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As an EU citizen, I'm extremely happy for the way the EU is pushing back on the tech giants. It's empowering. The GDPR, in my opinion, turned out to be a terri

As an EU citizen, I'm extremely happy for the way the EU is pushing back on the tech giants. It's empowering. The GDPR, in my opinion, turned out to be a terrific first step (which does not mean it does not have its issues). It's been a rocky two+ years, but most sites are already up to a point where they actually give me a way to express my consent, or (more importantly) to object to processing on grounds of legitimate interest (which is where advertisers come in). And that's just one example. The GDPR starts with the following sentence (in recital 1): The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right. And the EU is living up to it. It's empowering to actually have a say in how one's own data is being processed, rather than just being the product at someone else's mercy. I can only welcome any further steps in this direction. I have no issues with some entity getting rich and powerful, the problem is when they get too powerful.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>As an EU citizen, I'm extremely happy for the way the EU is pushing back on the tech giants. It's empowering. Let's not kid ourselves, the main reason EU is pushing against them so easily is that they're not European so they have nothing to lose. See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers faced with emission cheating/scandals and the amount of lobbying they do. If Google and Facebook would be locally home grown and provide tens of thousands of well paid jobs and billions in tax revenue to the EU economy, not to mention provide the EU with a global (surveillance)hegemony on tech, it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide.
- maest 6y ago
  That doesn't counter what the OP said. The EU can empower citizens with anti tech corporate action while also dropping the ball whean dealing with European car manufacturers. It's not either/or.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  The most GDPR fines are still on European companies fyi: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ It will cost < 1000 € to go after a big tech company that doesn't respect GDPR ( Cfr. If you start it in the Netherlands)
- kabes 6y ago
  > See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers face with emissions. The EU consistently puts down very strict regulations regarding emissions and with the new 2021 laws it's predicted VW alone will have to pay 4.5 billion euro fines to the EU for not reaching the emission targets. It's one of the reasons they started selling the ID.3 when it was only half-finished.
- ckastner 6y ago
  > Let's not kid ourselves, the main reason EU is pushing against them so easily is that they're not European so they have nothing to lose. Data protection in the EU goes back to before Facebook was even founded. Google was still a small startup. The GDPR was just the next iteration of it. In any case, even if that were the case, then recognizing the right to one's own data as a fundamental right would just be an empty pretext. > See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers faced with emission cheating/scandals and the amount of lobbying they do. It's possible for someone to do well in one area, and to perform badly in another. As a counterpoint, the GDPR has been enforced just as strongly against European banks, for example. Edit: here you go, the first EU incarnation that recognizes the rights of individual to their data, published in October 1995 (when none of these tech giants even existed): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A31995L0046 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
- Zeing0Ch 6y ago
  > If Google and Facebook would be locally home grown [...] it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide. These laws are not designed to hit only Google and Facebook they are hitting tech in general, including local companies. If the EU were to have any locally home grown tech companies to speak of, it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide. I can only assume the EU gave up completely on its own businesses to ever be able to compete with any US tech company. These regulations upon regulations increasing the bar of entry continuously practically guarantee that there won't ever be a competitor to any US tech company coming out of the EU.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
As a European citizen, I'm tired of having to close hundreds of popups a day which purposefully use dark patterns to make it harder to unselect everything and just close and make it easy to accept everything in one click. This is what happens when you get incompetent non technical people to regulate on things. Most people still just accept everything and we get terrible, government mandated ui. Oh and let's not forget all the foreign websites I can't access anymore because they're not compliant and required to block traffic from EU. Why can't I read anymore local USA newspapers? Is this freedom? It's the EU that it's getting too powerful (unless we look at the economy)
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  It's the newspaper's choice to exclude you. Nothing in the law requires it. Proof: the website you're currently using. The New York Times. Really anything except the Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly
  - vixen99 6y ago
    As you well know, using 'Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly' as examples is disingenuous. Mildly amusing but deliberately misses the point. For the newspaper it's the law of diminishing returns as regards far-flung readers.
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    > It's the newspaper's choice to exclude you. Nothing in the law requires it. The EU makes a law, and suddenly a bunch of newspapers choose to exclude europeans. > Really anything except the Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly Sour grapes thinking. If that were really the case people wouldn't notice it at all. You click on a link because it interests you, then see that as a european you can't access it and then tell yourself that it didn't actually interest you.
- maest 6y ago
  > I'm tired of having to... Weird, I manually opt out of everything on most websites I visit and I find it pretty straightforward. There's only a handful of flows that most websites use, so it's not that difficult. There are some egregious exceptions (Yahoo being a particularly annoying one), but that's a small number of cases and, in most cases, it makes me realise I didn't actually care that much about reading their content, so I just move on. Also, the dark patterns are not a result of the law, but a result of insufficient law enforcement. If the EU comissions starts going after a few websites that employ particularly dark patterns for consent, you'll see everyone fall in line. > Is this freedom? Yup, it's that website's freedom to block EU traffic.
m463 6y ago
I like the fact that corporations (invented bodies) are starting to have limitations placed on them and maybe they can't argue their way out. This isn't because I dislike capitalism or business - they really enrich everyone -- it's just that checks and balances are always better for everyone.
cblconfederate 6y ago
GDPR was a major shot in their own foot. This new one seems to be the right direction though
amaccuish 6y ago
I still think GDPR should have regulated the DNT header. Scoped, what it means to say "non-functional" cookies, or whatever they're called in the popups. Then we could have had just one switch in the browser.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

