4 ms·

Your comment sounds so Orwellian I can’t help but cringe.

zaarn 8y ago
It's not orwellian to be friendly towards authority, especially when you're a business and it's about the privacy of the users, protecting the very data that orwellian governments seek to collect and abuse. Otherwise, I would love to hear which part of my comment was orwellian in nature?
- tripletao 8y ago
  I'd guess he's referring to your (likely correct) implication that the regulators will give more weight to your "friendly and helpful" behavior than to how the text of the law applies to the facts of your case. The concept of the rule of law was invented primarily in countries that now belong to the EU. Is there no one left there who still thinks it's important? It's not even that people argue "the GDPR couldn't be less vague without loopholes, and this is important enough that it's worth the cost". The idea that a powerful human's best attempt to objectively apply stable, published rules is generally better than a powerful human's unrestrained discretion just seems foreign to most commenters here. If you ran an organization publicly associated with George Soros in Hungary (whose prime minister has described him as an "enemy of the state"), then would you still feel good relying on your friendly relationship with the government? What steps would you take to comply with the GDPR as it's currently written, if you couldn't rely on the goodwill of the people interpreting it? With a sufficiently corrupt government, there's nothing you can do; but the point where a judge will accept an obvious lie tends to come long after the point where a regulator lets politics disambiguate a vague standard.
  - zaarn 8y ago
    The GDPR is a regulation and not a law, thusly the implications are different. If you produce a device that accidentally violates FCC guidelines, would you rather be immediately punished to the extend of the regulation or rather work with the FCC to rectify the issue and how to fix it for affected customers? The other reason is that yes the GDPR is vague. It must be because in the past corporations have abused loopholes and the only way to prevent people abusing loopholes without punishing people who don't abuse them is to make it vague and then decide on their behaviour. And again, these are corporations, legal persons. They don't even have the remotely same rights as a natural person.
    - tripletao 8y ago
      At least in the USA, a regulation has the force of law. To say "regulation" instead of "law" just means the rule gets its legal power indirectly from some statute (which probably also limits the scope of the rules), instead of directly from the legislative process. I'd thought the EU was similar. Is it not? If I ship a device that fails to comply with FCC rules, then I would prefer that the maximum penalty provided by law is also a fair and reasonable one. I understand that most regulated fields are complex enough that if we don't give regulators some discretion, then the law will be filled with loopholes and impossibly complex; but I would like to give them the minimum discretion they need to do their job. I think the GDPR fails that test spectacularly. Do you really think they need the statutory authority to fine someone 20M EUR for their semi-commercial side project that made $1k lifetime total? If not, then why give it to them? The GDPR applies to natural persons too. Imagine if it didn't! Facebook could just contract all the creepy stuff to a sole proprietorship operated by Mark Zuckerberg... ETA: From https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-law_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-la... > Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries. So not quite the same as the US, though maybe some analogy in that the regulation is still "secondary law", subordinate to the EU treaty? But I don't see how you can describe a set of rules "binding in its entirety" as anything but law.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        To my understanding the EU handles it differently. Regulation as opposed to law is supposed to be enforced in a guiding manner, recognizing that sometimes you accidentally don't comply or there is otherwise a differing implementation. You can somewhat also see that in how the EU ramps up regulation in case nobody is playing ball. Stage 1 is when they want to fix it and they express wishes that the industry changes their ways. Stage 2 is the cookie law and Smartphone USB charging. A very vague regulation or law is implemented as a sort of warning for the industry to better go and fix it. Stage 3 is nuclear; GDPR. The smartphone industry is as mentioned at Stage 2. The EU expressed wishes to reduce the charger garbage, nobody did anything, so they simply put out a regulation that almost literally just says "all smartphones need one common charger". Largely this has been microUSB but vendors are switching to microUSB. The regulations are to my knowledge and experience also employed and enforced in a similar manner; first you get a nice letter informing you that your website is in violation of X. Ignore that or get aggressive towards the regulatory body and you get a less nicely worded letter with a threat of a fine. Continue that path and you get a fine. The ultimate goal is that everyone should be compliant but it's okay to be occasionally