Trump administration threatens tariffs for any nation that dares to tax Big Tech United States president Donald Trump last Friday issued a memorandum that suggests imposition of tariffs on nations that dare to tax big tech companies. The memorandum mentions the digital services taxes (DSTs) were introduced to capture profits from revenue that tech companies generate in one country but collect in another. …
Orange ‘You know who’ is really is a dumb entitled fucktard..
Apple hasn’t made a single iPhone (2.4bn shipped globally) or iPad (600m shipped globally) in the USA. Not even locally in USMCA partner Mexico ‘the greatest trade agreement ever signed’..
All been made in China and a few latterly in India.
Tom Cook - chief architect of Apple’s Global Supply chain - was still able to buy an Inauguration VIP Package and was highly visible there.
Rank hypocrisy before you even talk about Corporations and money slopping around the world chasing lower taxes (Apple Ireland). Starbucks, Google, Meta, Amazon are further miscreants.
Globally tax on sales, not manipulated, massaged, licence fee’d and corporate accountant ‘what do you want them to be’ profits.
Since when did that little inconvenience called "reality" ever stop cults and their linked political parties?
It's all about appearances. Appearing to give the followers what they want regardless of (a) what the actions actually accomplish, and (b) the repercussions of the actions. All the Great Unwashed want to see is that they continue to believe that they are the Important Ones; appeasement through slight of hand.
They'll pay more at the register but, as long as they get the "revenge" and "America first!" actions that they crave and were promised, anything else is water under the bridge. Imploding trade is a small price to pay to get "retribution" for the "imbalance" that they believe has occurred...never you mind that their own voting actions for the past 40 years *created* that imbalance by voting for business-first candidates that measured corporate profits and Wall Street Dow as the only gauge of 'success'.
But nothing really matters any more, I guess. Let Them Eat Cake. Like spoilted children, they will only learn once truly punished rather than simply chastised so let their pain commence.
"“All of these measures violate American sovereignty and offshore American jobs, limit American companies’ global competitiveness, and increase American operational costs while exposing our sensitive information to potentially hostile foreign regulators,” the Memorandum adds."
How are American jobs offshored? One of the reasons the tariffs are implemented by other nations is that the American paltforms steal local (non-American) content and re-sell it or remove its value, thereby taking away non-American jobs.
Jobs are offshored by corporate America (and corporate. Canada, Corporate Europe).
See IBM India for example, built off the back of 30 years of ‘resource actions’.
See all the tech jobs of the 80’s turfed to China, Malaysia, Singapore.. etc. I don’t think I have seen a hard disk made anywhere but the Far East (and I don’t mean Delaware) in 20 years.
Why TSMC went from zero is 1987 (when founded) to where it is today. Similar with Foxconn (not a single iPhone or iPad ever made outside of China or India. Ever).
Corporate nickel and diming of American, Canadian and European ‘too expensive’ workers across tech, furniture, pharma, auto, domestic appliances, clothing, footwear etc ….
The memo threatens those who impose 'extortive' fines as well as taxes. Russia might have to knock a decillion or two off their fine on Alphabet/Google if they want full rapprochement with the US, but that may not be Putin's goal - a US which is against doing anything more to Russia might be sufficient.
EU fines on US tech companies may be more of an active issue, but there's probably something for Trump to get irritated with the EU about on any given day anyway (Greenland! Environmental regulations! No respect for Nazis! France in general!), there might not be any payoff in the EU pulling back there.
You mean the AP ban from the White House because they don't call the Gulf of Mexico Gulf of Trumponia?
You mean the FTC investigating broadcaster who dares to criticise the chief dictator?
You mean expelling the NYT and others from thei Pentagon offices and replacing them with Breitbart & C.?
You mean barring scientists publishing their researches?
Who is censoring free speech? Who is intimidating opponents?
Turning reality upside down is the classic propaganda move largely used by the Soviets, hence well described by Orwell in "1984".
Actually it's the classic propaganda move as described in explicit detail by Goebbels at one of the Nuremberg rallies: accuse your enemy of doing that which you are doing yourself.
Once more it is proven: it's always projection, and every accusation of the fascist is a confession.
You are clearly spouting the rantings of a deluded prick. Do you have any idea what a Nazi is? Now compare it to what's really going on. See the difference? No? Ah, well then you're clearly spouting the rantings of a deluded prick.
Reductio ad Hitlerum at work.
Drumpf apparently thinks it is the "gawd given right" of America to rape and pillage the world for every last possible dime with no restrictions or issues in their way.
Well, screw that. We have our own industries to protect from the American rapists and thieves.
Well not really, orange tango man is just nuts and does everything for money. He used to moan about big tech, but now south african hitler has bought a president, tango man will do anything he says as long as it makes them both money. I'm waiting for the moment tango man dumps sf hitler, like he dumps everyone that he no longer needs. Then watch it all blow up as sf hitler tries to destroy the tango man and vis versa.
"Then watch it all blow up as sf hitler tries to destroy the tango man and vis versa."
Except for one little detail: the U.S. Supreme Court has stated that the President can't be held liable for his actions while in office. SF Hitler would likely receive a late-night visit from a SEAL Team hit squad (we can only hope...).
There are far more insane, far-right and ultra-right, media outlets in America than Twitter and Fox News.
We'll be hearing more from those as lying fake news media' get their invites torn up and more Nutjob Nazis are invited into White House and Oval Office briefings.
