European News 🇪🇺The EU will launch the digital euro as a 100% European digital payments system to replace reliance on Visa, Mastercard, and Apple and Google Pay, with the European Central Bank issuing a digital form of cash. It will be built entirely in Europe, have zero transaction fees, instant payments, and strong privacy, giving the EU full control over its payments infrastructure.
LonM@eunews I can't read the linked article. Will it use something like GNU Taler - be fully open source, transparent, interoperable, and buyer-private? Or will development and maintenance be outsourced to a private company with everything funnelled through a closed source app.
Vladimir Campos@LonM @eunews There's an official ECB page with all the information, including progress.
👇🏻 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html
👇🏻 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html
Vivien (dentelle & numérique)@vladcampos @LonM @eunews the way I understand it is “we would have loved to make it work with privacy but since there can be fraud there will be no privacy”
EDIT: here is what Taler says about the proposal:
@gugurumbe @vladcampos @eunews Reading through some of this, that's the conclusion I'm coming to as well. No privacy, everything through proprietary apps. The ECB site also mentions blockchain which is giving me the heebies.
If that is the case, then I am genuinely baffled as to what the point of a digital euro would be over implementing a pan-EU debit card processor to rival the likes of paypal / visa. We already have widely available cashless payment infrastructure, what good does a digital euro offer for what will end up being a much more expensive implementation?
Even more confusing considering the swiss were already experimenting with Taler.
Andy MouseAs a European, I will try my best to stick to non-European payment methods. I don't get the hype about this, why the f* would I want to use a system that give the cops closest to me the most information?
Parade du Grotesque 💀@andymouse @LonM @gugurumbe @vladcampos @eunews
One more time: do you understand that paying with a credit card gives all your information to
1. Your bank
2. Your card issuer
3. The payment processor that sits between these two?
If you want privacy, pay in cash. Cash guarantees your privacy. All other payment schemes do not.
Source: I used to work for a payment processor.
@ParadeGrotesque cool, but we want digital cash with strong privacy though.
Which you are not going to get from the EU, or any serious European bank.
What these guys want is to bypass the big 3 (Visa, MasterCard and Amex) and avoid the kind of bullsh!+ the US is doing right now.
@ParadeGrotesque looks like you do not want digital cash with strong privacy. Any reasons?
Because I'd rather have a European payment system that's independent of the US. Which is what Euro Cash is supposed to be.
@ParadeGrotesque sorry, this is “digital cash with strong privacy” and a thread discussing these aspects. If you want something else, go make your own thread. Good luck explaining why “same thing as the US but with a different flag instead” matters.
Lillian Violet@gugurumbe @ParadeGrotesque I am hoping (though not at all expecting) that one of the things it might be better for is less puritanical rules about paying for sex work of any kind online. It would be really nice if people will just be able to receive money and not be kicked off because they share nudes or videos or anything else.
Whatever happens, sex work will stay outside of normal banking operations, I am afraid.
Let's face it: most European countries are deeply divided on that subject, rules and regulations vary completely between, say, Holland and Germany on one hand and Sweden or France on the other.
(Not to mention that sex work is usually horribly exploitative and abusive)
@ParadeGrotesque It is not "usually horribly exploitative and abusive" that's bullshit. The issue with human trafficking and abuse is human trafficking and abuse.
When someone wants to sell a nude picture, audio, or video of themselves they shouldn't be debanked, that just makes them more vulnerable to be exploited and abused by people that can skirt regulations easier (organized crime thrives on things being crime).
For any ways to reduce exploitation of any sex workers I'd suggest listening to sex workers themselves, they tend to know a lot more about how they should be protected and treated.