5 ms·

Hope it's not off-topic: what I still don't understand is how with regulations like this an OS like Windows can get away with the things it does. I mean, maybe

by slx26 6y ago

Hope it's not off-topic: what I still don't understand is how with regulations like this an OS like Windows can get away with the things it does. I mean, maybe there's some legal reason, but my common sense can't process it.

cryptica 6y ago
This is because the real purpose of GDPR is to prevent small startups with few financial resources and no legal team from being able to compete with big corporations with limitless financial resources and top legal teams. This is part of a broader strategy by corporations to create an economic environment which smothers startups before they can even get started. Saves them acquisition costs later. When when politicians get out of office, they have a nice highly paid corporate job waiting for them. As governments keep introducing more regulations, eventually everyone in the world will be breaking some kind of law whenever they do anything at all. That will allow governments to selectively imprison anyone who is working against the personal interests of the political and financial elite.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CamouflagedKiwi 6y ago
  This seems like a great case for Hanlon's razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"). Rather than a huge high-level conspiracy between corporations and government, it seems much more likely that the people drafting the law just didn't realise (or didn't care) how much impact it would have on small companies.
  - cryptica 6y ago
    Sure, a lot of people in government would also think that way. But there are also many very smart people behind the scenes who are using well-meaning but not-so-smart politicians for their own intelligent agendas. To suggest that armies of highly paid corporate executives are just a bunch of idiots who sit on board meetings and don't deliver any value back to their companies through political manipulation is not credible. We know that they fund think tanks and that they hire politicians after their term finishes - This is not some conspiracy theory, this is a fact. All the incentives are perfectly aligned towards that end. Besides, I don't see how stupidity and evil are mutually exclusive. Historically, they seem to always go hand in hand.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    I think it's likely that some EU politicians saw how bad the data retention act was and how it'll only be getting worse. They decided to do something about it, but when it got time to put down the details companies got involved and the end result helps those companies without most of the politicians noticing. I'm sure a decade from now they'll be confused about how the EU is still lagging behind in tech. This isn't the first time the EU has done something that screws small businesses. VAT on digital goods was another case (there was no minimum threshold). At some point it'll start to seem intentional.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      Define "tech". I'm working on a tech company which does something novel and important and have no issue complying with the GDPR - I'm aware of what data I'm processing, and what third parties I'm integrating with. I don't store or process data in ways that aren't necessary for the use of my software. I make a copy of data that I need to keep for legal/liability audit purposes into a separate system, where there's a cron job which deletes it after it's unnecessary. Deleting a user's data is as simple as DELETE FROM users WHERE id = ?, and I'm happy to do that because it means one fewer user's data which might be accessed in a security breach. I don't need a GDPR consent dialog or a cookie popup, because I don't do anything which needs either of these - I don't have any cookies aside from a login cookie, and I don't process data in unnecessary ways. I have a document which specifies what data I store and what I use it for, from which I can derive a privacy policy. So... define "tech". If you mean "adtech", say that.
      - Mirioron 6y ago
