Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 152

like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Twitter that proit
from selling information about users to advertisers. It would be much
more dificult for these irms, especially Facebook and Google, to proit if
they were not free to market this information. Most of the $1.1 billion in
proit that Facebook earned in 2012 came to the company because adver-
tisers were interested in targeted marketing to its users. 4 By strengthening
companies reliant on selling user data, weak privacy protections better
enable them to compete in global markets. Such has been the case for
leading search and social-media companies in the cloud, particularly as
they target markets in the developed world, such as in Europe and Canada.
However, in these places companies run into resistance from those who
prefer a stronger privacy regime, especially one that does not subject them
to the USA PATRIOT Act and other cyber-security laws. Even though
Americans are increasingly restive about data privacy (Gross 2013), U.S.
business has fought back iercely against EU attempts to strengthen privacy
laws with lobbying led by the American Chamber of Commerce and IT
companies, headed by Google and Facebook, that would beneit the most
from loosening data security in the EU.
Until 2013, the EU was adamant in its resistance to the lobbying bar-
rage and high-level pressure ( RT T News 2013). However, in a weakened
economic position and desperate to boost economic activity, the EU began
to back off from its resistance in 2013. In fact, one can date this change
almost precisely to March 6, 2013, one of the more remarkable in the
history of the EU's dealings with the United States, because it began with
a decision that demonstrably afirmed the EU's determination to enforce
the law and ended with what can only be described as capitulation to
American power. The irst announcement out of Brussels was for a $732
million ine against Microsoft because the company failed to live up to
an agreement to offer Windows customers easy access to alternatives to
Internet Explorer, the company's own web browser. Microsoft claimed
that a “technical error” kept the company from offering user choice on
some of its products and, in addition to paying the ine, agreed to make
a correction. Since it took over a year for the company's failure to come
to light, and then only after its rivals, including Google, brought it to
the EU's attention, the commission was chastised for lax enforcement.
Nevertheless, the size of the ine gave some indication that Brussels was
prepared to get tough when necessary (Kanter 2013). That conclusion