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So you did the research and found out that England probably won't endorse a law to the fullest extent. My point is that a simple tech guy building a company won

by firic 8y ago

So you did the research and found out that England probably won't endorse a law to the fullest extent. My point is that a simple tech guy building a company won't know that statistic and how it relates to their specific case.

matthewmacleod 8y ago
Then what you do is hire a lawyer for an afternoon, who will tell you the same thing then give you a list of stuff to do that will bring you into compliance. It’s so, so easy.
- megaman22 8y ago
  Laws that are stupid and not widely enforced because they are stupid are damaging to the entire concept of law. Particularly if they can hang over like a sword of Damocles if you piss off the wrong people.
  - oldcynic 8y ago
    This is getting silly. The law will be enforced, just as current data protection is. The law can be enforced without every case attracting the maximum penalty. That's why nearly every law has a range of penalties. Accidental and minor breaches can attract a minor penalty or a letter asking you try harder. Wilful and repeated breaches affecting many customers will attract harsher penalties. Same goes for speeding offences - go 40 in a 30 limit, get a fixed penalty ticket. go 140 with the GoPro race footage of you and your buddy posted to twitter expect a much larger fine and a driving ban. In neither instance is it not enforced, or damaging to the concept of law.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      The speed limit analogy is terrible. Or maybe perfect, for my point. Because speed limits are not enforced, everyone goes somewhere between 5 and 15 mph over, all the time. But catch a pissy cop, or one in a town that uses speed traps as a revenue source, and you can get pinched for hundreds of dollars arbitrarily. Yeah, the jackhole that burns tire at 110 past a school-zone is most likely to get pinched, but almost everyone on the road could.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        >Because speed limits are not enforced and yet > But catch a pissy cop, or one in a town that uses speed traps as a revenue source, and you can get pinched for hundreds of dollars arbitrarily. Sounds like enforcement to me. The solution is also simple. Don't drive over. I don't do it. If the sign says "50 kph", I drive "50 kph" and not more. Driving over is entirely voluntarily ignoring the limitation set by the law so don't go and be all surprised when somebody CAN FINE YOU FOR THAT.
    - pdimitar 8y ago
      I don't think that people like you and people like me will ever agree in these discussions because you look at statistics and I look at possibilities. What @megaman22 is saying fully matches my experience as an Eastern European -- piss off the wrong people and the law will fall on you with its full might. Some people would really love to make an example out of you if you give them the chance. And I don't think that only applies to E.E. but have no data either way, it's just an observation from news and hearsay from affected people around here. I fully support the GDPR and I'll do my utmost to comply with it even for hobby projects. That was never something I disputed in my root comment that spawned this big sub-thread. What I said and will continue saying is -- laws like these open even more doors for legal trolls, big players and nasty competitors to exhaust you out of business. The fact that it doesn't happen on a massive scale in my eyes means nothing; or rather, it means that agents used as an example to scare off others isn't something that's done often because usually just a few lawsuits and their aftermath are plenty enough for those many others to get the message. So IMO using statistics here is not a strong enough argument. I am not trying to alter your thinking. We actually agree on most points but I simply can't agree that past statistics are a good proof that the new law won't be used in a more heavy-handed manner than originally intended. To me, that remains to be seen yet and none of us can claim with certainty that what seems likely to them will materialize.
      - oldcynic 8y ago
