Microsoft vows to respect European laws amid US-EU trade tensions
Microsoft has promised its European customers that it is committed to respecting European laws, in an attempt to reassure a key market as trade and geopolitical uncertainties grow under US President Donald Trump.
"As a multinational company, we believe in trans-Atlantic ties that promote mutual economic growth and prosperity," Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote in a blog post published on Wednesday.
He stressed that the US tech company was subject to local laws, regulations and governments.
"Like every citizen and company, we don't always agree with every policy of every government. But even when we've lost cases in European courts, Microsoft has long respected and complied with European laws," Smith added.
He also said the company would continue to protect the privacy of European data and support the development of a broad ecosystem for artificial intelligence solutions and cloud applications across Europe.
Smith emphasized that this includes European competition law and the European Union's Digital Markets Act.
European customers are losing confidence in tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon since Trump took office.
The US president has dismissed almost all the members of a key committee responsible for monitoring the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which governs the secure exchange of personal data across the Atlantic.
Many Microsoft customers now fear that the US company's services no longer comply with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To counter fears that the Trump administration could gain access to European data, Smith said Microsoft would offer additional security and encryption options in the future to prevent third parties - including Microsoft - from accessing customer data.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Android Authority
22 minutes ago
- Android Authority
Google Search launches what could be its most useful experiment in years: Preferred Sources
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google Search surfaces recent news posts from various outlets in Top Stories. So far, you haven't had much say over the news outlets Google chooses as relevant. With its new Preferred Sources experiment in Labs, you can select your favorite publishers for their content to stand out. It's easy to forget, if you didn't live through it, just how much of a game-changer Google Search was when it first debuted in the late 90s. While we had options like Lycos and AltaVista for years, Google just made it so much easier to find the content you were looking for. These days, though, a lot of users feel unsatisfied with the results they get from Search, with lower-quality sites, sponsored content, and AI slop making it so much harder to locate anything actually useful. While you could always continue to just search Reddit instead, this week we're learning about a new experiment that might actually help steer Search results back in the right direction. Google's got some tips for getting the most out of Search, and in sharing those, it also announces its latest Labs experiment. Once you opt in to testing it, Preferred Sources will give you the option to prioritize results from your favorite, most trusted sources. Now, before you go thinking you can just permanently tell Google to find the answer on Reddit, Preferred Sources operates on Top Stories results — so we're talking about news posts from publishing organizations, rather than social content or personal blogs. But once you turn Preferred Sources on, you'll be able to hit the star icon in the Top Stories header and choose those sites whose news stories you want to see most. Knowing Google, you shouldn't expect your Preferred Sources to exclusively populate the top spots in your Top Stories, but you'll at least see them in there when those sites have recent posts relevant to your query, marked with that same star to highlight them. And then it also looks like we're getting a row just beneath that where Google highlights results that really are just from your chosen sources. Right now, though, we haven't been able to try Preferred Sources for ourselves, despite Google's announcement making it sound like the experiment should be presently available. It's supposed to show up as an option in Search Labs for users in both the US and India, but for the moment we're just getting redirected back to the main Labs page. Hopefully we'll have a chance to give it a try soon and really get a sense for how much influence this truly offers over the results you get. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
New York Times
23 minutes ago
- New York Times
General Caine Faces His First Big Test Under Trump
In President Trump's view, generals are chest-thumping, tough-talking cheerleaders for the military and the operations he, as commander in chief, orders them to carry out. It's a view that often puts the senior military officers who serve under him in an impossible position. On Thursday morning, it fell to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to meet Mr. Trump's expectations without politicizing the institution he serves. He did it by painting an earnest, at times florid, picture of the men and women involved in the attack this weekend on Iran's nuclear site at Fordo, and largely sidestepping the question of how successful the strike had been. General Caine's first big test began with a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency this week suggesting that the attack at the site and two others in Iran had set back the country's nuclear program by only a few months, according to officials familiar with the findings. News about that report infuriated Mr. Trump, who described the strikes in social media posts as 'legendary' and insisted that Iran's nuclear sites had been 'obliterated.' At the Pentagon on Thursday, Mr. Hegseth spent 10 minutes excoriating reporters as unpatriotic and 'irresponsible.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hamilton Spectator
25 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Local tulip farmer apologizes for weather-related spring festival dilemma
After Niagara-on-the-Lake's new tulip farm saw trouble during its opening weekend this spring, with heavy rain causing the farm to flood and hours of traffic, its owner paid a visit to council last Tuesday to apologize for the tumult and establish a better relationship with the community going forward. Frank Boendermaker and his wife Jill McCourt operate TASC Tulip Pick Farm, which opened its first farm in NOTL last October. TASC operates in Canada, the U.S. and the Netherlands and also has a tulip farm in Fenwick. Boendermaker appeared as a delegate in front of the general committee of the whole during its meeting on June 17. Multiple councillors welcomed him to the town after he gave his presentation. 'We want to be in a place that fits are values,' said Boendermaker. 'This is the place we want to settle in. Let's see how we can make out.' The big event for the company is the annual TASC Tulip Festival, held on its grounds from the last week of April to the first weekend of May — this year, it was held at its new location in town on Line 3 Road. However, trouble arrived at this year's festival on May 3, making for a uniquely difficult situation for TASC, its staff and many customers. 'It was opening weekend, and it got rained out,' said Boendermaker. 'There was a massive amount of rain, about two weeks. We opened up on Saturday morning, and at around two o'clock and people literally got stuck in the mud. They couldn't get in and they couldn't get out.' This event forced Boendermaker and McCourt to close the farm for two days to make sure everything was safe. While Boendermaker said it was 'disappointing' that he felt he let his neighbours and the community down by 'clogging up the roads' during an event that turned out to have serious setbacks, he also said he learned from the experience. 'I'm very proud of how we managed it,' said Boendermaker. 'We spent $40,000 to fix the mud … and in two days we were open.' 'We apologized to the neighbours, we told them 'We're sorry,'' he said. Boendermaker also said he never introduced himself to the community, which was another part of why he felt there were issues with the event. That was a big part of why he was in council. 'We want to be seen as a valued member of the community,' said Boendermaker. Boendermaker said the tulip farm has about three million bulbs that people can walk through during their spring festival. He also said about 20 per cent of NOTL residents visited his spring festival, and that about 73 per cent of people who came visited from more than 100 kilometres away. TASC's tulip farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake is now closed for the season. daniel@ Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
