Netherlands blocks US takeover of vital digital supplier

vrganj

https://archive.ph/GbZhm

mcv

Finally! The entire country has been clamouring for this for weeks, and the government has been completely silent about it. A couple of weeks ago, the entire parliament (with only a single party dissenting) voted for a motion to end the contract with Solvinity, but the government extended it anyway, leaving blocking the takeover as the only option, and there wasn't a lot of confidence that the government would do that. The whole reason for this is that Solvinity host DigiD, the Dutch e-ID system that handles authentication to all government and many other sensitive systems (healthcare). With the US law that the US government should be able to get access to any data held by a US company, regardless of where it's hosted, this system clearly should be kept out of American hands. Of course there's still plenty of sensitive data in the hands of Microsoft, Amazon and other US companies. No idea when they're going to do something about that.

applfanboysbgon

Good on the Dutch government for actually doing something.

mkj

Solvinity is a pretty terrible company name.

sjamaan

Best news of the year!

fusslo

Never heard of 'Kyndryl' before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyndryl > Officially formed in late 2021, Kyndryl was created from the spin-off of IBM's infrastructure services > Kyndryl operated in 63 countries in November 2021

petcat

Good for them, but I doubt this will be the last we hear about this especially with the current US government. ASML was only permitted to acquire US company Cymer (the actually valuable EUV light source technology) back in 2013 under a strict technology sharing and export control agreement. The Netherlands blocking a US acquisition due to technology control concerns is sure to ruffle some feathers in Washington.

midasz

Great news. Would have been devastating to have such an integral part of our society at the whims of not just another nation, but an unstable and downright hostile one.

SirFatty

"US Takeover"

thisislife2

The Dutch should be aware that if Netherland has some information-sharing agreements with Five Eyes or Fourteen Eyes, all this data will still be available to the US (and other allies) (hopefully, presumably, with your government acting as the gatekeeper).

selectively

A ground invasion would be an appropriate response.

kleiba2

If it's such a vital piece of Dutch infrastructure, why is it in private hands at all?

_HMCB_

One word: good.

carlosjobim

How come the Dutch people aren't offering more than the US investors to purchase this company, since this seems to be so close at heart?

stego-tech

I keep seeing variations of “okay but this will be temporary” or “this is a one off” or “they’ll relent eventually, they have no choice” in response to the EU’s (and to a lesser extent, global) divorce from US tech stacks. You cannot unring this bell, however, nor can you put the genie back in the bottle, close Pandora’s Box, etc, pick your own metaphor. The US burned through the trust thermocline very suddenly these past few years, snapping the tension that had been brewing over several decades from US hegemony and the abusive diplomacy it created. Now that the US regime is openly hostile to everyone else and US firms have dropped the pretense of being anything less than a global surveillance state, there’s nothing to go back to . These sorts of rejections and blocks will continue to escalate until a new norm is agreed upon by cooler heads, which I don’t see happening in the current climate. Make no mistake, power everywhere wants more surveillance capabilities; the EU wants it as much as China or the USA. The difference is that with the leading empire in decline, everyone realizes that owning their own surveillance state is an advantage over outsourcing it to a potential enemy.

hunglee2

Should be simple matter to escalate this up to the President, who will put the squeeze on the Dutch government, and then secure his 10% fee for rescuing the take over deal

gyanchawdhary

The subtitle “Across Europe, there have been increased concerns about the bloc’s reliance on American tech.” is false and really an economic chamber. The author has no basis for this claim, factually or otherwise .. maybe a small tiny group would love to see this happen, but EU is happy like rest of the world minus China to enjoy the products made by great American software companies.

dncornholio

This is a direct result of Trump being in power. Before his regime, we (The Netherlands) trusted USA 1000%, this takeover would not even have been news. This stance has shifted completely. And you can thank one guy for it.

wildekek

As a Dutch citizen, I don't understand why we can't self-host an open source identity solution for 20M users with 30K requests an hour. How hard can it be?

flossly

> Vital digital supplier. They make the login-screen. And now for businesses there are like 5 providers of the login screen (that you HAVE to use in order to use govt websites): you have to choose one and pay like 40EUR/y in order to log in. Calling a login screen vital is, yes, the truth. Out-sourcing --and creating a market for-- the login screen is, to me, one of the most bizarre thing I've seen the Dutch govt do in recent years.