The 2016 learning platform procurement in the Norwegian higher education sector provides a valuable insight into how the procurement process itself affects the goals. The process both excludes alternatives (e.g. open-source products) and changes the criteria for what is ‘the best solution’. The final phase in the procurement shifted the criteria from what was thought best for the end-users (e.g. academic staff and students), towards the vendor’s financial power and possible ability to handle a large and diverse mass of customers. The relatively new approach to leave the concept of a closed learning platform and move towards an open, digital ecosystem based on modern standards and integrable third-party systems creates a whole set of problems in handling personal privacy and data protection, especially after the so-called Schrems II-verdict in the EU, and the US laws allowing US governmental bodies to access data from US companies.