7 ms·

With this and GDPR the EU is seemingly begging to be cordoned off from the broader internet.

by yasp 8y ago

dzek69 8y ago
Gdpr is actually a good thing. It's at least weird that USA-based companies must follow it, but the law itself is very good thing for a customer and not that bad for companies until they like collecting data and doing dirty stuff with it.
- closeparen 8y ago
  A fundamental right to remuneration for your creative work that can’t be signed away is in exactly the same spirit as a fundamental right to privacy that can’t be signed away. In both cases you start with a legal protection that’s good and necessary in some cases, declare it a travesty that people are signing away that right en masse against the EU’s opinion of their best interests, and close the door to that sort of contract. In both cases this flies in the face of established internet customs, so you shrug and say “in a society there must be rules, you can’t escape the law just because you’re on the internet and have gotten used to doing it.”
  - joejerryronnie 8y ago
    And this is how power hungry people/organizations throughout history have implemented disastrous policies in the interest of the "greater good".
    - ben_w 8y ago
      It’s also how and why pretty much every law in the history of humanity gets written, so singling out only the worst examples doesn’t really say if it is our worst tendency or our best.
  - cesarb 8y ago
    > fundamental right to privacy that can’t be signed away If you're talking about the GDPR, from what I understand you can sign your privacy away. What can't be done, is to require you to sign your privacy away as a condition to use some service, unless there's no way to provide that service without using your personal data.
- jakeogh 8y ago
  "USA-based companies must follow it" US based companies are not subject to EU law. The only reason a US based company might care about the the GDPR is if they have assets in the EU that the EU could seize. Other than that, we will happily ignore the EU's attack(s) on memory. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16965880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16965880
- yasp 8y ago
  I would have preferred promulgating a set of standards to be GDPR compliant, and allowing companies the option to choose whether to conform. Individuals in turn could choose whether to use GPDR compliant services or not. Rather than hitting all companies globally over the head with a hammer. Eventually this strategy of legislative aggression is going to blow up in the EU's face.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    That's the argument for why health codes should be optional, that customers can choose whether or nor to eat in dirty restaurants and the market will settle the issue. Nope. I don't want to play that game. I want everyone to obey a mandatory set of minimum rules. It's about information imbalance. Without mandatory minimums it is too easy for businesses to hide faults from consumers. I don't want websites to use business judgment when deciding whether to protect consumer privacy. I want them to fear massive retaliatory fines should they not do the bare minimum necessary to protect the public from harm.
    - frockington 8y ago
      "I want them to fear massive retaliatory fines " is exactly why America/Asia is currently dominating Europe in technology. No start up and innovation can happen in such an outwardly hostile business environment
      - yifanl 8y ago
        No startup or innovation should happen at the cost of harming the userbase.
        yasp 8y ago
        Ultimately it comes down to whether a user should be free to choose whether to use such a service. Ostensibly the user is receiving some benefit despite this "harm". If the harm outweighed the benefit there would be no user.
        8y ago
duxup 8y ago
I'm on the fence with GDPR until I see how it is enforced. There's a lot of amateur internet litigating going on out there assuming GDPR will be used like the hammer of Thor and enforced to the upmost absurdity, but things like reasonable security exceptions and such are what I want to know about. There's a lot of nuance that could swing things in any direction. The devil is always in the details.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > I'm on the fence with GDPR until I see how it is enforced. Can't we just look at how the previous incarnation was enforced to get an idea? Also, I think we can say it's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Unenforced, the law is worthless and punished only those who abided. Equitably enforced hurts a lot of smaller players. Inequitably enforced has everyone praying they are on the good side of the enforcers. Viewing through the enforcement lens can make it clearer the value, or lack of value, of the legislation akin to the value of previous versions. To the topic of the article, the enforcement lens needs to be used as well. Even if people agreed with the potentially impending copyright laws, legislators need to take enforcement concerns seriously. This is why baby steps are ideal.
  - Sangermaine 8y ago
    >Equitably enforced hurts a lot of smaller players. So? The goal of the law is user data privacy and control. It doesn't matter if the abuser is Google or someone operating a site from their dorm, violation and misuse of user data is still the same.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      Sure. I mean we could use arguments like that to justify egregious or heavily-enforced punishments on all sorts of crime. The real goal should be to bring everyone, users and companies, along towards the goal. This looks much different in practice than it does in theory. One of those practices is balancing good with bad and working towards things. While equitable enforcement is the ideal of the enforcement options, it would require the law be written to know its practical limitations which is not the case. What you'll find is that accomplishing a goal is about implementation not intention. In many cases, inadequate attempts actually work against the goal.
sqdbps 8y ago
The EU have come to the conclusion that they probably won't have a major internet company so they are willing to destroy the whole market to help legacy industries and assuage the anti American notions of their members.
- zerostar07 8y ago
  I don't think that's it. Brussels is indeed building its own kafkaesque state because they have little pragmatic sense of how things work. As an EU citizen i have little understanding of why these laws are being introduced and whether they have even been debated with us. GDPR is a mountain of bureaucracy that is already turning itself to another cookie law, with people being currently trained to click yes to consent on every website (i certainly do, its just easier than going through the alternative for each and every article i read). This law ... just seems impossible to implement but i wouldn't be surprised if it passes, even just to please the lawmakers who made it.
  - openIce 8y ago
    Wtf does GDPR has to do with clicking a button? Im happy I can request all data a company has stored about me and tell them to delete it
    - zerostar07 8y ago
      The consent boxes are what GDPR will mean to most people in a few months. Deleting your data is a good thing, but that option has been available from the biggest data hoarders for years, and it's not exactly popular. In fact most users dont even know/care it exists.
      - olliej 8y ago
        But deletion hasn’t been available (and most “deletion” request functions have been in response to legal and governmental pressure already) and I recall seeing multiple stories about “deleted” material not being deleted. Gdpr is a response to the prior attempts to let the industry “self regulate” not actually doing anything. Does it over regulate? Personally I don’t think so - people talk about the complexity but that’s mostly due to the need to be absolutely explicit everywhere, and need to ensure that there aren’t loophole that can be abused by some company with enough lawyers.

