US diplomat: If EU allows 'right to be forgotten' ... it might spark TRADE WAR US diplomat warns of "trade war" if "right to be forgotten" proposals in Europe are followed through. The introduction of planned changes to EU data protection laws could herald a trans-Atlantic "trade war", a US diplomat has warned. John Rodgers, economic Officer in the US Foreign Service, said that "things could really …
I think the SPQA (Senatus Populusque Americanus) wants it more for transaction tracking than Google wants it for mining, which hints at the fact they already do it either via requests or sneakiness. Can't see a trade war being threatened just cos of Google.
Trade war could be worked. We could buy Russian Wheat, Polish horseburger (it seems we already do), Chinese/Japanese/Korean tech and they'd still want Jags, Mercs, Porsches, Audi, Ferraris, Range Rovers and Lambos and they'll pay a government-inflated price for them so they can still drive around in a flash EuroCar. It'd eventually serve to further isolate them from the rest of the world ultimately as alternate trade sources would likely be kept if they stopped cocking around at some point later. Wouldn't be to much of a stretch to imagine EU cosying up with China, Japan, SKorea, India and everyone just raising prices. Not that I wouldn't put the USA going to (actual) war with the-rest-of-the-world over a trade sulk, though, cos they weren't getting their way. There isn't anyone called Nero in the Whitehouse staff, is there?
Oh, and the whole of EU could tax MS, Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, etc into receivership. Yeah it all sounds simplistic but if you really want a detailed economic breakdown then do it yerself ;o)
I hate to break the news to ya but as someone in the states i can tell ya that corps and gov? Kinda the same thing now. Even if the rumors of NSA funding Google aren't true the fact is the feds can walk themselves into just about any corp office and help themselves and nobody will say or do squat, just look at how quickly the story of AT&T having a secret room for the NSA to help themselves to data fizzled.
So I really hope you guys in the EU do pass something like this, as sadly we here in the states have pretty much ZERO say in our government anymore and if their was any doubt who is running the show the supreme court ruling money is speech cleared it right up.
You took the words right out of my mouth. The EU actually wants to do something to enhance privacy and those gun toting rednecks are telling us we can't do that "or else" Are they out of their f-ing minds?
I do understand why they object, as the US government knows more about me then the Dutch government and they don't want to give that up.
Wadda ya mean "anyone else?" What he really effectively said was "oh sure, we gots privacy...our own special brand of privacy."
We Yanks ain't got it any better than anyone else.
How "right to privacy" fails to imply "right to data protection" is beyond me. Must be a lawyer thing...
"For the Record: There is NO explicit Right to Privacy in the US Constitution."
Tell that to the Supreme Court Justices who decided Roe vs. Wade. They divined a right to privacy in the due process clause of the 14th amendment. Not saying they're right, not saying they're wrong but there it is.
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From: A US citizen
To: The World
Please accept our sincere apology for allowing this dimwit to speak. Our Chinese overlords would not allow us to get into a trade war with Europe as anything that could possibly leave us with less money to buy all the shiny-shiny stuff from China is against the rules.
>The EU has a ~ €2 Trillion larger economy than the USA. Dream on yanks....
Yeah and we have seen how coordinated and tightly integrated the EU is economically. North America will stay a very important market and considering the US is built around consumption and most of the EU is built on exports, a trade war could still be very bad for both parties. Still this dude is just talking trash. Obama is already paranoid about having a Jimmy Carter type legacy and a trade war of any type would ensure that.
Certainly a trade war is about the stupidest thing to threaten given the current global economy. This idiot may see the US as rebounding but his glasses are certainly a couple of shades too rosy but more likely it's just threats that our gubbermint may very will be stupid enough to make good on. I say, let 'em.
"Obama is already paranoid about having a Jimmy Carter type legacy and a trade war of any type would ensure that."
In all honesty Jimmy gets a bad rap but he actually signed a key piece of legislation that has probably created more jobs in the US than any other President since but he doesn't get enough credit for it. It was H.R.1337 of the 95th Congress and it eased the restrictions on the production of beer and wine in the home and ultimately opened the door for the craft brewing industry in the United States. Sure, it took time but would Jim Koch have been able to craft his Boston Lager and launch a company only six years later? So cheers to Billy Beer, nepotism and homebrew; Obama should dream of such a legacy.
Actually we don't. It's more smoke / mirrors than real protection. The big fear this bureaucratic muck is worried about is that data has been so shabbily handled it would cost a fortune for companies to actually figure out who they sold, gave or otherwise handed off the data to. Oh, and they want to be able to go to companies like AT&T and say "give us all your data on X and don't worry about the illegality, here's your retroactive immunity card."
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Right to be forgotten <> right to have all data held deleted.
Financial institutions are required to keep records for 5 years minimum on transactions, this law wont change that.
Driving convictions (UK) are kept on record even after "spent".
There are others.
What this will most likely do is allow an individual to have their personal data deleted by someone who has no need to keep it - say an airline after the flight has happened.
It sounds more like a case of enshrining in law something that should have been possible anyway.
OK. I did a quick mental survey of what I own that comes from the USA and it turned out mostly to be software. And less and less of it as time passes. An interesting exercise. The 'fun' stuff, such as movies etc, I would not class as essentials. If I didn't have them, I'd still get along fine. So, yeah, it's possible to live a consumer life without the USA. Who knew.
Lack of software and films would easily be plugged by EU's home grown industry and they can easily do a better job with films the UK has a proven track record in films already and software houses would spring up all over the place not just that wonky silicon roundabout.
All of the stuff I have is MADE in China / Taiwan etc anyway. Some stuff designed in US (iPod), but mostly it's European brands anyway. As OP says it's mostly software and movies that come from there. Movies no problem there's a big and growing EU + international scene with extremely high production values, quality etc. Only main advantage of US films is they're in English... but then again British films >>> US films anyway.
Software ditto though I suppose I could easily switch to Linux. All the embedded software in my kit is probably linux-based anyway. The real biggie is web-based services... Google / Bing search, Google maps, Google translate, Facebook etc... nothing essential and nothing that can't be replicated (albeit less polished / capable) although it would be annoying.
Oh... and Android / iOS / Windows phone OS. I guess we can all switch to the new Blackberry :)
"So, yeah, it's possible to live a consumer life without the USA. Who knew."
Hell, that's what I do and I live in the USA. No I don't count taxes as part of a consumer life because all I get from my tax dollars is idiots like this and I could easily, even preferably, live without that.
That said, with the exception of meat even the food comes from Mexico or further south for half the year and when I lived up in the northern part of the US it was about nine months of imported veg. Frankly, it it weren't for the ag twins of subsidies and tariffs it would probably be cheaper to import most of our food including meat. After all, those are the only reasons why corn syrup is cheaper than sugar and also why Brazil has so much sugar which, IIRC, they turn into auto fuel. Then again, I'm fairly sure I'm not telling you folks in Europe anything new. One quick question, do your governments pay farmers to not grow produce that doesn't grow where the farm is to minimize surplus like our gubbermint does?
Work - the database server we use, now owned by a German company, compiler - US based but Germans work on it as well.
Home - some games, US based but multinational workers incluidng high up British employees.
Not much really, I think I would miss Naughty Dog the most.
I already did. As far as I know the only item I own which was made in the USA is the Intel chip inside the Chinese laptop I. Bought three years ago.
You Americans make nothing the rest of the world wants.
The core skill is branding and marketing third world manufactured goods. These would fall outside any trade embargo. Worse if the EU got really nasty it could just stop enforcing intellectual property rights for US based companies.
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