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> Startups in the US won't have this hassle. Startups in the US are what got us into this privacy nightmare in the first place. Of course, they are no longer s

> Startups in the US won't have this hassle. Startups in the US are what got us into this privacy nightmare in the first place. Of course, they are no longer startups, but they still didn't fix shit once they got bigger, so I don't see how this argument holds. I like to think of privacy like internationalisation or security. When I started programming, Unicode/UTF-8 was niche and not well supported at all. Now, for new languages, it's a given. The same with decent crypto libraries. Databases now offer pretty great unicode support (except for the old ones where it had to be bolted on, coughMySQLcough). It isn't inconceivable that privacy tools become standard in databases and data processing frameworks. Personally, I see this as a brilliant opportunity for people/companies who want to do the right thing for their customers (whether that's consumers directly, or a company using them). My prediction is you'll see this with cloud providers strongest. Some are putting a lot of effort into GDPR, and a properly compliant provider will become a huge value-add, and not a liability.

briandear 9y ago
You don’t think BNP bank or AXA insurance play loose with sharing personal data? I had my Peugeot dealer share my purchase information with a third party “extended warranty” vendor without my permission. The vendor called me and sent letters. I never told Peugeot that they could sell my data. I have never given any business permission to call me — yet they do. Blaming US tech is naïve. European companies have been engaged in non-digital forms of privacy invasion long before Google even existed.
- guitarbill 9y ago
  I agree, but people on HN don't seem to care about those as much as US startups. Plus who is worried about car dealerships going under just because they can't pass on your data to some scummy vendor? (Also, some countries have laws close the the GDPR already, where this wouldn't fly.) Having said that, shunning one car dealership is way easier than trying to stop Facebook or Google slurping your data, even with ad blockers et al.
cromwellian 9y ago
> Startups in the US are what got us into this privacy nightmare in the first place. Com'on. The internet and web when they started were a wild wild west that operated on the honor system. Most people were just starting to feel their way around what kinds of businesses could even exist on it. The Morris Worm was the canary in the coal mine about how the honor system wouldn't scale. EU startups are no different than US startups, we just have more of them, there is a greater concentration of investment in that area here.

briandear 9y ago

You don’t think BNP bank or AXA insurance play loose with sharing personal data? I had my Peugeot dealer share my purchase information with a third party “extended warranty” vendor without my permission. The vendor called me and sent letters. I never told Peugeot that they could sell my data. I have never given any business permission to call me — yet they do. Blaming US tech is naïve. European companies have been engaged in non-digital forms of privacy invasion long before Google even existed.

guitarbill 9y ago
I agree, but people on HN don't seem to care about those as much as US startups. Plus who is worried about car dealerships going under just because they can't pass on your data to some scummy vendor? (Also, some countries have laws close the the GDPR already, where this wouldn't fly.) Having said that, shunning one car dealership is way easier than trying to stop Facebook or Google slurping your data, even with ad blockers et al.

cromwellian 9y ago

> Startups in the US are what got us into this privacy nightmare in the first place. Com'on. The internet and web when they started were a wild wild west that operated on the honor system. Most people were just starting to feel their way around what kinds of businesses could even exist on it. The Morris Worm was the canary in the coal mine about how the honor system wouldn't scale. EU startups are no different than US startups, we just have more of them, there is a greater concentration of investment in that area here.