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Judging by the ripples it causes, it feels like GDPR is a well done piece of legislation that will actually destroy some of the most invasive business models.
by Iv 8y ago
Judging by the ripples it causes, it feels like GDPR is a well done piece of legislation that will actually destroy some of the most invasive business models.
Google should tread carefully there. It is the future of their cash cow that is at hand.
It is somehow comforting to see an elected body being able and willing to cause such a stir.
- briandear 8y agoIs the EU Commission an elected body? I thought they were appointed.
- oldcynic 8y agoBoth the Council and Parliament had votes before adoption.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- e12e 8y agoThe commission is appointed and subject to the elected bodies; but afaik it can only propose legislation - it's the elected bodies that vote them into effect. The EU isn't particularly democratic or transparent - but it is nominally democratic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission#Legitimacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission#Legitima...
- rndgermandude 8y agoThe commission is appointed by the member state governments. Those governments in turn are elected. Commission members are therefore rather similar to regular cabinet members in member states which usually aren't directly elected by neither populus nor parliament, but chosen by the head of government. Personally, I think it would be better if the EU parliament chose the commission members. But it's not like the citizens of the EU had no say in who gets to be a commissioner at all: you can cast your vote differently in the next memberstate election if you don't like your government or the person it makes a commissioner.
- ginko 8y agoAt least Juncker was appointed president of the commission because his faction won the last EU parliamentary election.
- jrnvs 8y agoCertainly not all EU Governments are elected. In The Netherlands, for example, you vote for Parliament. Parliamentary leaders then seek an agreement and propose a cabinet, which is formally instated by the King. When you cast your vote, you don't know who will be in government, nor do you have any say in it. I'm a proponent of this system, just wanted to point out that governments are not necessarily elected. I think the same holds in many other EU countries, e.g., Belgium and Germany.
- rndgermandude 8y agoUh, you may not be able to directly elect a government, but you still elect the parliament which then chooses the government. So yes, you have a say in it, by casting your vote in the parliamentary elections for the party you want to see in government. And yes regarding Germany: Germans vote for parties in a parliamentary election; in the parliament a party or coalition of parties who can get the necessary majority votes will elect the Chancellor (head of government), who then is formally appointed by the President. The Chancellor then proposes cabinet members who are formally appointed by the President.
- makomk 8y agoAt least here in the UK, cabinet members are generally chosen from amongst the elected MPs, and if they're particularly terrible voters sometimes give them the boot at the next election, ending their career.
- Vinnl 8y agoOf course, those regular cabinet members are the ones that appoint the commissioners, so it is one step further away :)0
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- yuhong 8y agoI even mentioned the GDPR in the essay BTW.
- saagarjha 8y agoI'm sorry, but how is this relevant?
- yuhong 8y agoI mentioned for example that "Notice that AdWords comply if all “personalization” features are removed for example. This included things like “remarketing”. I suspect that AdWords when it was first created in 2000 did not have these features. " and linked to https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/gdpr_risk_to_the_duopoly/ https://pagefair.com/blog/2017/gdpr_risk_to_the_duopoly/
- Buge 8y agoI don't think causing a stir should be a goal. Trump caused quite a stir with his early immigration policies.
- piokoch 8y agoHmm, I thought that too. I assumed that all banks, cell phone operators, etc. that I use would have to ask me for consent to sell my data, track me. But that did not happen, they just send a note with all those GDPR information what they do with my data and that they have a good news for me: I don't have to do anything, as all my "agreements" are still valid without any action from my side. They haven't given me an option to give consent for, say, calling me, but don't give consent for tracking and profiling. Looks like this is ok, unless Orange got GDPR wrongly and wants to risk fines but I don't believe that. One of the biggest Polish news portal (wp dot pl) has figure out the fantastic idea - they show a banner with a long, long text, that says at the end that if I close that banner, clicking on X button, I am automatically give them permission to track me and do virtually whatever they want with my data. If I don't agree for their terms and I don't close the banner (which is agreement as well) I am taken to "advanced settings" page that at the end gives me only one option - to agree for tracking and all the shady stuff they want to do with my data. It is impossible to enter their portal without agreeing for everything they want. WP dot PL is a big business owned by a big German media company, so I guess they figured out everything correctly, apparently the regulation has a lot of loopholes and anyone with smart lawyers can overcome GDPR easily.