"You ain't seen nothing' yet".
"Go research"
Ahh the classic tin foil hat answer.
Thousands of Scientists trained in the field are wrong
Guy on FB: Correct
Years of academic research: Wrong
Two line post post on X: Right
Do your own research man, it's out there, you just gotta keep looking until you find your confirmation bias.
"I'm waiting for the moment tango man dumps sf hitler, like he dumps everyone that he no longer needs. "
I'm still waiting for the really big toes getting stepped on and there being an unfortunate private jet crash of a Gulfstream, possibly owned by Falcon Landing, LLC with the "owner" aboard. That is, unless a message is worded more strongly and the person gets a sudden attack of lead poisoning (or Polonium).
No, now companies own the State. They bought it thanks to Mitch McConnell & C. Companies have decided they owe no taxes - like French "nobilty" in the XVIII century. They were so sure they didn't owe taxes they lost their heads over the issue. In this regars is different from China were the Party owns the country. Is more akeen Russia, where oligarchs own the State, although Putin is much more dangerous and thereby powerful in his country than Trump.
Yeah, the more the thin-skinned Orange peel in Chief pushes America forward into the past, the more China gets to look like the New America of the future with respect to industry, goods, services, weaponry ... the only thing it's missing is related to social liberties, DEI equality, and valuing of cross-cultural kinship, but these are being dissolved in a vat of acid in the US as we speak, so ... whomever is the least crazy wacko bully might just end up winning the whole jackpot enchilada in this!
I agree, it's about time countries stopped seeing the US as a partner. They have no loyalty and I say that despite thinking this Trump Administration is the best thing that could practically have happened for the world. America is not an equal partner and I don't blame them when they're paying. Nations need to get their houses in order, re-industrialise, build their own effective defence forces, stop the destructive nonsense of woke and mass immigration. It will be traumatic.
Bloody foreigners coming here, doing jobs Brits are too proud to take, paying taxes, supporting our pensioners and NHS, reducing our top-heavy retired/working ratio, ...
I assume the reason conservatives made a deal to send immigrants to Rwanda was because Rwanda wouldn't take our racists.
Well who could have foreseen that they would ever have been heard of again?
It's a very big ocean and those were very small boats and the land was supposed to be full of wild animals and savages
Thank G*d the plan of shipping all the criminals in the opposite direction worked
The trick is that you have to increase the rate of immigration to make up for your ageing population and boost your GDP while at the same time pretending that you are cracking down on the 0.bugger-all% that arrive by small boats.
If you can manage this your are either a political genius or your electorate are idiots
Exactly.
There is no point in continuing to monetise US tech companies, based in the USA.
So, let's ditch Netflix, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, eBay, PayPal and all the other subservient firms stretching their fingers into the rest of the world and making money from it.
While we are at it, let's just ban sales of US-made products...for sure it'll cause a trade war, but there are other options available. It might take a while to get it sorted, but the Trumpinator clearly wants to see only US firms benefit financially (during his term) and everyone else has to accept it. :-(
If an American company is not willing to pay the appropriate taxes in your country. Ban them from your country.
No Facebook, No Google, (No Google Ads!), No Xitter, No Truth Social (although admittedly I dont think it actually has any followers outside of America anyway), No Youtube!
Wow, it might actually turn a nation's internet back into a usable , friendly, helpful, creative place, instead of the cesspool of shite that it currently is...
And if it was the EU that did this, the screams from the TechBros would be loud enough to force Trump to step back...
You don't need half the tech we have, it's marketing eye candy. I remember using bulletin boards and usenet, the discourse was just as interesting, in fact more so because people had to make a small effort. Look at this, The Register, it's not a pinnacle of software bloat is it? Works fine.
I wouldn't lump all of today's kids together. Some of them are well aware of the benefits of keeping away from social media. (We just don't hear from them as often because they are not on social media). As for the others, perhaps their attention spans would improve if disconnected from X.
That's simplistic nonsense, mostly pushed out by the "Kids today.." commentators.
Talk to some actual teenagers and you'll find they have a hell of a lot better world understanding, then we did in our day. And because of that, they tend to be highly cynical about there future (understandably so...). And yeah, young people are impatient, that hasnt changed, and frankly when we look at the pile of sh&te we're leaving them, can you blame them for wanting to get out there and do something, anything to try and improve the situation?
The whole thing with TikTok and that is simply that's its entertainment, same as we used to crash on the couch and watch interminable television, they crash on the couch and flip through videos. No real difference.
To steal a quote from the late great Bill Hicks:
"Kids are smarter than any of us. You want to know how I know that? I dont know a single child with a full time job and children..."
the Reg is implemented in Perl. I assume nobody understands enough of the code to dare modifying it
And anybody who did would rather go five stanzas of Vogon poetry than ever touch it (again?)
In extremis one might turn William McGonagall on the poor sod although that might be counted a crime against humanity.
Brace yourself now...
Ode to a Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning
In the sultry swamp of sweaty pits,
A putrid glob did congeal,
A muculent mound of malodorous green,
Its sickly scent did it unseal.
The sun's blazing wrath did scorch the Earth,
Yet in my fetid hollow it hid,
This loathsome lump of emerald woe,
Like a festering secret amid.
Oh, revolting mass of viscous slime,
Your oozing form doth repulse,
A horrid blob, of rancid hue,
You make my stomach convulse...
