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> After consultation with experts, we had to make the decision to either spend high six/low seven figures to hopefully comply and buy insurance Change your exp

> After consultation with experts, we had to make the decision to either spend high six/low seven figures to hopefully comply and buy insurance Change your experts. If you really aren't doing anything nefarious with the data as you say, the adjustments are relatively easy to understand, and very often also to implement. In fact, many subregulations of the GDPR were already implemented in many companies in Europe, so what's happening it's shocking much more to American companies, not so much the European ones.

downandout 9y ago
People who say this quite simply haven't looked at the law or tried to comply themselves. There was someone else in another thread spouting something about how easy the law was to comply with, having helped implement GDPR for his employer. When I visited his employer's site - through an EU proxy no less - I found an undisclosed Google Analytics and Facebook pixel automatically loaded on the page. In 20 days, that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  > I found an undisclosed Google Analytics and Facebook pixel automatically loaded on the page. In 20 days, that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them. You will not be fined 20 million for that. This argument is beyond absurd.
  - downandout 9y ago
    It is absurd, but the letter of the law says they can do it, and there is nothing stopping them from doing it.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
      Your statement is false. What it is is the upper bound. The letter of the law clearly says the punishment must be adequate.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  > that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them. I don't know what is more absurd: people repeating this on HN or those who actually started to believe this FUD.
  - downandout 9y ago
    Show me where it is written in the GDPR that this could not possibly be the result of a single violation. It's not there. Yes, it says they should consider some things when determining the fine amount. But they still have the statutory authority to impose the maximum at their discretion regardless of any other considerations. It's not FUD when that's what the law says in black and white.
    - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
      Honestly: what banana republic do you assume the EU is? No way a 20 million euro fine for a first infringement of a small company would be seen as reasonable. Scaremongering neither helps you nor anyone else here.
      - downandout 9y ago
        If they intended for there to be safeguards, those would have been built in. They. Are. Not. There.
        stordoff 9y ago
        A 20€ million fine for that would not be proportionate, nor would they have taken into account the relevant factors ("the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement [...] as well as [...] and the level of damage suffered by them"). Edit: typo (proportional->proportionate)
        downandout 9y ago
        A 20€ million fine for that would not be proportionate By whose definition? Germany might disagree with you.
- matwood 9y ago
  > People who say this quite simply haven't looked at the law or tried to comply themselves. I have, and it's things you should have been doing anyway. I'm curious what your business is that complying is too onerous. There are some parts that are inexact, like how must a company protect data and exactly what data is considered PII. Thing is, if you treat any data that could identify a person as PII and a) Protect it as such b) Keep a living document on your site listing the data you capture and why c) Get and store consent d) Allow a user to 'be forgotten' and/or export their data e) If you change the data you capture or what you do with it, you must get consent again If you follow those steps you have complied with the spirit of the law [1]. Too many companies today capture more data than they need to provide the service the user signed up for, and then sell that data later when the service can't support itself. The high end of the fines are high, but that is the only way to get companies like FB and Google to fully comply. Hopefully spammers who I never gave consent to email me will also get put out of business, but they are like cockroaches and impossible to kill. [1] There are other points like you can't force consent, i.e. download this white paper only after you consent to accept marketing emails.
  - downandout 9y ago
    If you follow those steps you have complied with the spirit of the law The spirit of the law is not the letter of the law. And as we all know, a single violation of the letter of the law can result in fines of up to $20 million.
    - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
      No, this is not how the law works, at least not in Europe. While doing business in Europe I sometimes got some things wrong, for example with taxes. I wasn't really punished even once - I just had to pay what was missing and correct the documents, even if the maximum punishment for what I did (or failed to do) was some years in jail.

downandout 9y ago

People who say this quite simply haven't looked at the law or tried to comply themselves. There was someone else in another thread spouting something about how easy the law was to comply with, having helped implement GDPR for his employer. When I visited his employer's site - through an EU proxy no less - I found an undisclosed Google Analytics and Facebook pixel automatically loaded on the page. In 20 days, that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them.

the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
> I found an undisclosed Google Analytics and Facebook pixel automatically loaded on the page. In 20 days, that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them. You will not be fined 20 million for that. This argument is beyond absurd.
- downandout 9y ago
  It is absurd, but the letter of the law says they can do it, and there is nothing stopping them from doing it.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    Your statement is false. What it is is the upper bound. The letter of the law clearly says the punishment must be adequate.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
> that 1 visit could mean a $20 million fine for them. I don't know what is more absurd: people repeating this on HN or those who actually started to believe this FUD.
- downandout 9y ago
  Show me where it is written in the GDPR that this could not possibly be the result of a single violation. It's not there. Yes, it says they should consider some things when determining the fine amount. But they still have the statutory authority to impose the maximum at their discretion regardless of any other considerations. It's not FUD when that's what the law says in black and white.
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    Honestly: what banana republic do you assume the EU is? No way a 20 million euro fine for a first infringement of a small company would be seen as reasonable. Scaremongering neither helps you nor anyone else here.
    - downandout 9y ago
      If they intended for there to be safeguards, those would have been built in. They. Are. Not. There.
      - stordoff 9y ago
        A 20€ million fine for that would not be proportionate, nor would they have taken into account the relevant factors ("the nature, gravity and duration of the infringement [...] as well as [...] and the level of damage suffered by them"). Edit: typo (proportional->proportionate)
        downandout 9y ago
        A 20€ million fine for that would not be proportionate By whose definition? Germany might disagree with you.
matwood 9y ago
> People who say this quite simply haven't looked at the law or tried to comply themselves. I have, and it's things you should have been doing anyway. I'm curious what your business is that complying is too onerous. There are some parts that are inexact, like how must a company protect data and exactly what data is considered PII. Thing is, if you treat any data that could identify a person as PII and a) Protect it as such b) Keep a living document on your site listing the data you capture and why c) Get and store consent d) Allow a user to 'be forgotten' and/or export their data e) If you change the data you capture or what you do with it, you must get consent again If you follow those steps you have complied with the spirit of the law [1]. Too many companies today capture more data than they need to provide the service the user signed up for, and then sell that data later when the service can't support itself. The high end of the fines are high, but that is the only way to get companies like FB and Google to fully comply. Hopefully spammers who I never gave consent to email me will also get put out of business, but they are like cockroaches and impossible to kill. [1] There are other points like you can't force consent, i.e. download this white paper only after you consent to accept marketing emails.
- downandout 9y ago
  If you follow those steps you have complied with the spirit of the law The spirit of the law is not the letter of the law. And as we all know, a single violation of the letter of the law can result in fines of up to $20 million.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    No, this is not how the law works, at least not in Europe. While doing business in Europe I sometimes got some things wrong, for example with taxes. I wasn't really punished even once - I just had to pay what was missing and correct the documents, even if the maximum punishment for what I did (or failed to do) was some years in jail.