- Doxin 8y agoThe "agree by closing this popup" tactic is, as far as I can tell, not allowed under GDPR. Here's hoping all the companies that do that get slapped with a fine.
- Brotkrumen 8y agoThis forever popup unless you accept should run afoul of the language in GDPR that forbids the degradation of a service if a user does not opt in.
- jbrooksuk 8y agoLikewise "by continuing to browse this website, you agree" implied consent is no longer allowed.
- zingmars 8y ago
- gcp 8y agoI wonder what the longer term consequences are. OK, sure it's nice that right now every site or company I ever had any interaction with no longer feels like they can keep my email on file to continuously spam me. But this state won't last right? I assume that everything I sign up for in the future will have a load of legalese to circumvent this as much as possible?
- scaryclam 8y agoOne of the nice things about the legislation is that it's quite specific about not allowing consent to be buried in legalese. While I imagine things will soften up a little as companies realise they're not going to immediately get slapped with a fine, most companies will at least be more careful since its simple for complaints to be made. Most do not want to bring the ICO's attention to themselves.
- gcp 8y agoThing is if everything puts up a big notice "YOU MUST AGREE TO BE TRACKED AND SOLD TO USE OUR SERVICE" then people will just click that.
- e12e 8y agoThere's provisions to make sure mandatory tracking, profiling is explicitly opt-in, and that there's a real alternative. That might be a fee (eg Gmail could let you pay x/month to disable all targeted ads - or rather; they might have an opt-in gratis/free service that had ads/tracking).
- icebraining 8y agoI don't think that's true; they can offer a paid version or a free version, but they can't offer a version "paid with tracking", even if there's an alternative.
- krageon 8y agoThat is coercive, and therefore does not comply (nor does it actually mean consent).
- throwawayqdhd 8y agoI wonder how many small businesses will be affected simply because every person right now has about 30 emails in their inboxes asking for GDPR permission I deleted most of them, even though ere might be a few businesses in there whose work I genuinely appreciate
- gcp 8y agoMostly they won't be able to send mailings around. Data portability and such are likely a much bigger hassle. Those are actual features you need to implement now if you stored PII.
- cultureulterior 8y agoI would rather have Google than the GDPR or most elected bodies.
- ForHackernews 8y agoThat opinion seems ill-considered, to say the least.
- cultureulterior 8y agoThe consumer surplus of search engines is like $17000 per year per person
- theyinwhy 8y agoAnd you wouldn't see any of it if google was elected to govern you ;)
- whataretensors 8y agoThese politicians created a new 'right' and exempted the government from it. This is bound to end well.
- icebraining 8y agoThe government is not exempted from the GDPR, as it wasn't from the Data Protection Directive that already granted most of the rights contained in the new regulation.
- whataretensors 8y agoOf course they are, read (16) "This Regulation does not apply to issues of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms or the free flow of personal data related to activities which fall outside the scope of Union law, such as activities concerning national security. This Regulation does not apply to the processing of personal data by the Member States when carrying out activities in relation to the common foreign and security policy of the Union. " I understand the confusion, as finding this involves reading the 88 pages you are defending.
- icebraining 8y agoI did read the GDPR. A specific exemption for national defense (and by the way, you missed the one on health) is not the same as "exempting the government". The vast majority of governmental bodies have to comply. It's like saying that "governmental employees are allowed to pilot fighter jets" just because the army employs some pilots.
- some_account 8y agoI'm surprised it had some teeth. This shows that it's possible to change some very exploitable practices if EU wants to. Hopefully more of this will follow.