The EU is scaling back its attack on Big Tech after years of aggressive regulation.
The bloc’s leadership laid out a “digital package of simplification” on Wednesday, which will streamline rules on AI and privacy — and potentially, dare we hope, remove those “cookies?” pop-up boxes that clutter up the screen before you click them away. The EU has grown concerned that overzealous regulation is stifling growth, The New York Times reported: The European Central Bank’s former President Mario Draghi warned in an influential report last year that without sweeping changes, the bloc could become an economic backwater.
The proposals have sparked backlash in Brussels, The Verge noted, with critics accusing lawmakers of “bowing to pressure from Big Tech.”