not as long as you are willing to be helpful and fix it immediately. >Do you really think they need the statutory authority to fine someone 20M EUR for their semi-commercial side project that made $1k lifetime total? If not, then why give it to them? They don't you have a legal right for a proportional punishment. Unless your little side project caused damages the fine will be appropriate such that you can pay it without going bankrupt. And if it did you'll have to pay those damages on top of course. >The GDPR applies to natural persons too. Imagine if it didn't! Facebook could just contract all the creepy stuff to a sole proprietorship operated by Mark Zuckerberg... It only sorta does, it only does not apply to natural persons while they don't engage in commercial activity. And a sole proprietorship is to my knowledge a legal person, even if the only natural person involved is 1. (I would know, I am basically one, or rather, small business operator would be the more accurate translation, which also has limits on turnaround and profit) The sole proprietorship would have less rights than the person behind it and has no option but to fully implement the GDPR in any project or product. A natural person on the other hand, publishing a hobby on the internet with no commercial or business activity (which are different things in german law and you can certainly run a commercial activity without ever touching money or forming contracts).
- candiodari 8y ago
  That's something that utterly amazes me about the EU, and your comment. A lot of the protections that exist for privacy in the US against authorities mostly don't exist in the EU. The EU lets every police force in the EU, or in Interpol request data interception. That is a LOT of organizations, and of course, they got caught doing abuse just the same. But, for instance, the default practice in the US is that you get told your phone is tapped (yes, really), unless the police explains to a judge why not (nearly always), BUT in that case you still get told afterwards. This does not exist in the EU. You will never be told you got tapped. Second, in the US, the provider looks at the order, verifies it with the proper authorities, and decides for itself on scope, reasonableness, ... etc. In the EU, nope. If an order is received the only actions that a provider can take must be technical in nature. In theory an employee that does the actual tapping of the phone can't even tell his manager he's tapping phones, and definitely he can't tell anyone which phones are to be tapped or why (nor is there any obligation on the part of the requesting force to tell him why, but it is a field on the form). In many countries, this can be done without judicial oversight, or in nearly all cases with only very, very light oversight. This, to me, is far more worrying than the situation in the US. If a local police officer in Latvia wants to tap the phone of anyone in the EU, he just has to fill out a form and fax it to interpol. This is even weirder given that Europe has actual experience with abuse of surveillance powers, everywhere from Germany Eastward, as well as during WWII. They KNOW what can go wrong, they just have to ask their parents or grandparents to find people who were actually exposed to this. And yet ... Next we find out that large-scale spying on the own population is done in, at least, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands ... and not a peep. This was barely reported in the local media, in fact. We all know that most other countries are going to be worse than these, not better. And, of course, they cooperate with the NSA as well. Hell, the US has reporting on how much they spy on their own citizens (in fact, that's the source of most of the outrage). No such stats in the EU. Nobody, not even the police forces themselves, feels the need to have the most banal, basic level of transparency. Clearly when it comes to spying the EU is of the opinion, them, yes, perfectly allowed. Think of the children ! I mean, clearly these guys do not believe in privacy. So yes, it is very Orwellian when they just request that you work with them on the privacy of their citizens. Clearly the result they want is not actual privacy and protections for their citizens. If they believe in privacy protections, they have a lot of state agencies that they need to attack for not having any decent respect for privacy, as well as the fact that what few protections do exist only exist in a vast complex tangled web that errs on the side of violating people's privacy. And that's ignoring the fact that privacy protections have been systematically eroded further and further in Europe (e.g. recently in Germany).
Proziam 8y ago
I find the use of "Orwellian" rather ironic in this context. I run a company based in the UK, but I myself am American and most of my business experience is in the US. Despite that, I honestly have had no issues adapting to the GDPR. Considering that the business I operate has systems specifically designed to store as much data on people as possible, I find it absurd other businesses are unable to handle user/client data responsibly. That said, I cared about privacy BEFORE GDPR and intended to act responsibly regardless of regulation.
GW150914 8y ago
I’m increasingly convinced that a majority of people who use the term “Orwellian” haven’t actually read Orwell’s books.