        So what do you do when you need to fix a bug and need logs and other information from users? How do you track all of that data on developer machines? How does your system delete data from all backups? Do you have an automated system a use can request all their data from? How do you validate that they are who they say they are? How sure are you that all your processes are legally enough? How much did all of this cost? I do mean tech. An industry tends to breed more of the industry. Adtech is part of tech and a lot of online businesses rely on ads. If you remove that you also remove a large chunk of people that would work on this type of tech. Then some of them instead end up working for some US company. Europe has a much larger population than the US. Europe is largely as educated as the US. Where's our Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Sony etc? We have SAP and that's it. Edit: I like the idea of GDPR, but I cannot stand how people think it has no cost. A large portion of the internet relies on the ad industry.
  - silveraxe93 6y ago
    Hanlon's razor is great. I feel it's important to always keep it in mind once you see something stupid (or evil) being done. Stupidity is the most likely explanation, but malice is the most satisfying. I think politicians really care about these things. But these big sweeping laws and changes are because of hubris (but then again, the job selects for that). Society is damn complicated, everything affects everything. Making a change in one small part propagates quickly and unpredictably. But politicians don't internalise that (of course, if they did they would never get elected on the platform of "stuff is complicated, I don't know if this will help!"). So they see a problem. Our information is being used maliciously! We need to stop that! Protect the people! So some massive law gets passed with tons of unintended side-effects and it's captured by big corporations at the speed of light.
  - sgift 6y ago
    Or, the law works just fine and "hey, I want to steal user data without any consequences" is just not a good business model. Millions of small companies work just fine and have zero problems with GDPR. Only a very specific subset (mostly web companies that don't want to ask people for money, but instead sell their data) have real problems and cry loud.
- Nursie 6y ago
  In what way does "Don't track people without clear permission, make sure you have a good reason to collect data, draw up a privacy policy and have someone be responsible for it" smother start ups? Because that's basically all you need for compliance here.
Nextgrid 6y ago
There is very little interest in actually enforcing the GDPR, that's the problem. In the UK I've reported a dozen companies, (both big and small) to the regulator and it led absolutely nowhere.
- di4na 6y ago
  There is a lot of interest, but EU DPA far prefer trying to educate and move the needle slowly than hit a lot of companies, killing them. I would point out that, if not for Covid, the UK DPA had planned to kill multiple adtech company during the summer. They had announced it. There is enforcement. It is just slow because the DPA prefer working with companies and the business side so they can become compliant instead of randomly hitting. They are here to enhance everyone rights, not to collect fees to fill state coffers.
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    I'm confident Microsoft wouldn't be killed by enforcing the law on them.
- remus 6y ago
  As I understand it (from talking to people who have worked closely with the ICO in the UK) they're basically very understaffed and so prioritise the low hanging fruit e.g. big companies committing the most serious violations.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    > so prioritise the low hanging fruit e.g. big companies committing the most serious violations. Facebook and Google are still around and I haven't heard about them being investigated in the UK so something doesn't add up.
  - woodpanel 6y ago
    I can echo that. AFAIK many companies specifically choose their country of hosting by the amount of understaffedness (one prominent host-country to many global tech giants has a staff size in the very-low single digits).