*heave, boak*
Tell DOGE that the Reg is a US Government department and they'll take the chainsaw to it, lack of understanding is clearly no impediment to them (case in point being the 150 year olds they claim are getting benefits).
Not even in Scotland, where we tend to be rather proud of our artists etc, is McGonagall celebrated much. Billy Connolly did read "The Tay Bridge Disaster" on his World Tour of Scotland TV show when visiting Dundee though.
Good old fashioned bulletin boards with threading of the discussion was the peak evolution of the online forum in my books. Even when multiple sub-discussions are spawned, it all ends up organized, give or take the occasional cross-posting spammer (which must get nipped pretty quickly around here because I can't say that I've ever noticed a spam problem on The Reg.)
It doesn't need a government/EU to ban or tax these businesses. Just some moral/savvy consumers.
Stop buying Teslas.
Stop buying iphones.
Stop using microsoft products.
Stop using facebook.
Stop buying from Amazon.
Stop using Xitter.
Stop using google products.
Stop buying Cisco.
Stop using starlink.
Cancel your netflix.
Stop eating at mcdonalds/BK/starbucks (actually, they employ local people, so maybe not)
If the people decide to do it rather than governments, there is not much that Tangohead can do about it. He can't start punishing people because they no longer want to buy products made in Trumpistan. It won't take long for his tech bros to start crying.
It might do the world good to go without these digital "services". But I think Trump is wrong on this one. Things should be taxed at the point of sale or rather where the consumer is. Although I think there should be zero corporation tax, zero income tax, zero inheritance tax and just tax on purchases. Have money, want to live like a King you pay a lot of tax. But digital services, we don't need Netflix, Prime, YouTube. And if they aren't available we will build new services. Maybe we block these services unless generated locally?
Expanding on kmorwath point that sales taxes are regressive.
Person x is homeless and rough sleeps, they spend 99% of their income on food and whatever else gets them through the day. Under your scheme x pays sales tax on 98% of their income.
Person y makes minimum wage. they spend 90% of their income on rent, food. Under your scheme y pays sales tax on 90% of their income.
Person z is CEO of a FTSE and has a total remuneration of £4,196,000 a year, they spend 50% of their salary. They pay sales tax on 50% of their income.
I have simplified this by ignoring ways in which the extremely highly paid will engage in tax avoidance and the poorest will avoid tax via the "informal" economy.
How much of your income do you spend a year? Can you afford for heating, electricity, fuel, food prices to increase by 20-25%?
I expect your solution would be to close down the government.
Why are posting anonymously? You don't have to use a real name. I'm not posting under my real name.
https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/news/average-ceo-uk/
Take from various taxes shown here https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/where-does-government-get-its-money
Life is based on what you want after you can get what you need without much issues. A tax system based only on sale taxes would probably make needed goods so expensive there would be little money for non-basic goods, and anyay sales would plummet, hurting hard the economy. Unless goods are taxed in a different way so expensive goods are taxed more. But then again the rich would have ways to eluds such taxation (i.e., buying abroad). Moreover taxes based on a good price will increase together inflation. In this way, corporations should not be longer allowed to deduct bought goods (or taxed on people would be extremely high) but this way material-intensive companies would be disadvantaged over those who are not.
We are not in a world where the richest ones do not want to pay any tax, they are above the others, sort of semi-gods who should make their own laws, and underlings must also love them for that reason. All the State expenses have to be paid by the far less wealthy ones- but they still want subsidies to build their plants and sell their goods, and if their businesses crashes, the State must save them with others' people money - they are too big to fail.
It's exactly what happened in France until the Bourgeoisie got fed up to be the one milked, and together the "proletaries" started a revolution than ended bloody - still, being French the got two Napoleons after that - and remember the last was elected as a president, then decided he didn't want to relinquish power, and made a coup...
Would it be so terrible if the world tore up all treaties with the USA and treated them as undesirable? Do they really have anything anybody else wants?
Chips come from Nederland and Taiwan. Manufacturing is China, India and Malaysia. Support services are Philippines, India and Thailand.
Without all of those, especially chips, could they build or launch rockets, train ai, build cars, ...
Let them tariff away, the rest of the world can reciprocate and when the dust has settled, China will have won.
They're a crazy, stupid people who prefer a narcissist, blowhard, lying, deceitful, bullying cont who flouts all law and convention for their president rather then anybody else.
This post has been deleted by its author
"Do they [US] really have anything anybody else wants?"
Helium was all I could think of but WikiP informs me that others source in North Africa and the Middle East produce sizeable volumes.
(Cryogenic) Liquid Helium is used in superconducting magnetics some of which are found in clinical NMRI machines.
So it seems the whole boiling could be prepended to Ko-Ko's "little list" -
"you may put 'em on the list; And they'll none of 'em be missed"
> Do they really have anything anybody else wants?
Take a gander at the r/sysadmin reddit ... lots of stuff (M365 e.g. all the authorization pieces) is cloud based and finding suitable replacements now will be a problem. Can non-US companies replace ? Sure, but it'll be painful.
May finally break the iron fist of Microsoft on the curlies of the world.
"They're a crazy, stupid people"
Hey - no.
I'm all for giving the finger to the flag waving "patriots" that started this shit show, but let's be fair. The orange twat was voted in by something like 76 million blowhards. In a country of around 340 million. That's not even half. That's not even quarter.
