I cannot imagine why anyone would want to intentionally violate someone's privacy and ignore their stated preferences; to use their data in a way they would not

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to intentionally violate someone's privacy and ignore their stated preferences; to use their data in a way they would not want, regardless of what country they live in. It surprises me that anyone would want to make an insecure system on purpose and take no responsibility for being hacked. That's what "ignoring the GDPR" means on some level. It just so happens that the GDPR provides a powerful tool to protect me and my rights, even when I'm in the USA on business, at a Starbucks on their public Wifi. There's a lot of guffing about IP addresses and weblogs that is confusing a lot of people. Without knowing what kind of information you think you need to collect without permission and without benefitting the person involved, it's difficult if you're a chicken little, or if you're a scumbag spammer: I'll have no sympathy for the latter, but am happy to try and decode the GDPR for the former (within reason: I'm doing some GDPR consultancy at the moment)