Barack Obama has angered officials in Europe after suggesting that investigations by the European Union into companies like Google and Facebook were “commercially driven.” In an interview with Recode, the president claimed that European “service providers who … can’t compete with ours, are essentially trying to set up some roadblocks for our companies to operate effectively there.” The truth, however, is more nuanced than this.
Right, because the US would never do anything to protect its own companies above foreign ones.
Imagine if Facebook was not from the USA.
Would the US government ever allow any foreign company to store detailed personal information, updated in realtime, about hundreds of millions of its citizens ?
Never. Never. Never.
The European reaction is cowardly, fainthearted, pusillanimous.
In the case of sites like Facebook, if people signed up for the service and voluntarily handed over the data, why wouldn’t they? If people have decided that the trade-off in privacy is worth whatever service(s) that Facebook provides, what business is it of the nanny state to take that away from them?
Edited 2015-02-18 01:48 UTC
Because everything’s the business of the nanny state. Without that, there is no such thing–which would be fine with me. This shit’s out of control.
Realize the US gov’t has zero say over where citizens themselves put such data. They control what companies in the US can do so as to protect the citizens and everyone else through various regulations, but that’s it.
Now, if a citizen does something that breaks Export Laws then the US gov’t will come down on them (if and when it finds out); but if people stick to their personal matters – like with Facebook, G+, Twitter – that’s not likely going to happen.
LinkedIn has a bigger issue potential issue in that respect if someone starts describing the tech they work on and its Export Controlled for the Resume/CV on the site.
If you really care about people’s privacy, you teach them to protect their personal data not to hate American companies.
I’ve lived in several eurozone countries for almost 10 years (I have italian citizenship)… and believe me in Europe protectionism and bureaucracy is the national sport. That’s the cause of all their problems, trying to do business in Europe is impossible. 100% anti-business mentality. They are screwed for a reason (not the UK, the UK is a different story thanks God).
Edited 2015-02-18 02:13 UTC
What makes you say that …
You are ignorant if you really think that.
I do business in Europe every day. I run my business here in Belgium of all places. Belgium is a special kind of fucked, believe me.
I’ve also done business in the US. The climate is very different, yes, but both have their own problems and pose their own challenges.
Hiring someone in the US is very easy and low risk, and so is firing someone. No one cares about the workforce, not even the union. Hiring someone here is a serious commitment, and if it is your first / only employee, he/she could very well ruin your company if they turned against you. The ideal situation lies somewhere in between.
Getting someone to abide by a contract/agreement is much easier in Europe. If someone decides not to pay you in the US, you are fucked. You need to sue sue sue, and if the company you are suing is in another state … well … it’s going to cost you.
If someone doesn’t pay me here, i file a case in small claims court. It takes two weeks and costs me 250 euros.
Anyway, good luck with the FUDding.
No FUDding man just telling my humble experience. I don’t know Belgium so I cannot speak about it, northern Europe is very different, maybe it’s not representative of the “real Europe”.
I’m speaking from my terrible experience as micro entrepreneur first in France later in Italy and Spain and 1 happy last year in the UK (always trying to the same thing: giving Linux support, selling small servers with 2 partners). Man, It was HELL, hiring people is hell, trying to do things the “legal way” is hell… and basically you have to be a millionaire to open a business. It’s not for regular people. It’s like mafia, the government is AGAINST you.
I’m italian myself I don’t have ANYTHING against Europe, I love Europe, I was very happy living there and It’s great if you are an employee cause nobody can fire you ever… but for doing business NO THANKS. Just no.
I even prefer Argentina corruption to European bureaucracy any day, hands down. It’s sad but so true. No FUD. My apologies if this sounds offensive, not my intention.
Well, France and Italy must be two of the worst places to do business in Europe, yes, but still … i think you’ve just had some bad luck.
It’s hard to do business in France if you are not French, and Italy … well … personally, i would not try.
Spain is ok if you can find a market where there is still money to be made, which is not easy given their economy.
Out of the places you have mentioned, i have done business in France and the UK.
I absolutely hated the UK, but i was able to tolerate France since i made quite a bit of money there.
Now, if you want to do proper business in Europe, i would suggest:
– Germany
– The Netherlands
– Luxembourg
– Belgium
– Czech Republic
– Poland if you can find your market
Countries to avoid right now:
– Spain
– Portugal (lovely, but shitty economy)
– France (ultratax)
– Italy (broke and taxey)
– obvious places like Greece …
You just have to be smart about it.
