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Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 HN, unfortunately, seems biased towards laws li

Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17164244 HN, unfortunately, seems biased towards laws like the GDPR and somehow believes that start-ups can no longer self regulate or Do-no-evil. I hope I am wrong regarding this. Self-regulation was once the gold standard on boards like HN. Imagine creating the Google search engine in 2018 without the new proposed EU copyright law in place. Seems difficult right? Most websites have anti-scraping techniques in place if you are not Google-bot. Now imagine, creating the next Google after laws like the new EU copyright law go live. Laws like the GDPR are red tape and are poison to start-ups. Self regulation is the way to go and we need industry bodies who can stand up and talk to government bodies like the EU to come up with meaningful regulations which help both the industry and the end user.

tannhaeuser 8y ago
This has nothing to do with GDPR.
cdancette 8y ago
Self regulation, really? Startups could never self regulate and never will. And a few bad startups can be enough to do massive damages. Look Cambridge analytica: this startup alone made the case for regulations like GDPR. As a user, I really am pleased with gdpr, so that "do-no-evil" startups stop selling my data around and not caring at all about my privacy.
- existencebox 8y ago
  (For the record, and to confuse my own statement, I actually generally agree that self-regulation isn't historically effective. I'm just also not sold on GDPR as a US resident/am as nervous as heavy regulation as I am of a lack thereof, and when I read your post it begged a devils-advocate counter to your statement from a different angle.) As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part, assumes my agency to chose which businesses I interact with. I accepted it as my responsibility to know that some may be selling my information, and to make conscientious choices accordingly. This not even touching on that the law does precisely nothing against the sort of data incidences that I have the most issue with (Equifax).
  - DanBC 8y ago
    > As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part Which business model do you think is killed by GDPR? Can you point to the bit of GDPR that you think causes that change?
    - true_religion 8y ago
      Personally, I am not against the gdrp but rather against the idea that I cannot opt out of laws created on another continent. I don't trust their enforcement because they aren't my government. If I lived in the EU, I would at least know my countries government is the one enforcing the law, but as a non EU resident I don't know who will enforce it. I don't have a home country to give me recommendations, protections or support.
    - existencebox 8y ago
      Since GDPR began to come into force, I've seen an increasing pivot from ad-based revenue models to subscription/pay per view based models, I imagine motivated in part by the fact that if you have to acquire non-implied consent, so you might as well force that friction point to fully onboard a user, and part as well by fears as to how targeted advertising will continue to provide a revenue source given the new requirements. It's fair to say that this may be an overreaction, but historically these sorts of experiments don't get reverted, once the infrastructure is in place. I personally do not find the benefits offered under GDPR to be worth losing what was previously a "relatively free" ecosystem. Others can disagree with whether they are OK with the prior state of affairs, but this is not the law I would have written to change it, and as I said before, a lot of my frustration comes in from having 0 say in the matter, (or deriving 0 benefit) yet being exposed to the friction of the legislation. (One can also observe that this may serve as a regulatory moat protecting e.g. large ad networks that have enough scale to merit the overhead/costs of global compliance infrastructure, but not new startup networks. We've seen similar problems in recent HN writeups re: starting a bank; where something much more consensus, financial security, can still serve to overreach and serve incumbents more than it protects users.) As a meta comment, I notice you are _very often_ present defending GDPR in threads where I've stayed quiet in the past; to the point that as someone who almost never notices names on this site, I've noticed yours before this interaction. Can I be curious about why you advocate this so comprehensively while also answering your question? (because, frankly, even the advocates I know personally agree that there are costs and risks involved, and that the letter of the law itself also left a lot up in the air)
pas 8y ago
> Laws like the GDPR are red tape and are poison to start-ups. Because I can demand them to properly delete my account, and they must properly disclose data breaches, and because they can't just sell their recording of my activity to whomever they feel? That's poison? > Most websites have anti-scraping techniques in place if you are not Google-bot. Do you have sources on this? > Self regulation is the way to go How will a voluntary group enforce their own regulations? Especially on the Internet? Can you name successes in self-regulation? And in the last 10 years?
jaredklewis 8y ago
While I think we are probably on the same side of this fight (I am, in a word, anti-GDPR), your assertion that HN has a pro-GDPR bias feels off. I think if the past few months have shown anything, it is that GDPR is a highly divisive issue. There have been a host of both negative and positive submissions regarding it, many of which have had spirited discussios in the comments. This is the Internet, so there is plenty of hot air on both sides, but with some digging I’ve also found nuance and rigor in the arguments. As for your point of self regulation, while I feel GDPR is a disaster in it’s implementation, I think it has come about as a reaction to the lack of sufficient self regulation on the part of tech companies. It’s simply become de rigeur for companies to attach a mandatory, 10 page, tiny font in the footer, flagrantly anti-consumer, adhesive contract to every website and app and then to shirk all responsibility when they screw up. Not exactly the model of self regulation.