by slx26 6y ago

cryptica 6y ago

This is because the real purpose of GDPR is to prevent small startups with few financial resources and no legal team from being able to compete with big corporations with limitless financial resources and top legal teams. This is part of a broader strategy by corporations to create an economic environment which smothers startups before they can even get started. Saves them acquisition costs later. When when politicians get out of office, they have a nice highly paid corporate job waiting for them. As governments keep introducing more regulations, eventually everyone in the world will be breaking some kind of law whenever they do anything at all. That will allow governments to selectively imprison anyone who is working against the personal interests of the political and financial elite.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CamouflagedKiwi 6y ago
This seems like a great case for Hanlon's razor ("Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"). Rather than a huge high-level conspiracy between corporations and government, it seems much more likely that the people drafting the law just didn't realise (or didn't care) how much impact it would have on small companies.
- cryptica 6y ago
  Sure, a lot of people in government would also think that way. But there are also many very smart people behind the scenes who are using well-meaning but not-so-smart politicians for their own intelligent agendas. To suggest that armies of highly paid corporate executives are just a bunch of idiots who sit on board meetings and don't deliver any value back to their companies through political manipulation is not credible. We know that they fund think tanks and that they hire politicians after their term finishes - This is not some conspiracy theory, this is a fact. All the incentives are perfectly aligned towards that end. Besides, I don't see how stupidity and evil are mutually exclusive. Historically, they seem to always go hand in hand.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  I think it's likely that some EU politicians saw how bad the data retention act was and how it'll only be getting worse. They decided to do something about it, but when it got time to put down the details companies got involved and the end result helps those companies without most of the politicians noticing. I'm sure a decade from now they'll be confused about how the EU is still lagging behind in tech. This isn't the first time the EU has done something that screws small businesses. VAT on digital goods was another case (there was no minimum threshold). At some point it'll start to seem intentional.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    Define "tech". I'm working on a tech company which does something novel and important and have no issue complying with the GDPR - I'm aware of what data I'm processing, and what third parties I'm integrating with. I don't store or process data in ways that aren't necessary for the use of my software. I make a copy of data that I need to keep for legal/liability audit purposes into a separate system, where there's a cron job which deletes it after it's unnecessary. Deleting a user's data is as simple as DELETE FROM users WHERE id = ?, and I'm happy to do that because it means one fewer user's data which might be accessed in a security breach. I don't need a GDPR consent dialog or a cookie popup, because I don't do anything which needs either of these - I don't have any cookies aside from a login cookie, and I don't process data in unnecessary ways. I have a document which specifies what data I store and what I use it for, from which I can derive a privacy policy. So... define "tech". If you mean "adtech", say that.
    - Mirioron 6y ago
      So what do you do when you need to fix a bug and need logs and other information from users? How do you track all of that data on developer machines? How does your system delete data from all backups? Do you have an automated system a use can request all their data from? How do you validate that they are who they say they are? How sure are you that all your processes are legally enough? How much did all of this cost? I do mean tech. An industry tends to breed more of the industry. Adtech is part of tech and a lot of online businesses rely on ads. If you remove that you also remove a large chunk of people that would work on this type of tech. Then some of them instead end up working for some US company. Europe has a much larger population than the US. Europe is largely as educated as the US. Where's our Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, Sony etc? We have SAP and that's it. Edit: I like the idea of GDPR, but I cannot stand how people think it has no cost. A large portion of the internet relies on the ad industry.
- silveraxe93 6y ago
  Hanlon's razor is great. I feel it's important to always keep it in mind once you see something stupid (or evil) being done. Stupidity is the most likely explanation, but malice is the most satisfying. I think politicians really care about these things. But these big sweeping laws and changes are because of hubris (but then again, the job selects for that). Society is damn complicated, everything affects everything. Making a change in one small part propagates quickly and unpredictably. But politicians don't internalise that (of course, if they did they would never get elected on the platform of "stuff is complicated, I don't know if this will help!"). So they see a problem. Our information is being used maliciously! We need to stop that! Protect the people! So some massive law gets passed with tons of unintended side-effects and it's captured by big corporations at the speed of light.
- sgift 6y ago
  Or, the law works just fine and "hey, I want to steal user data without any consequences" is just not a good business model. Millions of small companies work just fine and have zero problems with GDPR. Only a very specific subset (mostly web companies that don't want to ask people for money, but instead sell their data) have real problems and cry loud.
Nursie 6y ago
In what way does "Don't track people without clear permission, make sure you have a good reason to collect data, draw up a privacy policy and have someone be responsible for it" smother start ups? Because that's basically all you need for compliance here.

Nextgrid 6y ago

There is very little interest in actually enforcing the GDPR, that's the problem. In the UK I've reported a dozen companies, (both big and small) to the regulator and it led absolutely nowhere.

di4na 6y ago
There is a lot of interest, but EU DPA far prefer trying to educate and move the needle slowly than hit a lot of companies, killing them. I would point out that, if not for Covid, the UK DPA had planned to kill multiple adtech company during the summer. They had announced it. There is enforcement. It is just slow because the DPA prefer working with companies and the business side so they can become compliant instead of randomly hitting. They are here to enhance everyone rights, not to collect fees to fill state coffers.
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  I'm confident Microsoft wouldn't be killed by enforcing the law on them.
remus 6y ago
As I understand it (from talking to people who have worked closely with the ICO in the UK) they're basically very understaffed and so prioritise the low hanging fruit e.g. big companies committing the most serious violations.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > so prioritise the low hanging fruit e.g. big companies committing the most serious violations. Facebook and Google are still around and I haven't heard about them being investigated in the UK so something doesn't add up.
- woodpanel 6y ago
  I can echo that. AFAIK many companies specifically choose their country of hosting by the amount of understaffedness (one prominent host-country to many global tech giants has a staff size in the very-low single digits).