Spare a thought for all of those other people, and don't dismiss everybody as crazy and stupid. Some are probably scared shitless about what's going on (especially if they do a boring government job).
Ok, just to bring in some stats here. The voting population of America is ~244 million. 77,3 million voted for Trump. 75 million voted for Harris, 91,7 million didnt even bother to vote.
I would contend that your broken Electoral College System probably accounts for a large proportion of that 91 million, as for example there is almost no point in voting in 42 of the states if you are an "opposition" supporter. For example, California has been soldily Democrat for over 30 years. For Alabama its 40 years solidly Republican. If you're a Republican in Cali or a Democrat in Alabama, you probably see zero reason to go and vote, since your vote wont count, in the winner takes all system you have. Only the Swing states have an effect.
The fact Americans in general accept this as their system, gives us all the right to call you crazy. What's the point of democracy if your vote doesnt count?
"gives us all the right to call you crazy."
I'm not American.
"What's the point of democracy if your vote doesnt count?"
The UK has a FPTP system that greatly favours the two main parties, and such things as safe seats where if you live in the place known for 'x', then voting for something else is liable to be a waste of time (not always, but quite often).
There's no ideal perfect way for people to vote, particularly given how many different and opposing views there are (and how many people are wandering towards the more extreme parties). Pleasing everybody is simply not possible, the best one can expect is leadership that doesn't piss off as many people as the mob that just got voted out. That's also why term lengths are important, it means every so often the incumbents can be tossed out and some other equally useless grifters stuck in charge for a while to make everybody believe that their vote means something and keep the illusion alive.
Granted, the American electoral college is bizarre, but like Britain's FPTP, the incumbents that it helps are unlikely to want to change it, so it remains the way things are done.
By the way, Trump won the popular vote too, so really the electoral college didn't affect the final outcome.
" if you live in the place known for 'x', then voting for something else is liable to be a waste of time (not always, but quite often)."
In both countries the status quo is maintained by the self-fulfilling prophecies of the number of people who can't be bothered voting because it would be wasted. If they did vote they might find it wasn't wasted at all.
In FPTP all of the votes do matter. If someone wins in the first round (i.e. gets 50% of the votes) then maybe not, but then the electorate has pretty firmly spoken.
If no one wins, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, and the second choice of those voters gets there vote. This carries on until someone ends up with 50% of the votes. That means that everyones, first, second, third, etc. choices matter. I fail to see how that is not making sure everyone's vote counts. Yes there is some dealing amongst parties that if people dont bother selecting there own choices, that the parties get to decide where the votes go, but the option is there for people to control their vote to the last gasp.
And yes there are areas which voted solidly for one side or the other everytime, but that is down to demographics - an area with older, richer residents will almost certainly vote more conservative, then a working class, mixed ethnicity area.
In the American Electoral College, you have a choice of 2 and if your team doesnt win, you get nothing. A fairer option would be to give out the states votes as a proportion of the votes wishes. So if 66% of people vote for one side they get 66% of the college votes for that state. I believe there are two states where this actually does happens. But do it for the whole country, and you would see a massive increase in voter turnout, and maybe some different results. Definitely you would see a massive reduction in the disenfranchisement that Americans feel towards their political system...
I think you are confusing First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) with a system known as the Single-Transferable-Vote which is used for some regional/local elections in devolved parts of the UK.
FPTP is exactly as it sounds - there is one ballot and one count - whoever gets the most votes is declared the winner.
In FPTP all of the votes do matter. If someone wins in the first round (i.e. gets 50% of the votes) then maybe not, but then the electorate has pretty firmly spoken.If no one wins, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated, and the second choice of those voters gets there vote. This carries on until someone ends up with 50% of the votes. That means that everyones, first, second, third, etc. choices matter. I fail to see how that is not making sure everyone's vote counts. Yes there is some dealing amongst parties that if people dont bother selecting there own choices, that the parties get to decide where the votes go, but the option is there for people to control their vote to the last gasp.
That's not First Past The Post (FPTP) - that's some form of ranked voting like instant runoff or single transferable vote. FPTP is where whichever candidate gets the most votes in a single round of voting wins.
"What's the point of democracy if your vote doesnt count?"
Um, you know that this is sorta how democracy works? What do you regard as 'doesn't count'? Not getting the person you voted for? Not getting what you wanted?
Democracy is by its very nature the will of the masses. If you happen not to be aligned with the larger group then well that sucks for you. But this is not a case of 'your vote doesn't count'.
Those suppose 91 million people that didn't vote also didn't vote in their local elections where the EC doesn't exist. Saying that the EC is the reason they don't vote is false.
And as for CA, their rules allow for basically single party ballots for some state and local, so there is a case of why bother voting. But people still go out and vote.
The EC exists as otherwise the US federal government would be dominated by the votes of 2 or 3 very populous states. The political elite, especially the Democrats, really don't like to bother with the flyover states so the EC keeps them in check.
"The orange twat was voted in by something like 76 million blowhards. In a country of around 340 million. That's not even half. That's not even quarter.
Spare a thought for all of those other people. . ."
So, roughly 1/2 of the population voted, and of those that did vote just under half voted agin The DONALD.
50% of the population couldnt be bothered to get off their fat arses to vote and therefore do not deserve any sympathy.