Saying you can’t do business in europe because you had a bad experience in Spain is like saying you can’t do business in the US because your brownies won’t sell in Detroit …
I live in France and hiring people is as easy as anywhere. If you want people easy to fire, just hire freelance workers. If you want to pay them less you have to give them other advantages like job security or nobody wants to work for you. The hard part is finding people who would work for you for free or very little money with no other advantage. Unfortunately you can’t find Mexicans that work for next to nothing in France. the problem in France is that you don’t have very poor people that need to sell their souls to eat, because the government provides a minimum surviving allowance that is enough to have a roof and a daily lunch. You end up with people that don’t want to work for less than that. It’s a very anti business practice indeed but don’t worry there is a huge corporate lobby that is fighting for you to create a class or very poor workers to help the business.
“Protectionism and bureaucracy” : yeah, more or less, it happens to provide a job to so many useless people that would have been jobless in the real world (understand private companies)
The main problem is tax evasion, Google-Amazon-Apple-Microsoft-… are using all kind of dirty tricks/tactics to avoids paying what they have to.
They make money in EU countries and sneak their profits out of EU. They are allowed to make business in EU, but follow the rules and the laws.
That’s JUST what is requested. That Obama gnash upon this simple request is unbelievable.
Truth have to be told.
Well, it would “help” if on services/sites like FB, when registering there would be a huge sign saying the site works from the U.S., stores data [mostly] in the U.S., where data privacy/protection laws/regulations are close to non-existent… just saying. The most you can expect is that they might comply with their own privacy policies as the FTC “expects” that, but only in the case when they actually have a disclosed privacy policy – which in turn can be changed as and when they see fit. Note: IANAL.
Unless these American companies are sneaky enough not to warn you about what they will be doing with your data in the first place.
Well, the U.S. might be more business-driven, but… They seem to drop much more human/ethical ‘burden’ along the way, just for the sake of a few people’s business. And you know, they have this annoying habit of doing whatever they want around the world, yet they rarely pay for their ‘interested’ mistakes… 😉
Like : http://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-firms-often-lose-out-on-attorne…
Or http://www.tilleke.com/resources/thai-company-faces-penalties-under…
I once read a page that detailed the ration between US companies w(h)inning trials abroad and foreign companies on the US ground. It summed it up pretty well :
NO FOREIGN COMPANY COULD WIN TRIALS IN THE USA, NOT A SINGLE ONE.
US protectionism ?
http://www.adduci.com/node/112
http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/09/steel-industry-accuses-foreign-co…
Edited 2015-02-18 09:28 UTC
Obama : “We have to twist arms when countries don’t do what we need them to”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td7Dcsco-WY
Sure I’m not saying USA is paradise, I just saying Europe (or at least the part of it that I know) is hell to do business for regular non-rich people like me.
And IMHO the lack of innovation, lack of start-ups tech companies and the sky-high youth unemployment rates are an irrefutable proof of that problem. (but you cannot mention it, if you do you are anti-Europe pro-USA/Israel war mongering bastard)
The truth is: If you don’t recognize a problem, you cannot solve it. I think Evil Obama is 100% right this time.
The lack of startups and high youth unemployment rates are basically created by the media. The rates are actually the same in France and in the US as long as you count them with the same standards. The US is just better at hiding it thanks to better media control.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment
What an odd thing to say. The EU GDP is $17,512,109,000 ($17.5 trillion). That’s larger than the capitalist utopia of the USA, at only $16,768,050,000; nearly a whole trillion dollars less.
Still, why let facts get in the way of a good rant, eh?
I’n not defending the comment you are arguing against because it is idiotic but so if your comparison. The EU has almost 60% more people. Comparing GDP without including the per capita is useless at best and intentional deception at worst.
FWIW in Russia the law requires to store personal data of Russian citizens only in Russia.¹ I dount that EU’s right to be forgotten is anywhere close to that in terms of protectionism.
That said, I strongly disagree with EU’s take on antitrust law on internet company. Still, that doesn’t make Obama’s statement true: I bet EU would enforce its policy against domestic monopolies as well, as it is in best EU financial interests to level the market – simply due to its decentralized nature.
I think Obama’s comment is more of a backlash against EU in context of their reaction to NSA controvercy and Cameron’s ongoing crusade against encryption.² From this viewpoint Obama’s statement look like another strike in the battle for internet surveillance that English-speaking country are waging on the rest of humanity.
