Welcome to the Splinternet

Or how the European Data Protection Board, the Court of Justice for the EU and Max Schrems might be killing the internet.

Well, it looks like the long-awaited Irish Data Protection Commission decision against Meta has finally dropped. The DPC imposed a €1.2B ($1.3 B USD) fine on Meta, or about 1% of the social media giant’s worldwide turnover for 2022.¹ The DPC also ordered Meta to cease transfers of data outside of Europe within five months, and to return or delete all EU/EEA personal data transferred unlawfully to Meta, Inc. by no later than November 2023.

Obviously, this impacts Meta, but it’s important to understand how this decision will likely have knock-on effects to the internet and everyone on the internet as well. This post is my attempt at explaining how we got here, the implications of this decision, and why there are no simple answers.

Tl;Dr:

• I read a 222-page decision so you didn’t have to. I also summarized relevant legal bits and share details on how we got into this mess in the first place. [Parts 1 & 2]

• Due to the realities of the US surveillance state and the absolutist posture of the E…