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I think there's stigma around GDPR among some entrepreneurs because of a complete refusal from some people to see personal data as something they need to treat

I think there's stigma around GDPR among some entrepreneurs because of a complete refusal from some people to see personal data as something they need to treat carefully. Let's look at an alternate universe for a moment, where online shopping developed with very barebones regulations, PCI-DSS isn't a thing and fraud is far more rampant. Now the EU introduces new regulations much like PCI-DSS with heavy fines attached to it. Suddenly you would have every small business coming out of the woodwork, claiming PCI compliance is a huge hassle, the fines are unreasonable, etc. Yeah, PCI compliance is a hassle (which is why we have companies such as Stripe taking care of it for you). But to protect and empower the users, it's needed. This isn't about your business, it's about your users and how they can, today thanks to PCI-DSS, generally trust that their credit card is safe to enter online (which is a net good for any industry that needs online payments). But that universe is crazy because, who wouldn't treat credit card numbers as extremely sensitive data? Well, many companies who today aren't actually PCI-DSS compliant. Sometimes devs just don't know why, when or even how to encrypt the data and nobody audits that until there's a breach. So my opinion is this is a success of GDPR. Clearly nobody in this comment section thinks the person in question would really have had a hard time complying with it, and probably wanted to shut down anyway. Either its users are better off because the service is a data vampire that doesn't care about compliance, or it's a no-op because it would have shut down either way. Make room for competition that does care, I'm all for that.

closeparen 9y ago
> PCI-DSS isn't a thing and fraud is far more rampant. Now the EU introduces new regulations much like PCI-DSS with heavy fines attached to it. That would be amazing! Then we'd actually have to adopt a push-based or one-time-use transaction model, rather than living under the fantasy (disproven on a daily basis) that merchants should be in the business of keeping secrets, or are even capable of it. It's hard for me to take anything someone says seriously after they express admiration for the credit card number security model.
- scrollaway 9y ago
  That wasn't the point of my post but what you're thinking about is actually in progress! Google PSD2 for more info :)
  - closeparen 9y ago
    The point of your post was that companies should treat all data like credit numbers. The point of my post is that the need for a large number of parties to keep secrets is indicative of a fundamental design issue, not a caller for stricter secret-keeping standards.
    - scrollaway 9y ago
      I've not expressed any particular admiration towards PCI-DSS (and if you perceived any, I didn't mean to give that impression). Furthermore, the point of my post was certainly not to treat PII/Pseudo-PII like credit card numbers. Payment card data is secret information, that's a given of the industry. If you disagree with that, I welcome you to share your credit cards in a reply here. Is it a design flaw? Yeah, you could say that; there's much better models and PSD2 will fix many things (not all) at the core of your complaints. In the mean time, having to treat credit card numbers as highly sensitive is a fact of life, and when you're trying to protect users, you have to be pragmatic, you can't live in an ideal world with theoretical technology; you have to regulate what's there. The GDPR's definition of PII is broad and contains many things which aren't secrets. I can tell you my full name, it's easy to figure it out from my profile, that's not a secret but it's still PII and GDPR asks that you treat it as such. Same for usernames, which are most often publicly visible on websites. GDPR, more than dictating what you should encrypt, gives the users a set of rights over a class of data they share with companies in order to give (european) users more trust and comfort when choosing whether to share data with those companies. Things like "I should be able to know what a company has on me, and I should be able to download it and delete it". I can't tell you the number of websites I've seen that don't let you delete accounts properly. That don't let you edit your real name (even if you get married or you legally change it!). That don't allow you any insight into where your email address ends up after you sign up with it. This is the problem that GDPR is trying to solve.

closeparen 9y ago

> PCI-DSS isn't a thing and fraud is far more rampant. Now the EU introduces new regulations much like PCI-DSS with heavy fines attached to it. That would be amazing! Then we'd actually have to adopt a push-based or one-time-use transaction model, rather than living under the fantasy (disproven on a daily basis) that merchants should be in the business of keeping secrets, or are even capable of it. It's hard for me to take anything someone says seriously after they express admiration for the credit card number security model.

scrollaway 9y ago
That wasn't the point of my post but what you're thinking about is actually in progress! Google PSD2 for more info :)
- closeparen 9y ago
  The point of your post was that companies should treat all data like credit numbers. The point of my post is that the need for a large number of parties to keep secrets is indicative of a fundamental design issue, not a caller for stricter secret-keeping standards.
  - scrollaway 9y ago
    I've not expressed any particular admiration towards PCI-DSS (and if you perceived any, I didn't mean to give that impression). Furthermore, the point of my post was certainly not to treat PII/Pseudo-PII like credit card numbers. Payment card data is secret information, that's a given of the industry. If you disagree with that, I welcome you to share your credit cards in a reply here. Is it a design flaw? Yeah, you could say that; there's much better models and PSD2 will fix many things (not all) at the core of your complaints. In the mean time, having to treat credit card numbers as highly sensitive is a fact of life, and when you're trying to protect users, you have to be pragmatic, you can't live in an ideal world with theoretical technology; you have to regulate what's there. The GDPR's definition of PII is broad and contains many things which aren't secrets. I can tell you my full name, it's easy to figure it out from my profile, that's not a secret but it's still PII and GDPR asks that you treat it as such. Same for usernames, which are most often publicly visible on websites. GDPR, more than dictating what you should encrypt, gives the users a set of rights over a class of data they share with companies in order to give (european) users more trust and comfort when choosing whether to share data with those companies. Things like "I should be able to know what a company has on me, and I should be able to download it and delete it". I can't tell you the number of websites I've seen that don't let you delete accounts properly. That don't let you edit your real name (even if you get married or you legally change it!). That don't allow you any insight into where your email address ends up after you sign up with it. This is the problem that GDPR is trying to solve.