Google has criticized the European Union’s intentions to achieve digital sovereignty through open-source software. The company warned that Brussels’ policies aimed at reducing dependence on American tech companies could harm competitiveness. According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, warned of a competitive paradox that Europe is facing. According to the Financial Times, he said that creating regulatory barriers would be harmful in a context of rapid technological advancement. His remarks came just days after the European Commission concluded a public consultation assessing the transition to open-source software.
Google’s chief legal officer clarified that he is not opposed to digital sovereignty, but recommended making use of the “best technologies in the world.” Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection. Local management or servers located in Europe to store information are among the options.
The EU is preparing a technological sovereignty package aimed at eliminating dependence on third-party software, such as Google’s. After reviewing proposals, it concluded that reliance on external suppliers for critical infrastructure entails economic risks and creates vulnerabilities. The strategy focuses not only on regulation but also on adopting open-source software to achieve digital sovereignty.
According to Google, this change would represent a problem for users. Walker argues that the market moves faster than legislation and warns that regulatory friction will only leave European consumers and businesses behind in what he calls “the most competitive technological transition we have ever seen.” As it did with the DMA and other laws, Google is playing on fear. Kent Walker suggested that this initiative would stifle innovation and deny people access to the “best digital tools.”
The promotion of open-source software aims to break dependence on foreign suppliers, especially during a period of instability caused by the Trump administration. The European Union has highlighted the risks of continuing under this system and proposes that public institutions should have full control over their own technology.
According to a study on the impact of open-source software, the European Commission found that it contributes between €65 billion and €95 billion annually to the European Union’s GDP. The executive body estimates that a 10% increase in contributions to open-source software would generate an additional €100 billion in growth for the bloc’s economy.
Thanks for confirming we’re on the right track, google.
We literally removed “don’t be evil” from our mission statement, but you can totally trust us, bro.
Google
All these craptastic US tech companies originally started on internationally developed free and open source software. They hoover up capital and talent then abuse their market power. Fuck them all.
They all run on Linux - Torvalds is a Swedish speaking Finn. Greg KH who maintains stable is German. So many libraries and core system contributions by Germans like Drepper and Poettering. Youtube ran on mysql for years from Finnish Widenius. Google built a lot of stuff with Python - from Dutch Guido van Rossum and c++ from Danish Stroustrup. All of the video and audio sites rely heavily on ffmpeg, orginally from French Fabrice Bellard. Lots of them also using virtualisation stuff which includes qemu, also from Bellard. So much comp sci research from Europe and UK. Chrome and Safari originated with KDE (German) code. Europe did all the heavy lifting while the US took all the profits. I’m not even European but every country has the same experience. They have no idea how they are viewed.
Guys, what you need to do to be competetive, to foster competition… is keep using all our products and services.
Setting up a fund to get new people involved, to get some more money to existing software devs who work on comparable products and servicrs that could be expanded and improved?
No no no, thats uh, that’s anti-competetive, is what that is.
Mhm.
Yep.
According to Google, the idea of replacing current tools with open-source programs would not contribute to economic growth.
It would be more accurate to call it artificial economic growth.
But, these fuckheads would get laughed out of town if they told the truth.Yes of course it would hurt Google’s economic growth. That’s one of the good points. Why pay for new features that nobody wants to support a company everybody hates. Better to go FOSS and make the world a better and safer place, and also save your taxpayers a lot of money.
They are well aware that US companies placing servers in the EU does nothing for “data sovereignty”, they are bound by the Cloud Act so anything the US government demands takes precedence over the GDPR / EU regulations (which are therefore legally impossible to comply with).
If nobody in Europe paid for Google products think of the economic benefit to Europe if all that saved cash was then spent by the people on European products and services.
The last one I am actively paying for is YouTube premium. I don’t think there is a good alternative yet…
Either the alternative has critical features missing
Or they are not loud enough to have people crosspost to it
There is a difference between video content and the software delivering that content.
The content is unlikely to go open source.
European landlords getting ready to hoover up that spare money. 🤑
I feel you’re trying to oppose the decision and your arguments against it are all valid for the current system 😂.
What landlords are you talking about?
All of them. They’re parasites.
And I’m not opposed to ditching US tech, quite the opposite, but let’s not pretend it ends with a load of spare money for Europe because trickle up economics is real and it just ends in our own billionaires having it all, who’ll just invest it all in US tech stocks anyway…
Screw you google for restricting my access to my YouTube channel you absolute clowns
Google and their big tech buddies made their choice by supporting Trump’s regime. I know actions have consequences is a concept that doesn’t apply in the US, but elsewhere it does. Deal with it.
Also EU govts might get crippled by losing out on all that tax revenue. /s
Walker suggested that American companies could collaborate with European firms to implement measures ensuring data protection
No, this is fundamentally impossible. The US has the Cloud Act. As long as that exists, this is a nonstarter.
The US can change their laws to not have a global wiretap and secret backdoor warrant program, then this would be possible.
The US can change their laws to not have a global wiretap and secret backdoor warrant program, then this would be possible.
Even if they did, they can change them right back whenever they want and the thing with data is that, once it’s out there somewhere, there’s no way of knowing for sure it hasn’t been copied and archived.
Not just from recent events but from the Snowden Revelations and the decades of 4-eyes operations even before that, we’re well beyond the point of it being possible to trust US-based and US-registered companies with the data of Europeans, and ditto for those of any other of what are now the 7-eyes countries.
Wait, nobody in their marketing or pr departments told them this would make them look like massive whinebabies?
Shit’s straight out of the onion. The jokes write themselves
“It’s afraid” still image from Starship Troopers
if late stage capitalism could be represented by just one picture, its truly this brain bug.