¹ http://rt.com/politics/170604-russia-personal-data-servers/
² http://osne.ws/lrh
Edited 2015-02-18 09:46 UTC
On this site in fact, about a year ago. Got voted down like crazy. I wonder if people will se it differently if it’s coming out of Obama’s mouth.
Americans will, anyway. Don’t dare disagree with him or you’re a racist in this country, free thought be damned.
Well, between 2000 and 2008, if you disagreed with the President, you were a terrorist. A lighthearted apology for your state producing George Bush might be the end of your professional career, for instance.
There is something of a racist undertone in some of the people who regularly rail against President Obama, but more often, it’s a case of the Right being terrified that history will treat President Obama fairly. A successful, popular Democrat conflicts with their goal of a permanent right-wing majority.
But yes– It’s fairly standard practice for a country (or an alliance of countries) to try to protect it’s own interests (ie, industries) in the face of foreign competition. It’s only been going on for the entire history of international law (see Dutch East India Company for an example).
Does the EU have an interest in seeing their initiatives succeed instead of American initiatives? Yes. Does the USA have the same interest in seeing US corporations succeed? Of course– well, usually right up until they move their corporate HQ (and taxes) to another country, at which point we ought to throw them to the wolves, but why give the wolves indigestion?
The difference is, leaders of important countries usually don’t point out these unpleasant truths.
The surprise isn’t that it’s happening, the surprise is that President Obama said it.
Pile of crap about Bush. he made people on both sides mad and he took it in stride. it wasn’t until this last president that specific groups of people started illegally getting targeted by the IRS for their political views.
Obama needs to stop complaining. If he wants to improve american competitiveness he needs to stop the devastating war he’s been waging on small business and do things to reduce cost of doing business, INCLUDING lowering the highest corporate tax rate in the world.
Edited 2015-02-18 05:15 UTC
Right– as long as you ignore things like the McCarthy era. Strictly speaking, both conservative and liberal groups were being scrutinized by the IRS to make sure they were complying with the requirements of their non-profit status. Also, Issa’s report, which came out just before Christmas, admitted the White House wasn’t behind the initiative.
But don’t let that stop your conspiracy theories.
As for Bush, look up “Dixie Chicks”. I didn’t say Bush was behind it, any more than Obama has accused his critics of being rascist– But the right is even more guilty of throwing baseless accusations at people they don’t like.
Ahh… a Fox News viewer. I see the issue now.
The problem with that “highest tax rate” is that due to loopholes, most US corporations pay little, or no taxes– Apple, for instance, has successfully avoiding paying almost any taxes in the US (or anywhere else).
We could lower the corporate tax to a more reasonable level, if people would actually pay their taxes– Some estimates put the tax shelters as costing $150 billion to the US per year.
Unfortunately, with the large corporate influx of money to politics thanks to Citizen’s United, no politician is willing to try to fix the problem.
He’s not actually pointing out any unpleasant truths though, he’s just whining that US business interests aren’t given free reign. The only unexpected thing is that it’s the president doing the whining this time.
Well, excepting the people who swear up and down that he’s literally the “least ethical president in US history” (http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=28249551#p28249551)…
It was bullshit then and it’s bullshit now. Well, it’s bullshit in the sense that everyone does it, including the US. The main difference is that US is always much more whiny…errr…vocal about how unfair it is to them the moment their business interests in foreign countries are taken into question.
Edited 2015-02-18 08:05 UTC
No, still the words of a right-wing troll playing to his base. Either being ignorant or simply lying.
I think you are the former, where Obama is probably the latter.
Edited 2015-02-18 10:33 UTC
That’s because it was bullshit then, and it’s bullshit now. It’s still bullshit when Obama says it, although the force of the bullshit delivery is greater. Still smells the same, though.
It’s interesting that Obama is fighting for Cloud-Oriented businesses soon after his plea to have these same American businesses share data with the government.
The amount of data a select few american companies are gathering vs everyone else (except those in China, I suppose), is astounding. The US government needs these American companies to be as successful overseas as they are here. It just makes their job easier.
Hershey’s are close to banning (if it hasn’t happened already) the import of British chocolate. It’s all about Hershey’s protecting their business cuz their recipe for Cadburys is different (higher profit margin & lower quality) in the USA to increase profit margins and people prefer the original British recipe.
