I absolutely appreciate and agree with the sentiment, but can't figure out what the proposition actually is. The thesis seems to be: "Here's a problem. We want to solve it." Aaaaaaaaaaaand ... that's it. Exactly how are you going to solve it? Or, if "exactly" is too much of an ask, could we at least have a "vaguely"? Seems like it needs more meat on the bones!
The cookie banner code is broken, it doesn't show on my browser, making the website not react to cursors when scrolling, and mouse clicks aren't handled.
I only knew there is a bad cookie banner when I've opened the website in another browser.
I really like this idea but I have a few questions.
Suppose I am an indian developer interested to work with European Data sovereignity because imo I value privacy personally just as much as the EU population and it would be great to be more connected and wishing to connect with them more.
So I have thought of using EU options in my servers/services if I use them for the most part and I can even swap out to completely European if need be.
So let's say to be a part of this? should I be an European company? If so, I even looked at it on how to establish a company in Europe rather easily (preferably a lean company) and It seems that Estonia seems the best way for me to create an EU company from my country without too much hassle but the costs of operation does feel like a lot for just starting out let's say.
I am also not sure about the fact that given I live in India, Some data sharing arrangement can be generated or would I have to actually migrate to say EU (which although I love EU, I currently appreciate my country as well and migration is a hassle right now)
I wish if such a manifesto could work for India and EU and a deeper integration could be made between the two countries about such tech related software or other as I have been a vocal supporter of European tech providers like hetzner,ovh etc. and they are even cheaper than american hyperscalers in many/most cases.
Edit/Update: After countless discussions in here and other (thanks to everyone for giving suggestions!)
I have decided to be transparent and here's what I will most likely do if I ever create a company.
I would firstly create an Indian company & operate it as such. I will try to be GDPR compliant from day one, and still use EU providers/privacy providing services instead of hyperscalers in general.
Instead of trying to get a legal thing which says EU first or India first, I will try to be privacy first, by open sourcing things or relying and contributing to either open source or at the very least source available licenses (so that people can indepdently audit, I prefer using open source but we will see how much monetizable it is, I am not looking for too much money as I am frugal but still I do want sustainability, I might start out source available and pledge to release it open source once the project might reach enough users let's say or I can earn "enough" with a proper definition)
So a big emphasis on privacy & sustainability. most EU cloud options are definitely green as well (like Netcup) so I can get that checkbox available as well most likely but there isn't any guarantee but still my point is I would still try to keep Climate change in mind as a factor hopefully too while still optimizing for a good enough price range.
I will also create a blog post probably highlighting all of this and also the fact that I am willing to go EU first if my product would focus on EU/actually trends with EU consumers/businesses & then I will establish an estonia company as people have said here and make my Indian company the subsidiary of my estonian company and use either a fin-tech solution either from the start of my Indian company which could support SEPA or other EU solutions or I will do it afterwards with a proper bank account/fin-tech support after I make an estonian company (which I would if my project can make say make some fixed amount of money most likely from EU customers such that the 1000 euros or more becomes a reasonable investment, or If I ever create a EU branch, my point is I will try to make the EU branch the head branch and Indian branch subsidiary and not vice versa hopefully though, currently please take what I am saying with a grain of salt as I can be wrong I usually am, I am just figuring out life :] and how to build and live off of building things that I myself would enjoy working on/the ideas around it like infrastructure decisions etc!)
My point is I am very much more open to work with sustainability/privacy goals with a more focus on open source and probably try not to take any VC funding hopefully and still be day one profitable & transparent/sustainable. Nothing's set in stone right now but hopefully I am able to explain what I think about these ideas.
There's an immediate solution: local-first software.
Keeping app data purely server-side is no longer viable for customers with data sovereignty requirements, and having a toggle button saying 'Keep my data in Europe' isn't enough either because it places too much trust in the SaaS provider.
With network monitoring verifying local applications are accessing user-verified endpoints, privacy reduces to OS-level security.
This is a good thing and a required first step, but it's a drop in the sea.
All MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android are all produced by the USA. Virtually all chips as well.
It is foolish to assume there are not backdoors in every one of them.
Meaning we should assume the USA can shut down the entire Europe's IT if they really want to.