With this and GDPR the EU is seemingly begging to be cordoned off from the broader internet.

by yasp 8y ago

With this and GDPR the EU is seemingly begging to be cordoned off from the broader internet.

Gdpr is actually a good thing. It's at least weird that USA-based companies must follow it, but the law itself is very good thing for a customer and not that bad for companies until they like collecting data and doing dirty stuff with it.

closeparen 8y ago
A fundamental right to remuneration for your creative work that can’t be signed away is in exactly the same spirit as a fundamental right to privacy that can’t be signed away. In both cases you start with a legal protection that’s good and necessary in some cases, declare it a travesty that people are signing away that right en masse against the EU’s opinion of their best interests, and close the door to that sort of contract. In both cases this flies in the face of established internet customs, so you shrug and say “in a society there must be rules, you can’t escape the law just because you’re on the internet and have gotten used to doing it.”
- joejerryronnie 8y ago
  And this is how power hungry people/organizations throughout history have implemented disastrous policies in the interest of the "greater good".
  - ben_w 8y ago
    It’s also how and why pretty much every law in the history of humanity gets written, so singling out only the worst examples doesn’t really say if it is our worst tendency or our best.
- cesarb 8y ago
  > fundamental right to privacy that can’t be signed away If you're talking about the GDPR, from what I understand you can sign your privacy away. What can't be done, is to require you to sign your privacy away as a condition to use some service, unless there's no way to provide that service without using your personal data.
jakeogh 8y ago
"USA-based companies must follow it" US based companies are not subject to EU law. The only reason a US based company might care about the the GDPR is if they have assets in the EU that the EU could seize. Other than that, we will happily ignore the EU's attack(s) on memory. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16965880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16965880
yasp 8y ago
I would have preferred promulgating a set of standards to be GDPR compliant, and allowing companies the option to choose whether to conform. Individuals in turn could choose whether to use GPDR compliant services or not. Rather than hitting all companies globally over the head with a hammer. Eventually this strategy of legislative aggression is going to blow up in the EU's face.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  That's the argument for why health codes should be optional, that customers can choose whether or nor to eat in dirty restaurants and the market will settle the issue. Nope. I don't want to play that game. I want everyone to obey a mandatory set of minimum rules. It's about information imbalance. Without mandatory minimums it is too easy for businesses to hide faults from consumers. I don't want websites to use business judgment when deciding whether to protect consumer privacy. I want them to fear massive retaliatory fines should they not do the bare minimum necessary to protect the public from harm.
  - frockington 8y ago
    "I want them to fear massive retaliatory fines " is exactly why America/Asia is currently dominating Europe in technology. No start up and innovation can happen in such an outwardly hostile business environment
    - yifanl 8y ago
      No startup or innovation should happen at the cost of harming the userbase.
      - yasp 8y ago
        Ultimately it comes down to whether a user should be free to choose whether to use such a service. Ostensibly the user is receiving some benefit despite this "harm". If the harm outweighed the benefit there would be no user.
      - 8y ago

