role of chair, the Secretary General has the authority to propose items for discussion and use their good offices in case of disputes between member states....

...In order to facilitate this process, the Secretary General maintains direct contact with Heads of State and Government, and Foreign and Defence Ministers in NATO and partner countries...."

[1] - https://www.nato.int/en/about-us/organization/nato-structure...

And Mark Rutte has been shaping the domestic fiscal debate inside the Netherlands [2]: "...Mark Rutte said the Netherlands must significantly boost defence spending and pointed to Dutch spending on pensions, healthcare and social security, saying only a small fraction of those allocations would strengthen defence..."

[2] - https://nltimes.nl/2024/12/03/nato-leader-rutte-netherlands-...

And on conspiracy theories - Do you trust the Financieele Dagblad?

https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/20/asml-offered-spy-us-breaking-e...

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hvb2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Does that sound outlandish to you? It doesn't to me...

It's probably something he would use as 'change' to resolve something unrelated with NATO. Then he can sell how well he's keeping NATO together

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mschuster91 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> unfounded conspiracy theories

Their sentiment is that Trump intervenes by whining to Mark Rutte, who seems to be the only European Trump is actually willing to listen to, at the expense of course of giving up all his dignity in calling Trump, literally, Daddy [1].

And I would not put it past Trump to do that... I mean, that's what he already did regarding Tiktok.

With Trump nothing is impossible any more, especially if he or someone in his circle stands to make or lose money. And that's the greatest danger in the US turning into a full blown banana republic.

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/25/nato-chief-calls-tr...

	▲	WJW 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		So what do you expect the outcome to be if Trump complains to Rutte, who will then do... what exactly? Ask the current PM to do him a favor because of "reasons"? An overwhelming majority of people in the Netherlands oppose selling this company to the US, an overwhelming majority of political parties voted to block the sale and now the secretary of state in charge of this particular department indeed blocked it. It seems to me that there is no way that Trump could overturn this decision via Rutte that Trump couldn't accomplish on his own by just threatening the Netherlands directly.