4 ms·

Has anyone here been involved in the lawmaking process? I’m curious to know whether the lawmakers had a good grasp of the technologies. I’ve always suspected

by amgreg 6y ago

Has anyone here been involved in the lawmaking process? I’m curious to know whether the lawmakers had a good grasp of the technologies. I’ve always suspected the cookie law was written by a technocrat, clueless as to how the targeted technology actually works — but I’d love to be set right.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
I’ve worked for the EU parliament, but not on this specifically. The people working on any given law (regulation) tend to be well-informed, and so are the parliamentarians that take lead roles on an issue. Part of the problem here is that websites are less-well informed on the law: session cookies, for example, do not require a warning IIRC. But many websites using only those needlessly ask for permission. One mistake in thinking by lawmakers was to assume that websites would chose to forgo third-party and long-lasting cookies in cases where they are of marginal utility. This obviously didn’t happen, partly because everyone started using cookie warnings and they therefore became normalized. It should be noted that unlike the previous iteration, the current warnings ask for consent and tend to include a not-too-difficult-to-reach option to deny it. I believe many people (and parliamentarians) that are passionate about privacy issues would also argue that the current situation is still better than quietly using your data. If you value privacy high enough, it rather quickly outweighs any annoyance, even if the latter is far more prominent in daily life.
- easytiger 6y ago
  The cookie laws have done quite literally nothing to aid privacy. As a top level comment states, browsers are much more apt to handling this than forcing websites to. Furthermore it is singularly more painful to consider that most websites do not exist within the EU. Like most of the laws sponsored by these lawmakers they are technically useless and act as little more than a hook to allow various governments to arbitrarily penalise companies they don't like. Literally no one voted for an MEP hoping for regulation of cookies on their browsing.
- amgreg 6y ago
  Thank you for this angle. This may have changed, but when I studied EU Law about eight years ago, the Parliament didn’t actually pass laws (despite the name) — I believe this was reserved for the Commission, who are unelected. If that’s right, how can we know if the Commission members who worked on this actually had a grasp of the technologies? (Real question, not rhetorical).
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    Only the Commission gets to initiate legislation. But after that, a majority in parliament is needed and parliament is allowed to and regularly does amend the text. “Amend” shouldn’t be interpreted to mean “lightly edit”. Any given paragraph is more likely to be changed than not in this process, and on at least one occasion parliament just replaced the entirety of a bill. The commissioners vary widely in competence both generally as well as in relation to their portfolio. There are legitimate superstars such as competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. People disagree about some of the targets of her investigations. But even her worst critics are apt to lament her ability to get thinks done rather than doubt her skills. Then, there are commissioners decidedly lacking in competence, at least in regard to their portfolio. Günther Oettinger is a prime example here, and he was bound to head the digitization portfolio but was thankfully booted from the commission by von der Leyen taking up the German spot. These are usually long-time politicians who for some reason or other make an awkward fit for any national position, but are still too powerful within their national parties to be ignored altogether. Then, there are actually corrupt lowlights. There are far fewer of these than people assume. Look for a Maltese flag to improve your chances if you’re looking for them. Of course all of them have staff, which does the actual heavy lifting of writing bills (among other things). I hesitate to judge their skills on any absolute scale. But, purely subjectively, I’d say these teams are at least as good as any delegation from Germany, which are generally regarded as top-notch, but in my experience often carry along some bad apples they can’t get rid off because of tenure or whatnot. I don’t know the people who worked on GDPR. You can expect them to have the internet skills of any 30- or 40-year old high performer, with a degree in law or the humanities more often than STEM. So they are unlikely to have programming experience, but do probably know what cookies are. I’m somewhat struggling to come up with examples of technical knowledge that may have been missing here. In fact, I could probably summarize everything I know about cookies in less than five minutes. And while I probably lack some details, I doubt it would include anything of relevance to this legislation.

by amgreg 6y ago

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

I’ve worked for the EU parliament, but not on this specifically. The people working on any given law (regulation) tend to be well-informed, and so are the parliamentarians that take lead roles on an issue. Part of the problem here is that websites are less-well informed on the law: session cookies, for example, do not require a warning IIRC. But many websites using only those needlessly ask for permission. One mistake in thinking by lawmakers was to assume that websites would chose to forgo third-party and long-lasting cookies in cases where they are of marginal utility. This obviously didn’t happen, partly because everyone started using cookie warnings and they therefore became normalized. It should be noted that unlike the previous iteration, the current warnings ask for consent and tend to include a not-too-difficult-to-reach option to deny it. I believe many people (and parliamentarians) that are passionate about privacy issues would also argue that the current situation is still better than quietly using your data. If you value privacy high enough, it rather quickly outweighs any annoyance, even if the latter is far more prominent in daily life.

easytiger 6y ago
The cookie laws have done quite literally nothing to aid privacy. As a top level comment states, browsers are much more apt to handling this than forcing websites to. Furthermore it is singularly more painful to consider that most websites do not exist within the EU. Like most of the laws sponsored by these lawmakers they are technically useless and act as little more than a hook to allow various governments to arbitrarily penalise companies they don't like. Literally no one voted for an MEP hoping for regulation of cookies on their browsing.
amgreg 6y ago
Thank you for this angle. This may have changed, but when I studied EU Law about eight years ago, the Parliament didn’t actually pass laws (despite the name) — I believe this was reserved for the Commission, who are unelected. If that’s right, how can we know if the Commission members who worked on this actually had a grasp of the technologies? (Real question, not rhetorical).
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  Only the Commission gets to initiate legislation. But after that, a majority in parliament is needed and parliament is allowed to and regularly does amend the text. “Amend” shouldn’t be interpreted to mean “lightly edit”. Any given paragraph is more likely to be changed than not in this process, and on at least one occasion parliament just replaced the entirety of a bill. The commissioners vary widely in competence both generally as well as in relation to their portfolio. There are legitimate superstars such as competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. People disagree about some of the targets of her investigations. But even her worst critics are apt to lament her ability to get thinks done rather than doubt her skills. Then, there are commissioners decidedly lacking in competence, at least in regard to their portfolio. Günther Oettinger is a prime example here, and he was bound to head the digitization portfolio but was thankfully booted from the commission by von der Leyen taking up the German spot. These are usually long-time politicians who for some reason or other make an awkward fit for any national position, but are still too powerful within their national parties to be ignored altogether. Then, there are actually corrupt lowlights. There are far fewer of these than people assume. Look for a Maltese flag to improve your chances if you’re looking for them. Of course all of them have staff, which does the actual heavy lifting of writing bills (among other things). I hesitate to judge their skills on any absolute scale. But, purely subjectively, I’d say these teams are at least as good as any delegation from Germany, which are generally regarded as top-notch, but in my experience often carry along some bad apples they can’t get rid off because of tenure or whatnot. I don’t know the people who worked on GDPR. You can expect them to have the internet skills of any 30- or 40-year old high performer, with a degree in law or the humanities more often than STEM. So they are unlikely to have programming experience, but do probably know what cookies are. I’m somewhat struggling to come up with examples of technical knowledge that may have been missing here. In fact, I could probably summarize everything I know about cookies in less than five minutes. And while I probably lack some details, I doubt it would include anything of relevance to this legislation.