German privacy watchdogs conclude that Microsoft 365 is incompatible with GDPR

I would argue it's basically impossible to have an internet connected app that does not run afoul of GDPR in one way or another. It's really just a question of how much of GDPR can you comply with at a reasonable cost or a better strategy is to do your best to comply with the spirit of GDPR, if not the letter.

Getting the balance of this right to prevent a tragedy of the commons turns out to be hard. Element (who funds most of Matrix dev) has released almost everything we do as permissive-licensed FOSS open source. As a result, there's a huge ecosystem of folks building commercial solutions on Matrix. But surprisingly little $ actually gets back to Element (or the Matrix Foundation) from those commercial solutions, if any.

That’s very unsustainable for Europe and great for the US since the latter gets the most productive years.

I don't really understand the GDPR, maybe because I'm not a lawyer.

For example, the GDPR states:

>An establishment's failure to designate an EU Representative is considered ignorance of the regulation and relevant obligations, which itself is a violation of the GDPR subject to fines of up to €10 million or up to 2% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater. The intentional or negligent (willful blindness) character of the infringement (failure to designate an EU Representative) may rather constitute aggravating factors.... Businesses must report data breaches to national supervisory authorities within 72 hours if they have an adverse effect on user privacy. In some cases, violators of the GDPR may be fined up to €20 million or up to 4% of the annual worldwide turnover of the preceding financial year in case of an enterprise, whichever is greater...

Why have neither of these been done? Speaking as an American who has spent his entire adult life advocating on these issues, it personally offends me when I basically get myself punted out of so called civil society trying to get a law like this enacted, and then our so called "allies" across the pond refuse to utilize it.

Here in "The States", folks used to joke "I'll believe corporations are people when they execute one in Texas"... given the EU's views on the death penalty, maybe some of these companies should be given what the Chinese would call "death with a suspended sentence"[1] -- fine them the full two to four percent, and use that money to fund things like universal health care, pensions, and the rebuilding of critical infrastructure instead of... well, based on my last trip to Tim Hortons[2], it looks like the new hotness is building a buncha condos that sit empty and drive up the rents -- but it's been a while, so I'll let any Canadians who want to wander in below and give their thoughts the floor.

The above is what I like to call "venture socialism". It is not communism, it is not even really socialism, more just... republicanism. But I can understand why even that feels violent and oppressive to... some people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_sentence_with_reprieve [2] Fun fact: for many Americans, the cost of a passport, let alone an international vacation is out of bounds -- once you understand this, a lot of the past four to forty years begins to make sense.

More likely, someone will figure out a corporate structure that makes the EU subsidiaries out of reach from the US government. It's obvious that eventually all US-based services will be declared in breach of the GDPR given the US stance on global surveillance.