Games

Kind of true, but the EU is not America, so don't apply the same standards. In the US it's extremely difficult to find a single politician that is not a completely corrupt criminal. The EU, on the other hand, is filled with a lot of politicians that also prioritize their positions and comfortable lives, but at least generally have somewhat positive intentions.

As for the European Citizens' Initiatives - they are very serious and usually result in actual legislation. Of course, there's no guarantee that this specific petition will lead to consumer protections. The only guarantee is that the European Comission will consider and talk about this. Afterwards, they'll negotiate with the lobbies and sometime later we - citizens of the EU - will get to write public feedback about the Comission's proposals in a post on their website, that may or may not be taken into consideration.

Overall it's still a fairly corrupt, far from ideally functioning system, but it's nowhere near the level of rot that the US is throwing out on full display. Despite the MEPs primarily looking out for their own best interests, we regularly receive more and more laws that benefit regular folk and not corporations. Meanwhile the last time the US has seen any real pro-people change was what, 40 years ago? The EU may be far from perfect, but please do not put it on the same shelf as America. There's no comparison to be made.

Who is "Ross"?

Likely never, the intiative is not pushing for retroactive legal changes, it is pushing for new regulations / legal standards going forward.

Thankfully for publishers and unfortunately for us, it is not retroactive. But I do wish that it was.

No, no no.

You have to input your name, address, and various ways of establishing your EU member state, such as an EU electronic visa/id, or your specific EU state drivers liscence or tax id or some such, and the form makes it very obvious you must actually be an EU citizen.

Examples:

Poland

Portugal

Estonia

Its possible there could be spam or accidental/malformed inputs... but if you are putting fake info into an official government portal, especially en masse, thats potentially a number of crimes, and if its a genuine mistake from an EU citizen, it seems like there is a review process where people will be contacted and allowed to fix up their info.

Also, technically, there are a few countries with more lax submission requirements, such as the Netherlands, likely due to more intense personal privacy laws... but its not like this system is not logging people's IPs, not like they won't be taking that into acount.

This isn't a change.org petition, its an official EU government portal for a core process of democracy.

Knowingly falsifying info on this is again, potentially a large number of crimes, as if you say lied on voting registration, or lied to Social Security or your US state's unemployment assistance system.

My understanding is you need to input identification data, like a driver's license just as an example, to sign.

They expect some invalidating, hence aiming for over the million, but why do you think a "fair chunk" will be from USA specifically?

I feel kinda helpless as an American watching the petition grow. I wonder what would happen if an American petition got big, would corporate America kill it? Would it get traction? Idk...