7 ms·

There are plenty of well intentioned laws which actually suck (such as the Cookie law). Surely you agree that it's important to point these out?

jacquesm 8y ago
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the cookie law. What was wrong is that companies then went out of their way to FUD it and to mis-interpret it to the point where the law lost much of its value. The GDPR is a response to that lawyering, but that's no reason why the public at large should now push the pendulum the other way. This law doesn't 'actually suck', but it can be made to 'actually suck' and then we all lose something of value.
- cm2012 8y ago
  That's why vague laws are bad - you have to assume all laws will be abused unless the language specifically forbids it. It sucks, but its true.
- czardoz 8y ago
  The not sucking part needs to be a part of the law. You cannot leave intentions up for interpretation and then call those who point it out "dumb". Of course GDPR is a well intentioned law. It's implementation is debatable though, and you're basically asking people to not talk about its problems.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    > and you're basically asking people to not talk about its problems. On the contrary. I'd love to talk about those problems, but this isn't one of them. Data Subjects should have the right to make Data Subject Access Requests. But the context matters. If you want to really talk about the GDPR's problems then I think it would be better to focus on the Designated Representative bit, which is prohibitively expensive for small companies.
    - czardoz 8y ago
      > On the contrary. I'd love to talk about those problems, but this isn't one of them. So you realize that this is a problem, but you'd rather not talk about it? Context matters, but the law should codify the context, and not leave it up for interpretation.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        Why do you keep putting words in my mouth, that's the second time in a row. You have a very US centric view of laws and legality, this is not a US law so please try to shift your viewpoint to the EU way of doing this and then re-interpret.
        czardoz 8y ago
        I was trying to interpret what you're saying. You should also look at the whole thing from a US perspective before calling people with a US centric view "dumb".
        jacquesm 8y ago
        > You should also look at the whole thing from a US perspective before calling people with a US centric view "dumb". Where did I do that?
        opinionator1 8y ago
        You've been using "US-centric" as a slur all over this thread.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  >There was absolutely nothing wrong with the cookie law. Really? The cookie law, however well-intentioned, could never have been useful. The simplest reason for this is that you can never know if a site is not complying with the cookie law or simply doesn't set cookies. The only way to be certain of this was to use the already existing browser mechanisms for dealing with cookies. In other words, the cookie law would never have done anything even if companies handled it exactly as intended. Implementing the cookie law costs money and time. It costs developer money and time, and it costs the time of consumers, because some developers are always going to get it wrong simply by virtue of not knowing everything about the law or how to handle it. They will hear about it from third parties and not know how to handle it and simply follow the first steps that tells them how to handle it. The way the cookie law went should have been expected. It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that it didn't do anything and it simply wasted people's time and money. >This law doesn't 'actually suck', but it can be made to 'actually suck' and then we all lose something of value. Then we're pretty much guaranteed to all lose something of value. In IT you should expect things to go wrong and for people to abuse the system. Because inevitably that's going to happen.

jacquesm 8y ago

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the cookie law. What was wrong is that companies then went out of their way to FUD it and to mis-interpret it to the point where the law lost much of its value. The GDPR is a response to that lawyering, but that's no reason why the public at large should now push the pendulum the other way. This law doesn't 'actually suck', but it can be made to 'actually suck' and then we all lose something of value.

cm2012 8y ago
That's why vague laws are bad - you have to assume all laws will be abused unless the language specifically forbids it. It sucks, but its true.
czardoz 8y ago
The not sucking part needs to be a part of the law. You cannot leave intentions up for interpretation and then call those who point it out "dumb". Of course GDPR is a well intentioned law. It's implementation is debatable though, and you're basically asking people to not talk about its problems.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > and you're basically asking people to not talk about its problems. On the contrary. I'd love to talk about those problems, but this isn't one of them. Data Subjects should have the right to make Data Subject Access Requests. But the context matters. If you want to really talk about the GDPR's problems then I think it would be better to focus on the Designated Representative bit, which is prohibitively expensive for small companies.
  - czardoz 8y ago
    > On the contrary. I'd love to talk about those problems, but this isn't one of them. So you realize that this is a problem, but you'd rather not talk about it? Context matters, but the law should codify the context, and not leave it up for interpretation.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Why do you keep putting words in my mouth, that's the second time in a row. You have a very US centric view of laws and legality, this is not a US law so please try to shift your viewpoint to the EU way of doing this and then re-interpret.
      - czardoz 8y ago
        I was trying to interpret what you're saying. You should also look at the whole thing from a US perspective before calling people with a US centric view "dumb".
        jacquesm 8y ago
        > You should also look at the whole thing from a US perspective before calling people with a US centric view "dumb". Where did I do that?
        opinionator1 8y ago
        You've been using "US-centric" as a slur all over this thread.
Mirioron 8y ago
>There was absolutely nothing wrong with the cookie law. Really? The cookie law, however well-intentioned, could never have been useful. The simplest reason for this is that you can never know if a site is not complying with the cookie law or simply doesn't set cookies. The only way to be certain of this was to use the already existing browser mechanisms for dealing with cookies. In other words, the cookie law would never have done anything even if companies handled it exactly as intended. Implementing the cookie law costs money and time. It costs developer money and time, and it costs the time of consumers, because some developers are always going to get it wrong simply by virtue of not knowing everything about the law or how to handle it. They will hear about it from third parties and not know how to handle it and simply follow the first steps that tells them how to handle it. The way the cookie law went should have been expected. It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that it didn't do anything and it simply wasted people's time and money. >This law doesn't 'actually suck', but it can be made to 'actually suck' and then we all lose something of value. Then we're pretty much guaranteed to all lose something of value. In IT you should expect things to go wrong and for people to abuse the system. Because inevitably that's going to happen.