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Back to EU

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71–80 of 110 posts

Re: Back to EU

#71
post #64
post #38

"What the UK government is proposing is going to put us on the same footing as US companies when it comes to dealing with EU customers, ie under the auspice of a regime that can’t be trusted." Not sure you want to alienate the US just to score some political points when by you own admission - the bulk of your business is with the US ( a country that has a larger patriotic base than the UK and more experience of how t…

> any US company can implement a more stringent data policy beyond the scope of legal remit within the country of operations Theoretically, yes, you are right. But some companies are just going to say, oh, you are based in the US, let's look for a different vendor. It's not even necessarily about the GDPR. For example, US companies tend to send really shitty invoices. There's barely any info on the invoice, some don'…

> If I buy services from the EU, I can assume that they comply with the GDPR, and I know that I'll get a proper invoice with VAT, and I won't have trouble with the tax authorities.

VAT and invoices are part of GDPR? Financial regulations yes - sure, of which the UK is pretty darn good upon.

But if a company invoices you with bad invoices then you can just refuse them and ask the correct and resubmit - even in the USA. As you say, you need them done right for tax reasons and believe me, countries and tax laws are tight, so to ask a company to redo it with the missing information is hardly going to be an issue - more so if they want paying.

The whole aspect of assurance of compliance you make though - very valid point. Just shame such things like GDPR need to be driven by countries and not some global standard that could be audited and approved that is not tied or limited by any country.

So if there was say some International standard with an ISO number outlining such standards, companies could adopt that and get certified compliant and it gets driven that way. As with many standards, adoption by insurance/reinsurance companies goes a long way indeed.

Re: Back to EU

#72

Why posted on the personal blog instead of the company site?

Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that. Appreciate that as CEO these lines are blurred but I endeavoured to show some understanding of boundaries by publishing in this way. We will be providing more formal documentation about how customers can transact with us through the new entity and take advantage of the new oversight.

Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that

The whole thing is about the company. Not washing.

Re: Back to EU

#73
post #5

Interestingly the Dutch have been very keen to capture Tech companies (or at least make it an attractive place for employees). There is a low flat tax rate (30% iirc) for some years (was 5 when I last checked) if you're working in an "in-demand" sector, and tech is one of those sectors. This is somewhat controversial from what I understand, not all of the Dutch like it, and I understand why: it's not really very fair…

I have recently moved to NL and am making use of the 30% tax ruling. To me, another attraction was the exemption from capital gains for the 5 years I have 30% ruling. If I get lucky with my investments, I can get more out of them.

Re: Back to EU

#74
post #26

Honestly what we need in the UK is a Back to the EU campaign that formulates a long term strategy for returning. In two decades England's Baby Boomer generation will no longer hold the reigns of power in the country (please God) and those in charge will have come from a generation that overwhelmingly voted Remain.

Why would the EU ever want us back? Really? By the time England's population becomes strongly in favour of rejoining, our economy will have been fairly trashed, we won't be a significant player, the EU will have done just fine without us for ages, why would they ever let a former member that caused a bunch of trouble, back in? What's in it for them? Also I'm not convinced England's population ever will be in strong f…

> Why would the EU ever want us back?

It solves a lot of problems for Ireland, assuming Northern Ireland hasn't rejoined the Republic first.

Re: Back to EU

#75
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite is the word "angstschreeuw" (cry/shout of fear), which is the word with the most consecutive consonants in the Dutch dictionary.

Along with “herfstschraalte” (autumnal skimpiness).

I'm not sure that is in the dictionary. You can get more consonants with slechtstschrijvend and zachtstschrijdend, which are perfectly normal Dutch words but unlikely to end up in the dictionary (worst-writing and softest-treading). With the transliterated Russian borsjtsj you can get one more: borsjtsjschrokkend (Borscht-devouring).

Re: Back to EU

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a global identity company in the UK - we don't have such problems. I'm afraid this blog post is nothing but grandstanding.

For how long now? Could it be that many EU potential customers haven't even talked to your company since 2016, and the people who are still talking to you are the ones who aren't worried about exporting their data outside of the EU?

Plenty of new customers since 2016, worldwide. Aren't worried about identity data, but are worried about their calendar?

Re: Back to EU

#77
post #51

The UK has launched a consolution on how to improve Data Protection Laws. One campaign on this consultation is to abolish the stupid Cookie Consent requirement, that is evidenced again and again to be wholley pointless. Anouther campaign with this consultation is to enable medical researches to use anonomised NHS data. The National Health Service (NHS) is huge and useing that data could usher in some great medical ad…

> use anonomised NHS data

If you've successfully anonymized it, it's no longer personal data subject to GDPR?

Re: Back to EU

#78
post #34

A recent ruling (namely the Schrems II one) makes it very complicated to host and process data in countries that we used to consider as having "equivalent" privacy protection. The most prominent of course is the USA, but the UK could be on the line at some point. For now it has an "adequacy decision"[1] allowing such transfer, but future changes could threaten that, and activist such as Max Schrems would happily (and…

I think the UK will be fine for a while because they still enforce their implementation of the GDPR. Once those laws change, though, I'd definitely avoid storing or processing any data over there.

I don't think the UK has that much to offer in terms of cloud and storage. All the big brands are in continental Europe or Ireland. The real impact would more likely be that externalised services that some European businesses contract dedicated companies in the UK for (payroll, data analysis, marketing, insurance, etc.) could suddenly become a subject to strict privacy rules that would make it impossible to continue if the UK were to be dropped of the whitelist.

Re: Back to EU

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a global identity company in the UK - we don't have such problems. I'm afraid this blog post is nothing but grandstanding.

For how long now? Could it be that many EU potential customers haven't even talked to your company since 2016, and the people who are still talking to you are the ones who aren't worried about exporting their data outside of the EU?

I presume EU customers mostly use non-EU operating systems, browsers, other software. I find it hard to believe there's a real barrier.

Re: Back to EU

#80
post #26

Honestly what we need in the UK is a Back to the EU campaign that formulates a long term strategy for returning. In two decades England's Baby Boomer generation will no longer hold the reigns of power in the country (please God) and those in charge will have come from a generation that overwhelmingly voted Remain.

Why would the EU ever want us back? Really? By the time England's population becomes strongly in favour of rejoining, our economy will have been fairly trashed, we won't be a significant player, the EU will have done just fine without us for ages, why would they ever let a former member that caused a bunch of trouble, back in? What's in it for them? Also I'm not convinced England's population ever will be in strong f…

Twenty years is a long time, the way things will pan out is an open game.

I think more realistic than a trashed economy will be a hyper-neoliberal free market economy with even huger discrepancies between the rich few and the vast majority of poor, with GM crops, terrible workers rights, masses of migrant workers without access to the welfare state, meaningless digital rights, housing and offices in London owned by the world's rich who extract rent from those who live here, and so on. A sorry situation from the perspective of EU rights, but not necessarily a catastrophe from a hardcore-neoliberal perspective.

I'd bet on the UK becoming a low-punching competitor to EU economies, and one they'd perhaps be keen to have on their side.

The question is how we in the UK are transformed by the whole affair.

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