#msft

Brynjolf's life doesn't allow for a real relationship, never has and never will. The Guild, its clients, keeping an eye out for recruits, checking the vault, there's hardly enough time in his days to eat. Becoming the Guild Master has plopped you into the same chaos. Your days are a whirl of meetings and contracts, dealing with schedules and keeping everyone in line. Just thinking about it makes your head pound. You may not have evenings free for lavish dates or time to maintain a relationship but you can always carve out twenty minutes together. There's no time to be soft or shy, you know you want him as badly as he wants you. Armor is tossed aside and greedy hands keep your bodies pressed together. There is no time for tenderness when Brynjolf hauls you into the storage closet or you drag him into the vault, just pure need that can only be sated together. The way he looks at you strikes fear into your heart. Rough hands keep you pinned to the cold stone wall and he's gazing at you like he could fall in love. He knows you, knows every little sound you make and what the mean. Brynjolf pants your name when he's about to cum, always cutting off the admissions of love that threaten to spill out. But oh, how you adore him. Maybe someday the stars will align and you can be with him in a way that fulfills you both. For now these stolen moments will have to be enough.

Farkas makes no secret of how badly he wants you. The pet names, the careless touches, the way his shreds of free time are spent following you around Jorrvaskr. He loves to watch you work, gazing across your desk and thinking about the life you'll have together when you aren't drowning in work and someone else can shoulder some of his assignments. That same lovesick look is on his face when he fucks you. Farkas loves the way you fall apart in his hold, moaning his name like its a mantra. His heart swells every time your fingers twist into his hair or you leave biting kisses on his chest, praying that you'll leave another mark. A little piece of you to carry with him. He has to leave again in a few hours. Farkas can't even remember which Hold he's being sent to. It's what he'd intended to ask upon entering your office, he swears it. But you'd looked up at him with such shameless lust that he'd forgotten anything that wasn't you. "Love you," he gasps into your sweaty skin. He doesn't care if you know, everyone knows. You're already twitching with every rough thrust of his hips and whining his name, he does care if you know.

Teldryn's lifestyle isn't exactly hospitable for a relationship. You are constantly on the move and Teldryn's juggling requests from patrons, half of the time you're on different continents. It just doesn't work. Whenever a job is offered on Solstheim you're taking it praying that Teldryn is in town and free. He'll never admit to cancelling on numerous patrons when he sees you bounding up the docks. "Sorry." He'll mutter, tossing back their bag of coin. "Can't do it. Something more important came up." He savors every moment with you. Teldryn loves to watch you blush each time he refuses your coin, tucking his scarf around your face. "Told you to cover up." He fusses, refusing to move away once his hands creep to your shoulders. It never takes long. Teldryn listens to you rant about whatever annoyance the Greybeards or some Jarl has caused, his comforting touch on your back not enough to quench the endless need within him. A hand on your back becomes an arm around your shoulder, your body drifting closer until you hold onto him as you trek across the island. His needless fixes at your scarf lead to him kissing your warm cheeks, his lips always finding their way to yours. "This'll be the last time." You say for the fifth time. Teldryn's kisses trail down your throat and skillful hands gather your hair, his chuckle against your skin. "Mhm." He agrees halfheartedly. He doesn't bother making the same promises, he'll never get enough of you. "We should be professional, Tel." Oh, your little nickname sends a shiver down his spine. He grins at the way you say this despite your fingers splayed under his shirt. Maybe this time will be enough, his appetite for you will be sated. Teldryn doubts it when you clamber into his lap and kiss him, desperate and heavy with words neither one of you is willing to say.

Well, yes…and no. Despite flaws (Right to Be Forgotten), the GDPR has strong, well-crafted, badly needed privacy protections. But to get those protections, Europeans need their privacy regulators to enforce the rules.

That’s where the GDPR miracle founders. Europe includes several tax-havens — Malta, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland — that compete to offer the most favorable terms to international corporations and other criminals. For these havens, paying little to no tax is just table-stakes. As these countries vie to sell themselves out to giant companies, they compete to offer a favorable regulatory environment, insulating companies from lawsuits over corruption, labor abuses and other crimes.

