Case in point: my new Mac purchased in Switzerland and activated in Poland on my US Apple account required me to provide my age in the setup assistant. Neither Poland nor Switzerland or the US have this stupid law. Yet Apple is already doing it's part to eliminate my privacy.
I was trying to setup this Mac with NO iCloud account thus it could not deduct my age from the account.
It seems to be mostly bad individuals, or just individuals with some bad ideas they refuse to give up.
The Commission are their appointed civil service and work on whatever agenda is set by the Council (the member states).
Almost everything people complain about coming out of "the EU" originates in the national elected governments.
About the only ones actually protecting the people of the MEPs (the elected EU MPs). They keep shutting this sort of stuff down, and then some member state (mostly Denmark it seems) finds a way to resurrect it again, and again, and again. They only need to succeed once.
Or, if you think that issue's too niche, look at all the talk of "sovereign clouds". It's almost all "how can we build our own giant polluting AI datacenters" and not "how do we take our data back from the Americans". Because, ultimately, the European Commission is built out of an urge to submit to capital interests. The Epstein class are puppeting the EC in exactly the same way they puppet Donald Trump.
If there is any future in the EU, it will start with abolishing the European Commission to take away the capital class's accountability sink.
[0] For legal reasons, unrelated to Stop Killing Games, but they work together
1. use "giant polluting AI data centers" in the US or China
2. build "giant polluting AI data centers" in the EU
3. do without modern technology
Option 1 fails at "how do we take our data back from the Americans" and option 3 is insanity and will fail at the ballot box. So get ready for option 2.
I think we need to start brainstorming on options 4 and 5.
Option 2 doesn't make any sense. Europe do not have any strategic advantage here, not the cheap energy, it actually doesn't have the money and it doesn't really have any strong enough capabilities in the hardware or software (yes I know about somes like ASML and open source software). Plus the price of RAM is out of control now.
Usually when you are at a strategic disadvantage you need to start thinking out of the box, or bet on the next thing. AI and "The Cloud" are not gonna be the last technology frontiers, in many ways it might be yesterday bet. It is like buying a stock close to the peak of a bubble.
The Taiwanese did not try to compete Toyota in the 80s, they created TSMC.
Of course do not expect the EU bureaucrats to do be able to do any out of the box thinking.
That seems to always be "forgotten" about how the internet is acting as a accelerationist far right platform.