56 ms·

I think you could make a pretty strong case that Google AdWords are even further entrenched and harder to compete with thanks to GDPR.

by eli 8y ago

manigandham 8y ago
That's definitely the case, and the entire adtech community knows it. GDPR is another example of lawmakers having no insight or cooperation with the industry they're regulating and creating unintended consequences.
- downandout 8y ago
  I wouldn’t say that the consequences were unintended. Lawmakers aren’t that dumb. More likely, they engineered the legislation specifically to consolidate market power and revenue in the hands of a small group of entities. They did this both because a small group is more easily controlled, and because this creates incredibly deep pockets from which they can suck out massive, headline grabbing fines. These fines serve to enrich the European governments that assess them, and help the politicians behind GDPR appear to be champions of the people who are taking money from evil capitalist American corporations.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    What are these companies going to be fined for when they are following the very laws that now protect them via user-given consent and further establishing their monopolies? If anything, these companies probably welcomed these regulations and now have more power over politicians who have used up much political capital in getting this done. It's unlikely that any corrective actions will be taken anytime soon.
    - downandout 8y ago
      What are these companies going to be fined for when they are following the very laws that now protect them via user-given consent and further establishing their monopolies? Oh, they'll find things. There are already active formal investigations by GDPR authorities in various countries against Twitter, Facebook, and Google. The companies do like GDPR, as the fines will be nothing more than a small tax on their massive revenue. It's a win for both the companies and the politicians: the companies get a monopoly in exchange for a small tax in the form of fines, revenue hungry EU nations get multi-billion dollar windfalls, and EU politicians get to look like defenders of the people who will be tough on US companies. Everybody wins, except for would-be competitors and the consumers that don't get any choices about the services they use.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
int0x80 8y ago
I don't fully get your statement. Why are AdWords harder to compete with due to GDPR? Care to expand please? Thanks.
- obmelvin 8y ago
  Generally regulation like GDPR require a fair amount of engineering to comply with, so it is easier for larger companies to comply.
  - chii 8y ago
    If your service already doesn't do much in terms of using excessive private data outside of providing the service, GDPR compliance is not as onerous to implement. But of course, most adtech services do make use of a multitude of private data for profit, and that's why they are having a hard time.
    - nsp 8y ago
      Ugh, I feel like this is a common and overly simplistic take. While it's definitely true that GDPR is harder to comply with if you're doing a ton of evil shit or selling user data, it can definitely be quite onerous to comply with even if you're not. The company I work for (Teachable) is a specialized site builder for course content. We make all of our revenue from people either paying us directly for a plan, or transaction fees on people buying from our customers, no ads or data selling. Nevertheless, complying with GDPR still took well over a month of some of our best engineers time. Even if you don't sell data, the odds you had a plan prior to GPDR for how to handle right to be forgotten - how do you delete PII (which is defined broadly, including ip addresses) from db backups without ruining their integrity? If you use something with an immutable log, like Kafka, how do you remove the data there? Etc, etc
      - twblalock 8y ago
        Plus, even if you do all of those things properly, you will still need to field GDPR data requests, and when you tell users that you don't have any data, they might not believe you. You also might be falsely accused of violating the GDPR, and just saying "no we aren't violating the GDPR" without relying on legal advice is not a good approach if you care about the future of the company.

I think you could make a pretty strong case that Google AdWords are even further entrenched and harder to compete with thanks to GDPR.

by eli 8y ago

I think you could make a pretty strong case that Google AdWords are even further entrenched and harder to compete with thanks to GDPR.

manigandham 8y ago

That's definitely the case, and the entire adtech community knows it. GDPR is another example of lawmakers having no insight or cooperation with the industry they're regulating and creating unintended consequences.

downandout 8y ago
I wouldn’t say that the consequences were unintended. Lawmakers aren’t that dumb. More likely, they engineered the legislation specifically to consolidate market power and revenue in the hands of a small group of entities. They did this both because a small group is more easily controlled, and because this creates incredibly deep pockets from which they can suck out massive, headline grabbing fines. These fines serve to enrich the European governments that assess them, and help the politicians behind GDPR appear to be champions of the people who are taking money from evil capitalist American corporations.
- manigandham 8y ago
  What are these companies going to be fined for when they are following the very laws that now protect them via user-given consent and further establishing their monopolies? If anything, these companies probably welcomed these regulations and now have more power over politicians who have used up much political capital in getting this done. It's unlikely that any corrective actions will be taken anytime soon.
  - downandout 8y ago
    What are these companies going to be fined for when they are following the very laws that now protect them via user-given consent and further establishing their monopolies? Oh, they'll find things. There are already active formal investigations by GDPR authorities in various countries against Twitter, Facebook, and Google. The companies do like GDPR, as the fines will be nothing more than a small tax on their massive revenue. It's a win for both the companies and the politicians: the companies get a monopoly in exchange for a small tax in the form of fines, revenue hungry EU nations get multi-billion dollar windfalls, and EU politicians get to look like defenders of the people who will be tough on US companies. Everybody wins, except for would-be competitors and the consumers that don't get any choices about the services they use.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

int0x80 8y ago

I don't fully get your statement. Why are AdWords harder to compete with due to GDPR? Care to expand please? Thanks.

obmelvin 8y ago
Generally regulation like GDPR require a fair amount of engineering to comply with, so it is easier for larger companies to comply.
- chii 8y ago
  If your service already doesn't do much in terms of using excessive private data outside of providing the service, GDPR compliance is not as onerous to implement. But of course, most adtech services do make use of a multitude of private data for profit, and that's why they are having a hard time.
  - nsp 8y ago
    Ugh, I feel like this is a common and overly simplistic take. While it's definitely true that GDPR is harder to comply with if you're doing a ton of evil shit or selling user data, it can definitely be quite onerous to comply with even if you're not. The company I work for (Teachable) is a specialized site builder for course content. We make all of our revenue from people either paying us directly for a plan, or transaction fees on people buying from our customers, no ads or data selling. Nevertheless, complying with GDPR still took well over a month of some of our best engineers time. Even if you don't sell data, the odds you had a plan prior to GPDR for how to handle right to be forgotten - how do you delete PII (which is defined broadly, including ip addresses) from db backups without ruining their integrity? If you use something with an immutable log, like Kafka, how do you remove the data there? Etc, etc
    - twblalock 8y ago
      Plus, even if you do all of those things properly, you will still need to field GDPR data requests, and when you tell users that you don't have any data, they might not believe you. You also might be falsely accused of violating the GDPR, and just saying "no we aren't violating the GDPR" without relying on legal advice is not a good approach if you care about the future of the company.