Then you got the authentication systems, security software (antivirus, proxies like cloudflare, crowdstrike and so on), the various Saas (docs editors, drives, ticket systems, chats...), the payment systems (including Visa and swift, but also Paypal, google pay, stripe, etc), the software stores, the root DNS, the SSL root certificates and a ton of network hardware.
Given the current political situation, it's a very bad spot to be in.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 23.0 ms ] threadI only knew there is a bad cookie banner when I've opened the website in another browser.
Have mercy, webmasters.
Suppose I am an indian developer interested to work with European Data sovereignity because imo I value privacy personally just as much as the EU population and it would be great to be more connected and wishing to connect with them more.
So I have thought of using EU options in my servers/services if I use them for the most part and I can even swap out to completely European if need be.
So let's say to be a part of this? should I be an European company? If so, I even looked at it on how to establish a company in Europe rather easily (preferably a lean company) and It seems that Estonia seems the best way for me to create an EU company from my country without too much hassle but the costs of operation does feel like a lot for just starting out let's say.
I am also not sure about the fact that given I live in India, Some data sharing arrangement can be generated or would I have to actually migrate to say EU (which although I love EU, I currently appreciate my country as well and migration is a hassle right now)
I wish if such a manifesto could work for India and EU and a deeper integration could be made between the two countries about such tech related software or other as I have been a vocal supporter of European tech providers like hetzner,ovh etc. and they are even cheaper than american hyperscalers in many/most cases.
I have decided to be transparent and here's what I will most likely do if I ever create a company.
I would firstly create an Indian company & operate it as such. I will try to be GDPR compliant from day one, and still use EU providers/privacy providing services instead of hyperscalers in general.
Instead of trying to get a legal thing which says EU first or India first, I will try to be privacy first, by open sourcing things or relying and contributing to either open source or at the very least source available licenses (so that people can indepdently audit, I prefer using open source but we will see how much monetizable it is, I am not looking for too much money as I am frugal but still I do want sustainability, I might start out source available and pledge to release it open source once the project might reach enough users let's say or I can earn "enough" with a proper definition)
So a big emphasis on privacy & sustainability. most EU cloud options are definitely green as well (like Netcup) so I can get that checkbox available as well most likely but there isn't any guarantee but still my point is I would still try to keep Climate change in mind as a factor hopefully too while still optimizing for a good enough price range.
I will also create a blog post probably highlighting all of this and also the fact that I am willing to go EU first if my product would focus on EU/actually trends with EU consumers/businesses & then I will establish an estonia company as people have said here and make my Indian company the subsidiary of my estonian company and use either a fin-tech solution either from the start of my Indian company which could support SEPA or other EU solutions or I will do it afterwards with a proper bank account/fin-tech support after I make an estonian company (which I would if my project can make say make some fixed amount of money most likely from EU customers such that the 1000 euros or more becomes a reasonable investment, or If I ever create a EU branch, my point is I will try to make the EU branch the head branch and Indian branch subsidiary and not vice versa hopefully though, currently please take what I am saying with a grain of salt as I can be wrong I usually am, I am just figuring out life :] and how to build and live off of building things that I myself would enjoy working on/the ideas around it like infrastructure decisions etc!)
My point is I am very much more open to work with sustainability/privacy goals with a more focus on open source and probably try not to take any VC funding hopefully and still be day one profitable & transparent/sustainable. Nothing's set in stone right now but hopefully I am able to explain what I think about these ideas.
Keeping app data purely server-side is no longer viable for customers with data sovereignty requirements, and having a toggle button saying 'Keep my data in Europe' isn't enough either because it places too much trust in the SaaS provider.
With network monitoring verifying local applications are accessing user-verified endpoints, privacy reduces to OS-level security.
AI slop again?
All MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android are all produced by the USA. Virtually all chips as well.
It is foolish to assume there are not backdoors in every one of them.
Meaning we should assume the USA can shut down the entire Europe's IT if they really want to.
Then you got the authentication systems, security software (antivirus, proxies like cloudflare, crowdstrike and so on), the various Saas (docs editors, drives, ticket systems, chats...), the payment systems (including Visa and swift, but also Paypal, google pay, stripe, etc), the software stores, the root DNS, the SSL root certificates and a ton of network hardware.
Given the current political situation, it's a very bad spot to be in.