It's not orwellian to be friendly towards authority, especially when you're a business and it's about the privacy of the users, protecting the very data that orwellian governments seek to collect and abuse. Otherwise, I would love to hear which part of my comment was orwellian in nature?

tripletao 8y ago
I'd guess he's referring to your (likely correct) implication that the regulators will give more weight to your "friendly and helpful" behavior than to how the text of the law applies to the facts of your case. The concept of the rule of law was invented primarily in countries that now belong to the EU. Is there no one left there who still thinks it's important? It's not even that people argue "the GDPR couldn't be less vague without loopholes, and this is important enough that it's worth the cost". The idea that a powerful human's best attempt to objectively apply stable, published rules is generally better than a powerful human's unrestrained discretion just seems foreign to most commenters here. If you ran an organization publicly associated with George Soros in Hungary (whose prime minister has described him as an "enemy of the state"), then would you still feel good relying on your friendly relationship with the government? What steps would you take to comply with the GDPR as it's currently written, if you couldn't rely on the goodwill of the people interpreting it? With a sufficiently corrupt government, there's nothing you can do; but the point where a judge will accept an obvious lie tends to come long after the point where a regulator lets politics disambiguate a vague standard.
- zaarn 8y ago
  The GDPR is a regulation and not a law, thusly the implications are different. If you produce a device that accidentally violates FCC guidelines, would you rather be immediately punished to the extend of the regulation or rather work with the FCC to rectify the issue and how to fix it for affected customers? The other reason is that yes the GDPR is vague. It must be because in the past corporations have abused loopholes and the only way to prevent people abusing loopholes without punishing people who don't abuse them is to make it vague and then decide on their behaviour. And again, these are corporations, legal persons. They don't even have the remotely same rights as a natural person.
  - tripletao 8y ago
    At least in the USA, a regulation has the force of law. To say "regulation" instead of "law" just means the rule gets its legal power indirectly from some statute (which probably also limits the scope of the rules), instead of directly from the legislative process. I'd thought the EU was similar. Is it not? If I ship a device that fails to comply with FCC rules, then I would prefer that the maximum penalty provided by law is also a fair and reasonable one. I understand that most regulated fields are complex enough that if we don't give regulators some discretion, then the law will be filled with loopholes and impossibly complex; but I would like to give them the minimum discretion they need to do their job. I think the GDPR fails that test spectacularly. Do you really think they need the statutory authority to fine someone 20M EUR for their semi-commercial side project that made $1k lifetime total? If not, then why give it to them? The GDPR applies to natural persons too. Imagine if it didn't! Facebook could just contract all the creepy stuff to a sole proprietorship operated by Mark Zuckerberg... ETA: From https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-law_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-la... > Regulations are legal acts that apply automatically and uniformly to all EU countries as soon as they enter into force, without needing to be transposed into national law. They are binding in their entirety on all EU countries. So not quite the same as the US, though maybe some analogy in that the regulation is still "secondary law", subordinate to the EU treaty? But I don't see how you can describe a set of rules "binding in its entirety" as anything but law.
    - zaarn 8y ago
      To my understanding the EU handles it differently. Regulation as opposed to law is supposed to be enforced in a guiding manner, recognizing that sometimes you accidentally don't comply or there is otherwise a differing implementation. You can somewhat also see that in how the EU ramps up regulation in case nobody is playing ball. Stage 1 is when they want to fix it and they express wishes that the industry changes their ways. Stage 2 is the cookie law and Smartphone USB charging. A very vague regulation or law is implemented as a sort of warning for the industry to better go and fix it. Stage 3 is nuclear; GDPR. The smartphone industry is as mentioned at Stage 2. The EU expressed wishes to reduce the charger garbage, nobody did anything, so they simply put out a regulation that almost literally just says "all smartphones need one common charger". Largely this has been microUSB but vendors are switching to microUSB. The regulations are to my knowledge and experience also employed and enforced in a similar manner; first you get a nice letter informing you that your website is in violation of X. Ignore that or get aggressive towards the regulatory body and you get a less nicely worded letter with a threat of a fine. Continue that path and you get a fine. The ultimate goal is that everyone should be compliant but it's