        Almost missed this thanks to the incorrectly flagged message up thread. > I don't think that people like you and people like me will ever agree in these discussions because you look at statistics and I look at possibilities. You may be right in our chances of agreement! I see a judiciary separate from state which is more than happy to put politicians back in their box when they introduce bad or overreaching law. Governments of all colours complain about the judiciary and Lords here in the UK - which I see as proof that the separation basically still works. I see data protection bodies that are separate from government and politics. I see occasional stories of record fines or breaches from mainly Western Europe and talk to friends and conclude small business and solo developers are not being fined or trolled into oblivion in nearby countries either. Yet EU DPA is most of what GDPR is with smaller maximum fines. Why isn't the disaster scenario you foresee already happening with current DPA and other laws? Why are so few fined for breaches and only the most extreme cases getting fines? I'm less aware of justice systems further east and yes it's obvious that former Soviet bloc are going to be rightly more sensitive to and concerned about corruption. I'm also not aware how successfully that's been left behind from adopting EU laws and years of membership. That said, reading the pieces that turn up on HN it seems that the US is the one with problems of corruption in the justice system currently. No doubt that's also unrepresentative thanks to what's being shared about a vast nation. So, the legal trolls - it's going to be registrars and data protection bodies bringing cases or seeking sanctions. Just like happens with current DPA. This does not appear to be akin, or anywhere near, the US DMCA where large media companies massively abuse takedowns via automated software and triggering numerous trivial errors. I don't see the scope to exhaust someone out of business - yet it's clearly easy with DMCA. There's nothing a Sony can abuse to pick on a little guy with GDPR - they can report me to the registrar. You're right that it remains to be seen, but I sincerely doubt our data protection bodies are suddenly going to break out thumb screws and bring orders of magnitude more cases when they've kept fines for the final, extreme, and rare sanction til now. I honestly expect that just as I feel more should have attracted fines and sanctions under DPA I'll find that GDPR is also being too lightly applied. We'll see. I've been wrong on the internet before. :)
- TomVDB 8y ago
  For many, that lawyer for an afternoon is an additional $1000 out of packet expense on a side project website that wasn't profitable to begin with.
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    Well then your “side project website” is unsustainable. It’s not complex - we don’t let people away with flouting regulation because it’s burdensome. “It would make me unprofitable” is not a valid reason to ignore health and safety laws, or hygiene laws. “I just want to run a food truck as a side project but not care about making people sick or not” is obviously ludicrous. Why is personal data somehow fair game?
    - dleslie 8y ago
      Why are you assuming that everything on the internet must be a revenue producing business? Someone doing it for love or passion is now faced with GDPR compliance and the risks and hassle that come with it.
      - matthewmacleod 8y ago
        I am assuming no such thing. Just because you are not making revenue doesn’t mean that you don’t have to abide by regulation. The GDPR is intended to solve a very real and present issue; if you run a side project that deals with personal data, then the fact that it makes no money doesn’t mean that your mistreatment of personal data isn’t harmful!
        dleslie 8y ago
        I'd rather block all EU IPs than bother to break working technology that is operated and maintained freely. How do you revoke PII from a distributed information system, like anything using a blockchain or distributed version control? You don't.
        8y ago
vertex-four 8y ago
If I tell you that the maximum sentence in the UK for possession of marijuana is 5 years in prison or an unlimited fine, are you going to tell me that everybody who's ever been caught with marijuana has been thrown in prison for half a decade or bankrupted? No, in fact, most people get served with nothing more than a formal caution or a £90 fine. This is normal - this is how the law works in this country. Anyone who doesn't understand this hasn't even been paying attention to the lowest-common-denominator newspapers, which are constantly screeching about how people usually don't get anything close to maximum sentencing.