>As an EU citizen, I'm extremely happy for the way the EU is pushing back on the tech giants. It's empowering. Let's not kid ourselves, the main reason EU is pushing against them so easily is that they're not European so they have nothing to lose. See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers faced with emission cheating/scandals and the amount of lobbying they do. If Google and Facebook would be locally home grown and provide tens of thousands of well paid jobs and billions in tax revenue to the EU economy, not to mention provide the EU with a global (surveillance)hegemony on tech, it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide.

maest 6y ago
That doesn't counter what the OP said. The EU can empower citizens with anti tech corporate action while also dropping the ball whean dealing with European car manufacturers. It's not either/or.
NicoJuicy 6y ago
The most GDPR fines are still on European companies fyi: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ It will cost < 1000 € to go after a big tech company that doesn't respect GDPR ( Cfr. If you start it in the Netherlands)
kabes 6y ago
> See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers face with emissions. The EU consistently puts down very strict regulations regarding emissions and with the new 2021 laws it's predicted VW alone will have to pay 4.5 billion euro fines to the EU for not reaching the emission targets. It's one of the reasons they started selling the ID.3 when it was only half-finished.
ckastner 6y ago
> Let's not kid ourselves, the main reason EU is pushing against them so easily is that they're not European so they have nothing to lose. Data protection in the EU goes back to before Facebook was even founded. Google was still a small startup. The GDPR was just the next iteration of it. In any case, even if that were the case, then recognizing the right to one's own data as a fundamental right would just be an empty pretext. > See how little resistance from the EU, VW and other EU major car manufacturers faced with emission cheating/scandals and the amount of lobbying they do. It's possible for someone to do well in one area, and to perform badly in another. As a counterpoint, the GDPR has been enforced just as strongly against European banks, for example. Edit: here you go, the first EU incarnation that recognizes the rights of individual to their data, published in October 1995 (when none of these tech giants even existed): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A31995L0046 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
Zeing0Ch 6y ago
> If Google and Facebook would be locally home grown [...] it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide. These laws are not designed to hit only Google and Facebook they are hitting tech in general, including local companies. If the EU were to have any locally home grown tech companies to speak of, it would be safe to assume the EU would let many of the current things slide. I can only assume the EU gave up completely on its own businesses to ever be able to compete with any US tech company. These regulations upon regulations increasing the bar of entry continuously practically guarantee that there won't ever be a competitor to any US tech company coming out of the EU.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

As a European citizen, I'm tired of having to close hundreds of popups a day which purposefully use dark patterns to make it harder to unselect everything and just close and make it easy to accept everything in one click. This is what happens when you get incompetent non technical people to regulate on things. Most people still just accept everything and we get terrible, government mandated ui. Oh and let's not forget all the foreign websites I can't access anymore because they're not compliant and required to block traffic from EU. Why can't I read anymore local USA newspapers? Is this freedom? It's the EU that it's getting too powerful (unless we look at the economy)

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
It's the newspaper's choice to exclude you. Nothing in the law requires it. Proof: the website you're currently using. The New York Times. Really anything except the Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly
- vixen99 6y ago
  As you well know, using 'Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly' as examples is disingenuous. Mildly amusing but deliberately misses the point. For the newspaper it's the law of diminishing returns as regards far-flung readers.
- amadeuspagel 6y ago
  > It's the newspaper's choice to exclude you. Nothing in the law requires it. The EU makes a law, and suddenly a bunch of newspapers choose to exclude europeans. > Really anything except the Backwater End Times and The Suburbian Dystopia Monthly Sour grapes thinking. If that were really the case people wouldn't notice it at all. You click on a link because it interests you, then see that as a european you can't access it and then tell yourself that it didn't actually interest you.
maest 6y ago
> I'm tired of having to... Weird, I manually opt out of everything on most websites I visit and I find it pretty straightforward. There's only a handful of flows that most websites use, so it's not that difficult. There are some egregious exceptions (Yahoo being a particularly annoying one), but that's a small number of cases and, in most cases, it makes me realise I didn't actually care that much about reading their content, so I just move on. Also, the dark patterns are not a result of the law, but a result of insufficient law enforcement. If the EU comissions starts going after a few websites that employ particularly dark patterns for consent, you'll see everyone fall in line. > Is this freedom? Yup, it's that website's freedom to block EU traffic.

m463 6y ago

I like the fact that corporations (invented bodies) are starting to have limitations placed on them and maybe they can't argue their way out. This isn't because I dislike capitalism or business - they really enrich everyone -- it's just that checks and balances are always better for everyone.

cblconfederate 6y ago

GDPR was a major shot in their own foot. This new one seems to be the right direction though

amaccuish 6y ago

I still think GDPR should have regulated the DNT header. Scoped, what it means to say "non-functional" cookies, or whatever they're called in the popups. Then we could have had just one switch in the browser.