Oh its perfectly fine for Google & Metà to skip paying taxes ; they just doing what they should be doing - shareholder value. If governments want them to pay taxes, they should change the tax laws..
NO! NO! NOT LIKE THAT! THAT'S PICKING ON THE TECH FIRMS! WHY ARE GOVERNMENTS SO ANTI BUSINESS?!! While at the same time demanding tax subsidies & bail outs & protections for banks & firms that offshore work & offshore profits....
Also trump is a moron as are his advisors. Apartied Clyde has actually managed to anger GOTHS by calling himself goth...
True, but the incidence of the tariffs doesn't matter to the Orange Felon, who moreover believes (probably correctly) that other countries will run scared of threatened trade tariffs. In the case of Europe where this latest threat is aimed, most of the larger economies have a sizable trade surplus with the US, and won't be willing to risk that.
Most EU leaders still reason about steel and cars... especially because of Germany. They don't understand there is a flank where US are vulnerable too They could reply by and hit hard the new Trump groupies by:
- Blocking any data transfer to USA, because USA is no longer a reliable state to process EU citizens data.
- Enforcing GDPR hard, with huge fines against those companies breaking the law
- Banning any USA company from partecipating in EU and governments tenders, on sovereignity and security grounds
- Banning any US software from governments systems, on sovereignity and security grounds - for example, SAP is OK, Oracle is not...
- Enforcing the anti-monopolistic actions against Apple and Google for their mobile systems. Investigate Amazon hard.
- Banning any tracking from operating systems. Ban Microsoft attempt to get hold of all users' emails.
- Declaring social media as "publishers", and applying them the same rules. including those on "paid contents" and "ads".
You would see those Big Tech companies putting Trump and Musk atop a Falcon 9 and firing them to Mars and beyond...
The Ireland surplus really shows how the tax systems is broken. What is Eire (5m people) exporting in so large quantities, more than Germany? Guinness? Aran pullovers? Leprechauns? No.
"The major reason for Ireland's trade surplus with the US is the presence of pharmaceutical manufacturers who export most of their Irish output to the US." "US pharma companies are in Ireland partially because of the country's low corporation tax rate."
"In 2023, in evidence to the US Congress finance committee, Brad Setser said: "There is no plausible explanation for the current scale of US imports of pharmaceuticals from Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland, and Singapore that isn't tied to tax avoidance."" (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cre8expj2leo)
It's a full US issue, tax avoidance by US companies. Instead of addressing that, Trumputin attacks EU. Trumpinomics ignores also services money, which moslty flow from EU to USA. Or investments money (about 300 billions).
Anyway Italian surplus is about machines, food, fashion, moslly like France. Still, "old economy". Leaders fail to understand the "new economy". Actually, it's exactly big tech asking more for tariffs, not Detroit (most US cars are not good for european streets and fuel prices - don't know if they still use Withworth screws, which would enure hard maintenance times in Europe).
So if USA puts tariffs on steel, formage or Chianti - it's their tech sector EU needs to hit in retaliation, there's where it hurts more. Putting tariffs on Tennessee whiskey or Harley-Davidson is useless, they are niche markets in Europe.
"Putting tariffs on Tennessee whiskey or Harley-Davidson is useless, they are niche markets in Europe."
That's exactly the point. Tariffs hurt YOUR OWN people.
Tariffing these luxury red state items has zero effect on the average EU citizen whilst simultaneously scoring media points.
It's also vastly more effective. Harley Davidson decided to move almost all its manufacturing to Indonesia, Carrier decamped entirely to Mexico
In both cases that hit the state economies where they were manufacturing HARD, in ways that tariffing steel or grains wouldn't have done, at virtually no economic impact on European citizens
Excellent practical suggestions :)
It's never been easier to move away from American software, Linux Mint is a dream, mostly, and LibreOffice is acceptable.
I urge others to try it out on any old laptop they have.
If nothing else, it is secure and private - never mind inspectable and free.
EU/UK governments should mandate it, like Switzerland has, for any GDPR-grade information usage.
We need to move away from the presumption that M$ is "safe" in any way. It takes way too much interest in what your doing.
Similarly Xitter, twitbook, whatsap, etc. - all are beneath contempt and should be ranked as potentially hostile.
As regards Google, i'm not sure how to move away from gmail and Chrome, or even if I should?
I'm deeply invested in gmail, 20 years, but it did always state that it scans your messages, and I'm OK with treating it a bit like a work email address.
The benefits of free storage, searchability, immense security, outweigh the small loss in privacy - to me at least.
With Chrome, I like the 2FA and the password manager, also the massive bookmarks directory. Again it is years of investment to get a decent site index.
The problem, as I see it, is not the browser but the websites themselves - like "review your experience" sites that aggregate all your reviews and presumably sell this profiling data onwards.
At least Chrome allows AdBlock to run reasonably un-hampered, it seems to work perfectly despite conceding that some "high quality" adverts might get through. I've not noticed any, maybe just some commercial recommendations when searching for a product of some sort. You have to accept that they need to keep the lights on somehow.
I'm imagining Google target their paid adverts at me, according to my profile that I have allowed them to generate for their use alone - and they never release my profile details or email address.
Is this correct, or am I being naive ?
"The benefits of free storage, searchability, immense security, outweigh the small loss in privacy - to me at least."