So in the interests of their profit they stopped the import of UK made product to protect themselves.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hershey-sues-shops-importing-british-ca…
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/27/hersheys-lawsuit-ba…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/after-a-deal-british-cho…
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/02/16/hershey-ban-rival-ch…
Obama needs to let the grown-ups get on with business and leave government admin to the politicians. Or is it the puppet politicians do not see American business has their arm all the way up their….when it comes to the interpretation/illusion of capitalism.
WTF? Obama has NOTHING to do with the Hershey/Cadbury dispute. It is a TEXTBOOK case of exactly what you recommend – grown-ups getting on with business. And to claim that “Hershey’s are close to banning (if it hasn’t happened already) the import of British chocolate” is simply not true. Not even close. Cadbury sold the rights to their US candy making business to Hershey in 1988 for 300 million dollars. Hershey is suing, based on that perfectly legitimate business deal, to stop the import of Cadbury’s chocolate to the US. Hershey has the exclusive right to sell candy labeled with the name “Cadbury” in the US because the Cadbury company sold it to them. No other British chocolate is affected. There is no government investigation or involvement. It’s simply a business deal between two companies which is being enforced.
The US subsidizes its agriculture because if it didn’t they wouldn’t produce anything here and loose their independence. The US military gives big contracts to Boeing not because they need anything from them but to offset their cost so they can still stay in business. They ban Samsung phones from being sold in US territory but Obama will personally intervene when the iPhone is threatened to be banned. When the banks are in trouble, The US government will save them,always.
It’s not about Facebook and Google, it’s about Hollywood as well. The European media is controlled by the US, not just the companies but also the government. It’s not a commercial problem, never has been. That business is nothing, it’s a few ten thousand jobs. It’s a few billion dollars. Any small car manufacturer has more jobs and makes more money than all those media companies put together. It’s about control of the media. The media is the central piece of power. People think what the media tells them to think. The media is what makes something wrong or right. It’s what makes a country evil, a head of state a dictator, what crashes a market. The media is the real power.
Edited 2015-02-18 08:29 UTC
Fun fact: Back in the day, when the US was just getting into the movie business, they pirated visionary filmmaker Georges Méliès movies so heavily that he went bankrupt. Thomas Edison was a really nice guy like that.
Obama is a marionet in the hands of the large corporations and their interest groups.
For me there is only one way, to avoid doing business with the usa as much as possible.
I do not like this cadaver-commerciality like Uber, cooperating with the usa has made europe much much poorer and much less social than it was for about 30 years.
For the interference in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. etc. a lot of american military should be put to trial for the international court of justice in the hague because they commit crimes of war.
In the US, most large companies (Amazon, Apple, etc.) correctly bill the sales tax for the state you live in. In Europe, they are continuously trying to hide from taxes. I’m not saying that they are model citizens in the US, but they are better behaved.
In the EU, any purchase from another EU entity requires a receipt or invoice that contains a few things, such as VAT number of the legal entity selling the item. Apple is an repeat offender here. Every invoice that I received for my software purchases from Apple is incorrectly done. As such, if I buy software from the Apple Store (say: Apple Remote Desktop), I cannot get that expense reimbursed, regardless of the good will of my boss and the accountants. I’m quite sure that the reason for the invoices is that they are either illegally or morally avoiding paying the VAT (sort of a sales tax in the US).
Once they start paying the taxes locally for their revenue in Europe, I’m pretty sure that the EU will cut them some slack.
It has been already been proven that the anglo-saxon alliance is spying againt the rest world, be it industrial, military or intelligence.
An recent illustration in this article : http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/17/us-usa-cyberspying-idUSKB…
Awesome… loads of people from the dark ages (circa 450AD – 1066AD) are using the internetz. Cool. I didn’t even realise time travel was a thing yet.
Let’s be real. Some of the actions ARE commercially driven. Some of them are not. Neither side is without a little egg on their face.
This is rather a silly accusation, European companies get fined/punished just as much in all industries. If as a nation you are big in a certain sector your companies will get investigated more by virtue of simply being bigger, so it is no surprise the US tech sector gets so much attention. Getting government attention is the price of doing business in Europe.
I don’t see Obama complaining about the reduced number of private lawsuits in Europe, or the much lower damages awarded in those.
When i go to Facebook, Flagfox always tells me the servers are in Ireland.
Based in the states?
I think not. They are based where ever it’s cheapest to throw in a couple of data centers, and international tax law has to catch up.