EU to tax old emails and photo clutter: New "Data waste" law effective July 2026

[Redaktion]

The EU Commission is set to introduce the so-called "Data Carbon Tax" on July 1, 2026. This tax on 'dark data'—such as old emails or duplicate photos—is designed to offset the surging energy consumption of AI data centers powering ChatGPT, Gemini, and similar applications. In the future, users who fail to clean up their data within specified deadlines must expect financial penalties or even the mandatory deletion of their cloud storage.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/EU-to-tax-old-emails-and-photo-clutter-New-Data-waste-law-effective-July-2026.1262935.0.html

[JoeytheJoe]

This was good. I liked this.

[toto1234]

"April Fools!"

But very credible.
Typical from what the EUSSR and Ubergruppenfurer Von der La Hyene could foment.

After all, one must finance the only european invention from the past 50 years (the plastic cap attached to bottles)

[remi]

stop giving them ideas!

[Swizzy]

Should penalise companies for pushing for cloud usage so much instead.

[NYPD]

The news is incorrect. They are actually planning to discontinue cloud altogether.

Download all your data to local storage before it's too late. And clear from cloud as well for security purpose. Act now otherwise there will be no cloud left.

And remember this is not a drill..!!