I've never subscribed to the idea of storing email on somebody else's computer. It has to pass through it, true, and if it's being scanned not storing it online won't help. The solution is two step. First move to download what you've got. Secondly, get your own domain and get an independent company to host it for you. If you're not happy with the service you can move it to a different hosting company. It's a bother to get everyone you deal with to switch addresses. I don't know about gmail - I stopped using them years ago - but Houtmailive will forward your email; if gmail also do that then the remaining traffic can be forwarded through to your new provider.
As regards Google, i'm not sure how to move away from gmail and Chrome, or even if I should?
You should where you can but I appreciate it's difficult to do. Firefox is a great start to get away from Chrome at least.
With Chrome, I like the 2FA and the password manager, also the massive bookmarks directory. Again it is years of investment to get a decent site index.
You can export all of your bookmarks to another browser easily, no need to lose anything. 2FA works in other browsers too, so does an equivalent password manager. You should be using a password manager outside of a browser if possible as well such as BitWarden or similar, as their password encryption will be much stronger.
At least Chrome allows AdBlock to run reasonably un-hampered, it seems to work perfectly despite conceding that some "high quality" adverts might get through. I've not noticed any, maybe just some commercial recommendations when searching for a product of some sort. You have to accept that they need to keep the lights on somehow.
Not for much longer, Google is on the warpath against ad blockers. On Firefox uBlock Origin is even better than AdBlock, allowing nothing through unless you explicitly want it.
I'm imagining Google target their paid adverts at me, according to my profile that I have allowed them to generate for their use alone - and they never release my profile details or email address.Is this correct, or am I being naive ?
You are being naieve I'm afraid - google will sell your data to anyone who comes looking for it and can afford it, plus whatever hackers manage to extract it from the sites which purchase it or if they can hack into your gmail account (which happens all the time).
A few years ago Trump would have shown up on well over half of the first twenty results on a Google image search for idiot. Today he did not show until image 62 and there were only five pictures of him on the first page (of about 170 pictures). This type of censorship is not acceptable. Together we can restore Trump to his rightful place. You can help by doing an image search and clicking on the appropriate images and by creating a link from the word idiot to an appropriate image. Take action today and do not let those woke immigrants deprive Trump of his hard won title.
Wooahh! That's so mean ... even Josh Lu's genAI prompting for a "newspaper cartoon depicting" an idiot "eating mcdonalds cheeseburger while being surrounded by pigs" isn't as cruel (maybe?) ... not to mention the explosive notion of the poodle idiot and its growth into a most glamorous of idiot feasts for the eyes ... a sight to behold!
Let's just hope we don't have to see this particular idiot repeatedly making 5th avenue great again, as promised, in its own uniquely peculiar way ...
Stop the censorship!
I wonder how long for the Adults in the USA to realise that pushing tariffs up simply excludes them from the marketplace. If there is a 'balancing' tariff between USA and another country then trade in the affected items will shift away from USA to a more enlightened country. This will mean that even if the USA can get the items they will be paying through the nose for them making every step in their supply chain more expensive to the point the cannot compete in the global market.
The Death Cult, you have to understand you are dealing with the criminally insane. These are not sane people. These people have been over exposed to nazi russian propaganda, and covid brains. Their mothers and fathers never taught them right from wrong. They are reliant on digital media for attention. They feel an over whelming need to bring everything and everyone down to their level so they can deal with you. They are psychopaths. When you constantly go online and interact with them, you are inhaling their drug. Absorbing their insanity.
You must stop the insanity people. You have to realize you are trapped in a circle of falsehood. You have to stop interacting. You have to stop giving them the attention they so desperately need. They are insane. Cut them off. Live a normal better life.
"The left" went too far with expecting us to treat strangers and the less fortunate decently. We had no choice but to have musk-le spasms and throw open our nation to be pillaged by big business even MORE!
MY PRESIDENT HAD to run a cryptocurrency scandal to arrest funds from the TRANSES and THE BLACKS.
It's PERSONAL for me, so someone else needs to take RESPONSIBILITY.
(No, actually I'm quite sick of the "conservative" project to strip the copper out of the walls while blaming minorities for it but at this point you laugh or you cry.)
For lots of historic reasons (and some truly terrible decisions by governments of both colours), this Anglophone country is completely unable to separate itself from Big Tech. Trump can threaten what he likes and whilst there will be mutterings, we'll continue to dig our hole deeper.
The majority of payments online and on the high street are through Visa and Mastercard, or processed by PayPal or Stripe. Most schools and government institutions run on Microsoft Office, and a large proportion of companies run on Google, Amazon or Microsoft servers. For large online companies (not that we have many), up to a third of their annual expenditure can be for placement in Google or Bing search results. Our cities are gutted by AirBNB, taxis are replaced by Uber and we call our parents on Apple or Android.
Our Post Office is struggling, since Amazon, DHL, FedEx and UPS have aggressively targeted the market and now dominate home and business deliveries, as well as international shipping. Small shops are struggling, since everyone buys from Amazon, Etsy and Ebay. And we're buying things we saw on Netflix, Disney, Prime, Hulu or AppleTV.
Approximately 25% of all online expenditure already goes straight to America, and small businesses can find it impossible in this 'cashless society' to even sell potatoes at the local farmer's market without 10% of the sale going immediately to payment processors in the USA. To many IT people who've never directly sold a thing in their lives, there may already be an awareness of how deeply tech has become entwined, but few understand that this translates to something like two or three thousand pounds additional costs to each and every household, every year. The cost of living crisis is (in part) down to the cost of this invisible infrastructure.
