Europe’s trustbusters lose the plot

Filternet, made in Europe.

Last year, the EU introduced the Digital Services Act as part of a package of anti-monopoly measures aimed at US-based Big Tech. EU regulators could lead here, since — unlike US regulators — they don’t have to worry about Big Tech as a source of national “soft power.”

That’s why the EU gave us the GDPR, a serious and far-reaching privacy law. Unfortunately, the GDPR has been hamstrung by its enforcement problems. Under the GDPR, enforcement is delegated to each country’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The US Big Tech companies all fly Irish flags of convenience, and in return the Irish state bends over backwards to help them. It’s not just maintaining the fiction that Big Tech’s billions are floating in untaxable, international waters somewhere in the Irish Sea, either.

As far as I can tell, the Irish ICO doesn’t even put on pants in the morning. They just sit around in their pajamas, eating breakfast cereal and watching cartoons while the enforcement actions against GAFAM pile up on their doorstep.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/16/inside-the-clock-tower/#inference

With the DSA, the EU had a chance to take another hack at reducing US Big Tech’s corrupting, destructive conduct. The first draft was actually pretty fantastic…