... One overlooked aspect of the emerging legal architecture
that they enact is that, barring a Greece-like rebellion from
the citizens, Europe will eventually sacrifice its strong and
much-cherished commitment to data protection. This protectionist
stance – aimed, above all, at protecting citizens from excessive
corporate and state intrusion – is increasingly at odds with the
“grab everything” mentality of contemporary capitalism.
A recent
op-ed penned by Carl Bildt, the perennial hawk of Swedish
politics and now also chair of the Global Commission on Internet
Governance, a thinktank, captures that neoliberal mentality
quite accurately. According to Bildt: “Barriers against the free
flow of data are, in effect, barriers against trade.” By the
same token, building fences around your house is also an offence
against capitalism. Who knows what kinds of advertising deals
could be made with your data?
Of course, if the only stick to measure our technology policy
is how well it advances the interests of corporations, then
there’s much to dislike about data protection and virtually all
privacy laws. And soon this very well might be our only stick:
the most hideous aspect of the three trade agreements currently
under negotiation is precisely that they describe a world devoid
of any other political actors; it’s just companies out there.
Then, a plethora of op-eds and thinktank reports – many of them
published with industry funding – rush to validate such framings
by claiming that the treaties do not go far enough to consider
all the other factors that affect trade and economic growth –
once again, as if there is no world outside the corporate
bubble.