Canada needs to consider its digital independence from the domination of the United States. Participating in the Eurostack initiative offers a way to do so.

European governments have attempted to rein in Silicon Valley’s excesses for years. Trump’s re-election and his moves toward potentially weaponizing internet data have further boosted Europe’s resolve to move away from the U.S.-led internet.

One newer effort is Eurostack. A joint initiative involving academics, policymakers, companies and governments, it envisions an independent digital ecosystem that better reflects European values — democratic, sovereign, inclusive, transparent, respectful of personal privacy and innovation-driven.

Spokesperson Francesca Bria explains the “stack” arises from the idea that a digitally sovereign internet needs to have European control from the ground up.

That includes the acquisition of raw materials and manufacture and operation of the physical components that comprise computers and servers; the cloud infrastructure that has the processing power and storage to be operational at scale; the operating systems and applications that comprise the user interface; the AI models and algorithms that drive services and its policy and governance framework.

Prospective gains to Europe are considerable. They include greater cybersecurity, promoting innovation, keeping high-end creative jobs in Europe, promoting collaboration on equitable terms and creating high-skilled employment opportunities.

Canada receives no mention in the Eurostack proposal to date, but the project is still very much in the developmental phase. Investment so far is in the tens of millions instead of the billions it will require.

Canada has a lot to offer and to gain from being part of the Eurostack initiative. With the project still taking shape, now is the perfect time to get on board.

  • Reannlegge@lemmy.ca
    5·
    2 days ago

    I am a firm believer in not getting advertised to and making my data as worthless as possible to the ad market. I started using a pihole setup in my home network so that I could block most advertisements and trackers. When apple started offering hide my email I started taking advantage of that. I live in Saskatchewan so we do not have all the rights that a data broker remover can take advantage of but I paid for a year of that. To say I never got spammed again would be a lie but I live without a junk mail filter so that things do not get stuck in there when they are not supposed to, but that is besides the point, after doing the things I did I would get maybe one or two spam emails a week.

    After the boycott the US movement started I did some actual shopping around for somewhere to host my blog, just somewhere I can scream into the abyss with, instead of falling victim to marketing. I found hosthero.ca and with the package I got I have unlimited email addresses, it was going to be less expensive for me to split all my services apart and keep them in Canada than it was going to be to have them altogether, sure it is not as easy for somethings but it is not hard for me to work around it. 1Password, replaced apple’s password manager and sync.com replaced all the other things minus the iCloud Drive I have because Apple does not let you back up anywhere else for now.

    I really got into separating my email stuff about a week ago. While I was doing that I found out that my ISP had moved to an exchange server for email so I thought about it and started moving everything off of there. As of today most things have their own email address, I have 140 some different email addresses that all forward to 5 or 6 different email addresses for me to check in my mail app on my iPad or iPhone, some of the addresses that forward to those emails can send emails from my devices as well.

  • mrbn@lemmy.ca
    53·
    2 days ago

    Canada has a lot to offer and to gain from being part of the Eurostack initiative.

    I think The Conversation just wrapped news about Eurostack in Canada wrapping paper to get views.

    Canada can’t be a part of Eurostack; its goal is bring everything (tech) in-house. Aside investing capital so Eurostack can hit its lofty 300 billion euro goal in 10 years, I dont see what Canada can offer or gain from this. If the “gain” is that we stop Canadian dependence on US tech, we’d just be swapping one overlord for another.

    Yes, of course we could reduce our dependence on US tech, but Canada should be stealing this page from Europe’s playbook and making their own Euro Canstack