This article offers a comment on the history of ACTA from a European perspective. Although there were many things wrong in ACTA, my view is that the way in which negotiations were carried out rendered the question of knowing what legal changes a ratification of ACTA would bring about to the EU acquis on the enforcement of intellectual property rights secondary. I will argue that this approach to the negotiations gave rise to legitimate concerns on whether the interests of the intellectual propertyless were receiving the same level of concern from negotiators as the interests of right-holders. This created an atmosphere of mistrust that might have serious negative effects on attempts to have a reasonable public policy debate on future reforms.