Part 1 of 3. Some are lying. Most never have to, because they are paid by the vendor whose product they are recommending and nobody has to tell you. The tells that say you are being sold to rather than engineered for, and what never makes it onto the shortlist.
Part 3 of 3. Response times instead of outcomes, a liability cap set at the fees you already paid, and a provider whose excuses eventually arrive at you. The questions that flush it out, what a genuine one does instead, and what it takes to get rid of a bad one.
Part 2 covered the law that reaches your data. Part 5 of 8 covers the law that reaches your company: large penalties under American law, a French parliamentary report on whether that works as a commercial weapon, trade pressure applied to tax law and to regulators, and products carrying one market’s assumptions everywhere.
None of this is new, and it is not really about technology. Four companies control most of the world’s seed supply. Ten retailers move most of Britain’s food. Both produced a legal answer software has nowt like. Part 7 of 8 compares them, and asks why technology got away with it.
Since 2025 the European answer has turned from plans into things you can install. Part 8 of 8 covers what has landed, what is honestly still years off, and gives 3 questions to work out where you stand.