okay to be occasionally not as long as you are willing to be helpful and fix it immediately. >Do you really think they need the statutory authority to fine someone 20M EUR for their semi-commercial side project that made $1k lifetime total? If not, then why give it to them? They don't you have a legal right for a proportional punishment. Unless your little side project caused damages the fine will be appropriate such that you can pay it without going bankrupt. And if it did you'll have to pay those damages on top of course. >The GDPR applies to natural persons too. Imagine if it didn't! Facebook could just contract all the creepy stuff to a sole proprietorship operated by Mark Zuckerberg... It only sorta does, it only does not apply to natural persons while they don't engage in commercial activity. And a sole proprietorship is to my knowledge a legal person, even if the only natural person involved is 1. (I would know, I am basically one, or rather, small business operator would be the more accurate translation, which also has limits on turnaround and profit) The sole proprietorship would have less rights than the person behind it and has no option but to fully implement the GDPR in any project or product. A natural person on the other hand, publishing a hobby on the internet with no commercial or business activity (which are different things in german law and you can certainly run a commercial activity without ever touching money or forming contracts).
candiodari 8y ago
That's something that utterly amazes me about the EU, and your comment. A lot of the protections that exist for privacy in the US against authorities mostly don't exist in the EU. The EU lets every police force in the EU, or in Interpol request data interception. That is a LOT of organizations, and of course, they got caught doing abuse just the same. But, for instance, the default practice in the US is that you get told your phone is tapped (yes, really), unless the police explains to a judge why not (nearly always), BUT in that case you still get told afterwards. This does not exist in the EU. You will never be told you got tapped. Second, in the US, the provider looks at the order, verifies it with the proper authorities, and decides for itself on scope, reasonableness, ... etc. In the EU, nope. If an order is received the only actions that a provider can take must be technical in nature. In theory an employee that does the actual tapping of the phone can't even tell his manager he's tapping phones, and definitely he can't tell anyone which phones are to be tapped or why (nor is there any obligation on the part of the requesting force to tell him why, but it is a field on the form). In many countries, this can be done without judicial oversight, or in nearly all cases with only very, very light oversight. This, to me, is far more worrying than the situation in the US. If a local police officer in Latvia wants to tap the phone of anyone in the EU, he just has to fill out a form and fax it to interpol. This is even weirder given that Europe has actual experience with abuse of surveillance powers, everywhere from Germany Eastward, as well as during WWII. They KNOW what can go wrong, they just have to ask their parents or grandparents to find people who were actually exposed to this. And yet ... Next we find out that large-scale spying on the own population is done in, at least, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands ... and not a peep. This was barely reported in the local media, in fact. We all know that most other countries are going to be worse than these, not better. And, of course, they cooperate with the NSA as well. Hell, the US has reporting on how much they spy on their own citizens (in fact, that's the source of most of the outrage). No such stats in the EU. Nobody, not even the police forces themselves, feels the need to have the most banal, basic level of transparency. Clearly when it comes to spying the EU is of the opinion, them, yes, perfectly allowed. Think of the children ! I mean, clearly these guys do not believe in privacy. So yes, it is very Orwellian when they just request that you work with them on the privacy of their citizens. Clearly the result they want is not actual privacy and protections for their citizens. If they believe in privacy protections, they have a lot of state agencies that they need to attack for not having any decent respect for privacy, as well as the fact that what few protections do exist only exist in a vast complex tangled web that errs on the side of violating people's privacy. And that's ignoring the fact that privacy protections have been systematically eroded further and further in Europe (e.g. recently in Germany).

Proziam 8y ago

I find the use of "Orwellian" rather ironic in this context. I run a company based in the UK, but I myself am American and most of my business experience is in the US. Despite that, I honestly have had no issues adapting to the GDPR. Considering that the business I operate has systems specifically designed to store as much data on people as possible, I find it absurd other businesses are unable to handle user/client data responsibly. That said, I cared about privacy BEFORE GDPR and intended to act responsibly regardless of regulation.

GW150914 8y ago

I’m increasingly convinced that a majority of people who use the term “Orwellian” haven’t actually read Orwell’s books.