duxup 8y ago

I'm on the fence with GDPR until I see how it is enforced. There's a lot of amateur internet litigating going on out there assuming GDPR will be used like the hammer of Thor and enforced to the upmost absurdity, but things like reasonable security exceptions and such are what I want to know about. There's a lot of nuance that could swing things in any direction. The devil is always in the details.

kodablah 8y ago
> I'm on the fence with GDPR until I see how it is enforced. Can't we just look at how the previous incarnation was enforced to get an idea? Also, I think we can say it's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. Unenforced, the law is worthless and punished only those who abided. Equitably enforced hurts a lot of smaller players. Inequitably enforced has everyone praying they are on the good side of the enforcers. Viewing through the enforcement lens can make it clearer the value, or lack of value, of the legislation akin to the value of previous versions. To the topic of the article, the enforcement lens needs to be used as well. Even if people agreed with the potentially impending copyright laws, legislators need to take enforcement concerns seriously. This is why baby steps are ideal.
- Sangermaine 8y ago
  >Equitably enforced hurts a lot of smaller players. So? The goal of the law is user data privacy and control. It doesn't matter if the abuser is Google or someone operating a site from their dorm, violation and misuse of user data is still the same.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    Sure. I mean we could use arguments like that to justify egregious or heavily-enforced punishments on all sorts of crime. The real goal should be to bring everyone, users and companies, along towards the goal. This looks much different in practice than it does in theory. One of those practices is balancing good with bad and working towards things. While equitable enforcement is the ideal of the enforcement options, it would require the law be written to know its practical limitations which is not the case. What you'll find is that accomplishing a goal is about implementation not intention. In many cases, inadequate attempts actually work against the goal.

sqdbps 8y ago

The EU have come to the conclusion that they probably won't have a major internet company so they are willing to destroy the whole market to help legacy industries and assuage the anti American notions of their members.

zerostar07 8y ago
I don't think that's it. Brussels is indeed building its own kafkaesque state because they have little pragmatic sense of how things work. As an EU citizen i have little understanding of why these laws are being introduced and whether they have even been debated with us. GDPR is a mountain of bureaucracy that is already turning itself to another cookie law, with people being currently trained to click yes to consent on every website (i certainly do, its just easier than going through the alternative for each and every article i read). This law ... just seems impossible to implement but i wouldn't be surprised if it passes, even just to please the lawmakers who made it.
- openIce 8y ago
  Wtf does GDPR has to do with clicking a button? Im happy I can request all data a company has stored about me and tell them to delete it
  - zerostar07 8y ago
    The consent boxes are what GDPR will mean to most people in a few months. Deleting your data is a good thing, but that option has been available from the biggest data hoarders for years, and it's not exactly popular. In fact most users dont even know/care it exists.
    - olliej 8y ago
      But deletion hasn’t been available (and most “deletion” request functions have been in response to legal and governmental pressure already) and I recall seeing multiple stories about “deleted” material not being deleted. Gdpr is a response to the prior attempts to let the industry “self regulate” not actually doing anything. Does it over regulate? Personally I don’t think so - people talk about the complexity but that’s mostly due to the need to be absolutely explicit everywhere, and need to ensure that there aren’t loophole that can be abused by some company with enough lawyers.