Our government wouldn't think of risking all that infrastructure becoming even more expensive, so they'll remain supine - and will continue to chase shiny new idiocies like AI (also dominated by Silicon Valley) rather than fixing the basic problem that America already taxes each and every one of us every single day of our lives.
Note that this isn't a left or right-wing issue. Nor is it anti-American or especially patriotic. It's just recognising that we've screwed up our economy by allowing key parts of our infrastructure to become a taxable commodity, with the tax being taken largely by Silicon Valley. We are experiencing corporate capture on a national scale.
I totally agree with the above (Andy73), and with the suggestions of (kmorwath) further up the page.
The trouble is, we’re probably going to make it worse, since Starmer is to Trump as Trump is to Putin.
We’re especially vulnerable now we’ve left the EU bloc.
It’s no secret that US big Pharma wants the NHS, they make trillions from their last-dollar, last-day drug pricing. We’ve already “oopsied” all our NHS records to Peter Thiel et al. – they’re waiting to cream-off a chunk of NHS work, based on this and all the personal data they’ve aggregated. They know the health insurance risk and will offer a “competitive” per-patient-year price, but only for their chosen patients.
Don’t get me started on patents - bringing our systems into line, as they call it, means invisible taxation forever – and a lot of litigation. I’m sure they’ll extend their worthless patents to 90 years like they did with copyright.
Finally, what is the madness of allowing Microsoft to track and record every touch on every document, every communication? – I’m looking at you Office363, Teams - we’re giving away the “key” to terabytes of data. Even worse is Windows10,11 – continuous monitoring of every keystroke, every program, every file- and now combined with targeted clickbait misinformation.
See previous posts for more details if interested.
It’s time to remove our presumption of trust.
> We’re especially vulnerable now we’ve left the EU bloc.
That's a dangerous misunderstanding of the problem. This shift started over forty years ago. We were EU members for decades whilst we transferred delivery of key services to American companies. And the EU's current attempts at control through regulation is actually deepening the grip large (American) corporates have on everything from online services to physical product distribution. They are as clueless about the problem as our government is.
Let's try and avoid big conspiracy theory stuff here - this is not "selling the NHS" territory, it's a question of how investment and financial services are driven by a government that often isn't around for the long term consequences to become obvious. Just as long term failure to invest in our energy infrastructure leads to crisis points where any 'fix' is going to cost hundreds of billions, long term failure to invest and steer our economic infrastructure has left us dependent on businesses that did make the investment and are now more than happy to take their dues. This isn't an evil master plan, it's just plain old mismanagement by politicians who are often out of their depth.
Fixing this isn't about regulating and taxing companies, it's about building the infrastructure we're lacking - and no UK political party is willing or able to articulate the problem or commit to the cost for fear of losing voters who just want things cheap and easy. We should not be looking to some remote organisation to save us (that's what got us into this situation in the first place), we should be fixing the problem ourselves.
> We’re especially vulnerable now we’ve left the EU bloc.
I don't agree that this is a misunderstanding. We are in need of a new US-UK trade deal now we’ve left the EU bloc.
Trump wants "access" to the NHS, above and beyond the normal trade agreement rules, which are themselves a cause for concern.
Look at this site: https://www.bu.edu/gdp/2021/04/21/a-strict-ip-rule-in-us-free-trade-agreements-is-associated-with-higher-drug-prices-in-importing-countries/
They state: All United States Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signed in the past 20 years have required trading partners to enact intellectual property (IP) laws that are stronger than those required by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
If our agreement were to follow suit, American IP rights would be enforced, affecting drug prices and patents generally.
This is not a conspiracy theory, it is a declared aim and a common practise. .
<......." We are in need of a new US-UK trade deal now we’ve left the EU bloc."............>
No, absolutely not.
It is plain that every trade agreement that the US enters into, it only ever does so if it gets its own way on everything. In the case of the UK, what the Americans would insist on will never be acceptable to the UK, and therefore I sincerely believe that any deal would be impossible to reach. If it were, one would have been under negotiation before now.
What we need is a more rationally negotiated deal with the EU (now that things have settled down and the EU desire for retribution has lessened a little - in fact, the new dawn of having the USA as no longer an ally might actually help that).
I don't know how many times I have to say this - the EU is not going to save us. This is about our internal economic management, not trade deals, or picking the right bully in the playground to hide behind.
We have to address how we run our country. Not fantasise that someone else will fix it for us.
I wasn't suggesting that the EU would save us (although I am certain that we can now sit down and have a sensible discussion about the future - something that was not possible 5 years ago).
My comment was aimed at the misguided idea of the previous poster who seems to think a trade deal with the US is a good idea. Personally, I think it would be an act of political and economic suicide, and in any case, we would not get anywhere with one. The Arch-Traitor Trump has other ideas.
A trade deal with the US is a good idea as the EU is dying under the weight of its own regulation and the egos of those who run it.