by firic 8y ago

matthewmacleod 8y ago

Then what you do is hire a lawyer for an afternoon, who will tell you the same thing then give you a list of stuff to do that will bring you into compliance. It’s so, so easy.

megaman22 8y ago
Laws that are stupid and not widely enforced because they are stupid are damaging to the entire concept of law. Particularly if they can hang over like a sword of Damocles if you piss off the wrong people.
- oldcynic 8y ago
  This is getting silly. The law will be enforced, just as current data protection is. The law can be enforced without every case attracting the maximum penalty. That's why nearly every law has a range of penalties. Accidental and minor breaches can attract a minor penalty or a letter asking you try harder. Wilful and repeated breaches affecting many customers will attract harsher penalties. Same goes for speeding offences - go 40 in a 30 limit, get a fixed penalty ticket. go 140 with the GoPro race footage of you and your buddy posted to twitter expect a much larger fine and a driving ban. In neither instance is it not enforced, or damaging to the concept of law.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    The speed limit analogy is terrible. Or maybe perfect, for my point. Because speed limits are not enforced, everyone goes somewhere between 5 and 15 mph over, all the time. But catch a pissy cop, or one in a town that uses speed traps as a revenue source, and you can get pinched for hundreds of dollars arbitrarily. Yeah, the jackhole that burns tire at 110 past a school-zone is most likely to get pinched, but almost everyone on the road could.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      >Because speed limits are not enforced and yet > But catch a pissy cop, or one in a town that uses speed traps as a revenue source, and you can get pinched for hundreds of dollars arbitrarily. Sounds like enforcement to me. The solution is also simple. Don't drive over. I don't do it. If the sign says "50 kph", I drive "50 kph" and not more. Driving over is entirely voluntarily ignoring the limitation set by the law so don't go and be all surprised when somebody CAN FINE YOU FOR THAT.
  - pdimitar 8y ago
    I don't think that people like you and people like me will ever agree in these discussions because you look at statistics and I look at possibilities. What @megaman22 is saying fully matches my experience as an Eastern European -- piss off the wrong people and the law will fall on you with its full might. Some people would really love to make an example out of you if you give them the chance. And I don't think that only applies to E.E. but have no data either way, it's just an observation from news and hearsay from affected people around here. I fully support the GDPR and I'll do my utmost to comply with it even for hobby projects. That was never something I disputed in my root comment that spawned this big sub-thread. What I said and will continue saying is -- laws like these open even more doors for legal trolls, big players and nasty competitors to exhaust you out of business. The fact that it doesn't happen on a massive scale in my eyes means nothing; or rather, it means that agents used as an example to scare off others isn't something that's done often because usually just a few lawsuits and their aftermath are plenty enough for those many others to get the message. So IMO using statistics here is not a strong enough argument. I am not trying to alter your thinking. We actually agree on most points but I simply can't agree that past statistics are a good proof that the new law won't be used in a more heavy-handed manner than originally intended. To me, that remains to be seen yet and none of us can claim with certainty that what seems likely to them will materialize.
    - oldcynic 8y ago
      Almost missed this thanks to the incorrectly flagged message up thread. > I don't think that people like you and people like me will ever agree in these discussions because you look at statistics and I look at possibilities. You may be right in our chances of agreement! I see a judiciary separate from state which is more than happy to put politicians back in their box when they introduce bad or overreaching law. Governments of all colours complain about the judiciary and Lords here in the UK - which I see as proof that the separation basically still works. I see data protection bodies that are separate from government and politics. I see occasional stories of record fines or breaches from mainly Western Europe and talk to friends and conclude small business and solo developers are not being fined or trolled into oblivion in nearby countries either. Yet EU DPA is most of what GDPR is with smaller maximum fines. Why isn't the disaster scenario you foresee already happening with current DPA and other laws? Why are so few fined for breaches and only the most extreme cases getting fines? I'm less aware of justice systems further east and yes it's obvious that former Soviet bloc are going to be rightly more sensitive to and concerned about corruption. I'm also not aware how successfully that's been left behind from adopting EU laws and years of membership. That said, reading the pieces that turn up on HN it seems that the US is the one with problems of corruption in the justice system currently. No doubt that's also unrepresentative thanks to what's being shared about a vast nation. So, the legal trolls - it's going to be registrars and data protection bodies bringing cases or seeking sanctions. Just like happens with current DPA. This does not appear to be akin, or anywhere near, the US DMCA where large media companies massively abuse takedowns via automated software and triggering numerous trivial errors. I don't see the scope to exhaust someone out of business - yet it's clearly easy with DMCA. There's nothing a Sony can abuse to pick on a little guy with GDPR - they can report me to the registrar. You're right that it remains to be seen, but I sincerely doubt our data protection bodies are suddenly going to break out thumb screws and bring orders of magnitude more cases when they've kept fines for the final, extreme, and rare sanction til now. I honestly expect that just as I feel more should have attracted fines and sanctions under DPA I'll find that GDPR is also being too lightly applied. We'll see. I've been wrong on the internet before. :)
TomVDB 8y ago
For many, that lawyer for an afternoon is an additional $1000 out of packet expense on a side project website that wasn't profitable to begin with.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Well then your “side project website” is unsustainable. It’s not complex - we don’t let people away with flouting regulation because it’s burdensome. “It would make me unprofitable” is not a valid reason to ignore health and safety laws, or hygiene laws. “I just want to run a food truck as a side project but not care about making people sick or not” is obviously ludicrous. Why is personal data somehow fair game?
  - dleslie 8y ago
    Why are you assuming that everything on the internet must be a revenue producing business? Someone doing it for love or passion is now faced with GDPR compliance and the risks and hassle that come with it.
    - matthewmacleod 8y ago
      I am assuming no such thing. Just because you are not making revenue doesn’t mean that you don’t have to abide by regulation. The GDPR is intended to solve a very real and present issue; if you run a side project that deals with personal data, then the fact that it makes no money doesn’t mean that your mistreatment of personal data isn’t harmful!
      - dleslie 8y ago
        I'd rather block all EU IPs than bother to break working technology that is operated and maintained freely. How do you revoke PII from a distributed information system, like anything using a blockchain or distributed version control? You don't.
        8y ago

vertex-four 8y ago

If I tell you that the maximum sentence in the UK for possession of marijuana is 5 years in prison or an unlimited fine, are you going to tell me that everybody who's ever been caught with marijuana has been thrown in prison for half a decade or bankrupted? No, in fact, most people get served with nothing more than a formal caution or a £90 fine. This is normal - this is how the law works in this country. Anyone who doesn't understand this hasn't even been paying attention to the lowest-common-denominator newspapers, which are constantly screeching about how people usually don't get anything close to maximum sentencing.