Italy asks Meta, X and LinkedIn to pay VAT. Will there be retaliation from Trump?

Reuters once again raises the issue of data monetisation, but above all that of web tax and the consequent risk (now more concrete than ever) of US retaliation. How realistic is this scenario? A hypothesis by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian on Italian Tech – La Repubblica
Continue reading “Italy asks Meta, X and LinkedIn to pay VAT. Will there be retaliation from Trump?”

Those on Big Tech are the only duties the EU (and Italy) cannot afford

The geopolitical role of information technology and the unavoidable dependence on US technology make the option of 15% tariffs on Big Tech, in reaction to Trump’s aggressiveness towards the EU and Italy, simply impracticable by Andrea Monti – Initially published in Italian by Italian Tech – La Repubblica Continue reading “Those on Big Tech are the only duties the EU (and Italy) cannot afford”

Meta’s threat is the result of European hypocrisy and cultural subordination to North American models

Like a sovereign state, Meta-Facebook is announcing possible “sanctions” against another (non-)sovereign state, the European Union, because of its policy choices on personal data protection. After decades of guilty inertia, some national data protection authorities (the Austrian and German ones, in particular) have woken up from their torpor and discovered that Google’s ecosystem creates some problems for the rights of citizens of EU Member States. Better late than never? Comments on the news superficially focused on the tired narrative of ‘privacy protection’ and the risk that US authorities might access data imported by Google. However, these analyses fail to grasp some structural aspects of the affair.  by Andrea Monti – Initially published in Italian on Strategikon – an Italian Tech blog. Continue reading “Meta’s threat is the result of European hypocrisy and cultural subordination to North American models”