We've just seen Macron 'fact check' Trump about what has been 'given' to Ukraine when in reality France itself has done the least of any major nation (mostly due to Macron trying to appease Putin for 2 years, but of course he doesn't get called names for that) and the vast majority of the direct monetary aid to Ukraine has been from the EU in the form of loans.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/emmanuel-macron-vladimir-putin-meeting-ukraine-war-zelensky-b1000211.html
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-solidarity-ukraine/eu-assistance-ukraine/eu-financial-support-ukraine_en
The same, well made points apply equally here in Sweden. The postal service here must still maintain loss making deliveries to every corner of Sweden, and faces strong competition from DHL and others. They are struggling, as expected, but putting up a strong fight. Even after being nearly destroyed by a political stitch up which left them with the bill for firing tens of thousands of Danish postal staff (who all had three year severance agreements).
Decades of underinvestment by successive governments and then publicly listed companies, have reduced the electricity generation and distribution network in Sweden to its knees. Now they talk about building new reactors - ready in two and a half decades at the earliest. Meanwhile, they're burning huge piles of taxpayer money on "green steel" from the north of the country which will require more electricity than Sweden has a hope to generate or buy in from other countries. Oh, and everyone is supposed to have an electric car by 2030.
Many Swedish companies and some government functions are completely reliant on a US company's cloud infrastructure for everything from authentication and authorisation to communications and office applications. If Microsoft's prices were to increase by an order of magnitude overnight, they would have no alternative but to pay. Everyone in Sweden is in the same payment provider trap with the same companies as you list. The Swedes have a good system for payments between people and to companies which is pretty much universal, but that's only within Sweden.
The sudden and dramatic changes in US attitude highlight how dangerous these dependencies are and it's far too late now for any quick pull out of computing and payment services provided by US companies. For many countries, the US has their industries, economies and therefore governments by the balls. This kind of power could be used, in the extreme, to bring entire countries or regions to a chaotic standstill by ordering the US tech companies to turn it all off.
If I had written this three months ago, I would have been accused of scaremongering. Writing it now just feels chilling.
You state: "are legal-but-cynical tax efforts at reducing their tax bills"
Isn't that just basic fiscal responsibility? Pay the least amount in taxes you are legally required to pay. How many of you that will complain about that simple statement volunteer to pay additional taxes you don't have to?
At some stage (and it;'s likely very soon) the USA's "allies" will get sick of all the shit and simply impose the taxes, then kick back HARD against any more economic warfare
Once upon a time the USA was the big dog of the world's economy. It hasn't gotten any smaller, but the global economy is 7 times larger than it was in 1990 and there are 3-4 other dogs almost as big as the USA - meaning that they can no longer dictate terms to the rest of the planet - something that's been happening since the 1850s
For proof this has happened, look at the 2011 recession. in past decades this would have led to a 30-40 year long depression as happened in the 19th century (long depression) or a 10 year+ 1926 style Great Depression (which was only short circuited by massive government spending, else it would have lasted into the 1950s)
I work alongside a man who has flung himself head first into AI and merrily spends his days using GPT or whatever to generate images for larks. I asked if he could do one for me. It was going to be a picture of an anus, with a caption, "Can you guess what it is?" the image starts zooming out and the pic starts to look like a landscape of bumholes. As it zooms out further it becomes apparent we were looking at a magnified skin pore on Donald Trumps head.
The end caption states "You were right first time"
Trouble is, through that request, I discovered my go to AI pal was a rabid Trump fan. Oh, he was such a sweet guy as well, and his kids will miss him once he's sectioned.
So, any of you Trump haters out there want to give birth to "Can you guess what it is yet"?
It'll put a smile on several billion faces, and might even save the world.
he's a twat AND he's actively evil - look at the hundreds of court cases he's lost
BTW if you really want to upset him, make sure there's a bowl of potato salad on display where he can see it, that or simply point and laugh.
Hatred he can take. Being ridiculed is what REALLY gets under his skin
The possibly contentious part is that the world is reaching the dog eat dog stage of capitalism (even more so than before).
Currently most of us commenting live in a relatively wealthy nation that to a not inconsiderable degree owes a comfortable lifestyle to shitting on people in less wealthy countries. We're all guilty of this, it's simply a matter of degree. The EU has many advantages but is also a protectionist trade bloc.
Amazingly Trump is less stupid than some of the Democrats. Both Trump (and in the UK, Starmer) understand what voters care about is how much money they perceive they have in their pocket (which is subtly different to how much they actually have, and definitely different than cost advantages public services provide to the voter i.e. the horror if US type healthcare insurance reaches the UK).
Part of the reasons some of the Americans that matter (i.e. the ones that vote based on income instead of selflessly to some degree) are disadvantaged is because of US policy, and how incredibly broken the country is. Part of it is due to globalisation. Trump isn't about to do anything about how broken the US is, even Obama didn't manage to make headway into some of America's ills. Neither are they going to take UK Labour's approach where they possibly try and do what they think is a good job (I'm being optimistic here), and do a slight of hand where the tax rises that everyone with two braincells knew were coming are applied to businesses instead so as to meet the public statements fed to the terminally brain dead who were possibly not going to vote Tory but needed to know it wouldn't hit them directly in the pocket.
So, instead he's going to 'make America great again' - which supposedly means more money in the average person's pocket, and the strategy is to fuck over anyone whatsoever that is not the US. As part of that he gets to line his own pockets, long term consequences aren't important as he's limited to two terms (yes, I know there's controversy about if that will happen), and will then swan off into the sunset.
This was obvious on day one, and before then too. It's just that Trump is subtle as a brick with some of the political maneuvering.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
