Which has nothing to do with the stalking of the adtech industry, unless you are suggesting that the EU might sell access to the keys to the likes of OpenAI?

[though you are not wrong that encryption backdoors are a backwards step on individuals rights to privacy]

When has the EU mandated encryption backdoors?

Malicious compliance (or as it more usually is malicious noncompliance that has not been sufficiently punished so the slimy buggers feel free to continue) is something you should blame the stalkers of adtech for, more than the EU. The legislators could perhaps have made the definitions less wavy, and been harder with enforcement, but that doesn't make it all their fault.

I'm sure Microsoft and Apple could have been able to afford a cheap office given their parents' generous financing.

And, regarding the original topic, we wouldn't have many of these privacy issues if the US had not strategically failed to regulate its obnoxious tech monopolies

What do you think US bureaucrats do other than regulate? The federal government drives people crazy. Have you ever tried to file taxes in the USA? It’s so complex you end up having to pay for the privilege.

The innovation gap is real but it’s not just to do with regulation. It’s a lot to do with concentrated capital networks (eg Silicon Valley). And sure, the tech giants are in the USA but it’s not like there’s no innovation in the EU. Spotify in Sweden. Challenger banks in the U.K. (included as Monzo predates Brexit). And plenty of innovation - they just get bought by US companies. Which is a financial market weakness, not a regulatory one.

I don't see how that's relevant? Regulation might have limited some innovation in tech, but gdpr does not affect any of the dying industries. That's more from competition with china, companies with too much interest in giving payouts to shareholders than to innovate, and US financial industry buying most of the best players

Seeing some legitimate executive accountability would be lovely in this day and age, but even fines going into the billions of euros are still just the cost of doing business in a ridiculously lucrative space. That they also happen to dominate by oligopoly.

> The outcome is that very little serious technology or influential companies come out of Europe. And salaries for things like engineer are about a third of that in the US.

So your argument is abusive practices are required for the creation of influential companies, serious technology, and high paying salaries?

If it's any consolation, all other non-California regions in the world lack the privacy protections enjoyed in Switzerland and the EU, but they still don't produce many unicorn startups nor have fantastic salaries for coders.

> The outcome is that very little serious technology or influential companies come out of Europe. And salaries for things like engineer are about a third of that in the US.

Sure, but plenty of companies want to operate within the EU. While I feel any legislation will only affect their operations within the EU, having the infrastructure to operate under privacy laws there means it'll be easier if/when other jurisdictions follow suit

> But I'm happy EU does this stuff as well, as it's a really nice vacation spot

With no Flock cameras!

Copypasting my reply to someone who made almost exactly the same point in a sibling comment earlier:

Which has nothing to do with the stalking of the adtech industry, unless you are suggesting that the EU might sell access to the keys to the likes of OpenAI [though you are not wrong that encryption backdoors are a backwards step on individuals rights to privacy]

Things could be worse. It could be like most of the US where there are both no (or at least far fewer) protections against invasive behaviour of private companies and the government actively trying to backdoor private comms.