tannhaeuser 8y ago

This has nothing to do with GDPR.

cdancette 8y ago

Self regulation, really? Startups could never self regulate and never will. And a few bad startups can be enough to do massive damages. Look Cambridge analytica: this startup alone made the case for regulations like GDPR. As a user, I really am pleased with gdpr, so that "do-no-evil" startups stop selling my data around and not caring at all about my privacy.

existencebox 8y ago
(For the record, and to confuse my own statement, I actually generally agree that self-regulation isn't historically effective. I'm just also not sold on GDPR as a US resident/am as nervous as heavy regulation as I am of a lack thereof, and when I read your post it begged a devils-advocate counter to your statement from a different angle.) As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part, assumes my agency to chose which businesses I interact with. I accepted it as my responsibility to know that some may be selling my information, and to make conscientious choices accordingly. This not even touching on that the law does precisely nothing against the sort of data incidences that I have the most issue with (Equifax).
- DanBC 8y ago
  > As a user, I'm _not_ pleased that the law has devoided me of a choice to participate with businesses under a previously acceptable business model, and without any input/say on my part Which business model do you think is killed by GDPR? Can you point to the bit of GDPR that you think causes that change?
  - true_religion 8y ago
    Personally, I am not against the gdrp but rather against the idea that I cannot opt out of laws created on another continent. I don't trust their enforcement because they aren't my government. If I lived in the EU, I would at least know my countries government is the one enforcing the law, but as a non EU resident I don't know who will enforce it. I don't have a home country to give me recommendations, protections or support.
  - existencebox 8y ago
    Since GDPR began to come into force, I've seen an increasing pivot from ad-based revenue models to subscription/pay per view based models, I imagine motivated in part by the fact that if you have to acquire non-implied consent, so you might as well force that friction point to fully onboard a user, and part as well by fears as to how targeted advertising will continue to provide a revenue source given the new requirements. It's fair to say that this may be an overreaction, but historically these sorts of experiments don't get reverted, once the infrastructure is in place. I personally do not find the benefits offered under GDPR to be worth losing what was previously a "relatively free" ecosystem. Others can disagree with whether they are OK with the prior state of affairs, but this is not the law I would have written to change it, and as I said before, a lot of my frustration comes in from having 0 say in the matter, (or deriving 0 benefit) yet being exposed to the friction of the legislation. (One can also observe that this may serve as a regulatory moat protecting e.g. large ad networks that have enough scale to merit the overhead/costs of global compliance infrastructure, but not new startup networks. We've seen similar problems in recent HN writeups re: starting a bank; where something much more consensus, financial security, can still serve to overreach and serve incumbents more than it protects users.) As a meta comment, I notice you are _very often_ present defending GDPR in threads where I've stayed quiet in the past; to the point that as someone who almost never notices names on this site, I've noticed yours before this interaction. Can I be curious about why you advocate this so comprehensively while also answering your question? (because, frankly, even the advocates I know personally agree that there are costs and risks involved, and that the letter of the law itself also left a lot up in the air)

pas 8y ago

> Laws like the GDPR are red tape and are poison to start-ups. Because I can demand them to properly delete my account, and they must properly disclose data breaches, and because they can't just sell their recording of my activity to whomever they feel? That's poison? > Most websites have anti-scraping techniques in place if you are not Google-bot. Do you have sources on this? > Self regulation is the way to go How will a voluntary group enforce their own regulations? Especially on the Internet? Can you name successes in self-regulation? And in the last 10 years?

jaredklewis 8y ago

While I think we are probably on the same side of this fight (I am, in a word, anti-GDPR), your assertion that HN has a pro-GDPR bias feels off. I think if the past few months have shown anything, it is that GDPR is a highly divisive issue. There have been a host of both negative and positive submissions regarding it, many of which have had spirited discussios in the comments. This is the Internet, so there is plenty of hot air on both sides, but with some digging I’ve also found nuance and rigor in the arguments. As for your point of self regulation, while I feel GDPR is a disaster in it’s implementation, I think it has come about as a reaction to the lack of sufficient self regulation on the part of tech companies. It’s simply become de rigeur for companies to attach a mandatory, 10 page, tiny font in the footer, flagrantly anti-consumer, adhesive contract to every website and app and then to shirk all responsibility when they screw up. Not exactly the model of self regulation.