All of this is made possible — and even encouraged — by the design of European federalism, which lets companies easily shift which flag of convenience they fly. Once a company re-homes in a country, it can force Europeans across the union to seek justice in that country’s courts, under the looming threat that the company will up sticks for another haven if the law doesn’t bend over backwards to protect corporate citizens from the grievances of flesh-and-blood humans.

Big Tech’s most aggressive privacy invaders have long flown Irish flags. Ireland is “headquarters” to Google, Meta, Tinder, Apple, Airbnb, Yahoo and many other tech companies. In exchange for locating a handful of jobs to Ireland, these companies are allowed to maintain the pretense that their global earnings are afloat in the Irish Sea, in a state of perfect, untaxable grace.

That cozy relationship meant that the US tech giants were well-situated to sabotage Ireland’s privacy regulator, who would be the first port of call for Europeans whose privacy had been violated by American firms. For many years, it’s been obvious that the Irish Data Protection Commission was a sleeping watchdog, with infinite tolerance for the companies that pretend to make Ireland their homes. 87% of Irish data protection claims involve just eight giant US companies (that pretend to be Irish).

But among for hardened GDPR warriors, the real extent of the Data Protection Commissioner’s uselessness is genuinely shocking. A new report from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties reveals that the DPC isn’t merely tolerant of privacy crimes, they’re gamekeepers turned poachers, active collaborators in privacy abuse:

https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/5-years-GDPR-crisis.pdf

The report’s headline figure really tells the story: the European Data Protection Board — which oversees Ireland’s DPC — overturns the Irish regulator’s judgments 75% of the time. It’s actually worse than it appears: that figure only includes appeals of the DPC’s enforcement actions, where the DPC bestirred itself to put on trousers and show up for work to investigate a privacy claim, only to find that the corporation was utterly blameless.

But the DPC almost never takes enforcement actions. Instead, the regulator remains in its pajamas, watching cartoons and eating breakfast cereal, and offers an “amicable resolution” (that is, a settlement) to the accused company. 83% of the cases brought before the DPC are settled with an “amicable resolution.”

Corporations can bargain for multiple, consecutive amicable resolutions, allowing them to repeatedly break the law and treat the fines — which they negotiate themselves — as part of the price of doing business.

This is illegal. European law demands that cases that involve repeat offenders, or that are likely to affect many people, must be fully investigated.

Ireland’s government has stonewalled on calls for an independent review of the DPC. The DPC continues to abet lawlessness, allowing corporations to use privacy invasive techniques for surveillance, discrimination and manipulation. In 2022, the DPC concluded 64% of its cases with mere reprimands — not even a slap on the wrist.

Meanwhile, the DPC trails the EU in issuing “compliance orders” — which directly regulate the conduct of privacy-invading companies — only issuing 49 such orders in the past 4.5 years. The DPC has only issues 28 of the GDPR’s “one-stop-shop” fines.

The EU has 26 other national privacy regulators, but under the GDPR, they aren’t allowed to act until the DPC delivers its draft decisions. The DPC is lavishly funded, with a budget in the EU’s top five, but all that money gets pissed up against a wall, with inaction ruling the day.

Despite the collusion between the tech giants and the Irish state, time is running out for America’s surveillance-crazed tech monopolists. The GDPR does allow Europeans to challenge the DPR’s do-nothing rulings in European court, after a long, meandering process. That process is finally bearing fruit: in 2021, Johnny Ryan and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties brought a case in Germany against the ad-tech lobby group IAB:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/16/inside-the-clock-tower/#inference

And the activist Max Schrems and the group NOYB brought a case against Google in Austria:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/15/out-here-everything-hurts/#noyb

But Europeans should not have to drag tech giants out of Ireland to get justice. It’s long past time for the EU to force Ireland to clean up its act. The EU Commission is set to publish a proposal on how to reform Ireland’s DPA, but more muscular action is needed. In the new report, the Irish Council For Civil Liberties calls on the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, to treat this issue with the urgency and seriousness that it warrants. As the ICCL says, “the EU can not be a regulatory superpower unless it enforces its own laws.”

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

[Image ID: A toddler playing with toy cars. The cars are Irish police cars. The toddler's head has been replaced with the menacing, glowing red eye of HAL9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The toddler's knit cap is decorated with the logos for Apple, Google, Facebook and Tinder.]

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg