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You think GDPR didn't accomplish anything? Companies around the world had to implement it to be able to do business with the EU, as one of the largest trading b
by harryf 6y ago
You think GDPR didn't accomplish anything? Companies around the world had to implement it to be able to do business with the EU, as one of the largest trading blocks by GDP.
That means anyone storing any kind of consumer data had to consider a) how to report on what they were storing if asked and b) how to delete data if asked. Banks and others spent massive amounts of cash on implementing GDPR. It was a major breakthrough in getting corporations to take privacy seriously.
Has it solved surveillance capitalism? No. And for most of us dumb consumers we're just "ugggh.... annoying modals about privacy on every website".
But it's the first step towards having some kind of protection for consumers and it shows, despite lobbyists or otherwise, governments can have a real impact. And now the EU is building on that success.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoAs a customer, I don't want / care about protection and I will never trust an online platform, regardless of what your bureaucrats are promising to do. As a small business, that is just an extra pile of regulations and pain I need to deal with that previous competitors didn't have.
- soco 6y agoLet's look at the arguments from the other side: If you don't use all those online platforms, do you need to complain about their dark patterns? They don't affect you then. As a customer of your small business, will you trust your online small business? If yes, why? I would think, exactly because those regulations force the online small business to comply. If not, maybe because said online small business is not trustworthy...
- jmnicolas 6y ago> "ugggh.... annoying modals about privacy on every website" and most of them use dark patterns to not let us disable analytics. There are websites with hundreds of "partners" that you have to disable one by one if you don't want to get their cookies. For once the EU is fighting the good fight, but they have no teeth. Look at the quagmire that is Google privacy options list.
- pestaa 6y agoThese dark patterns are explicitly non-compliant under GDPR. There are already precedents of large fines for similar bullshit. It just takes a very long time, but when doing business in the EU, following the letter of these regulations won't be enough.
- intricatedetail 6y agoGDPR has largely been a bureaucratic exercise and came down to train people to mindlessly click agree on the pop ups. Meanwhile giants that routinely violate privacy continue untouched. GDPR also doesn't seem to have provisions against retaliation. If you use important service that violates privacy you are likely to get your account deleted if you keep complaining.
- superkuh 6y agoOh, it' accomplished something. It entirely ruined WHOIS so that you can no longer just pull up domain contact information. Another knife into the back of email. Now it's basically $socialnetwork or nothing. And it hasn't stopped any of the things it was meant to. It's just disconnected much of Europe's userbase from the rest of the world like China and Russia. And give it another 10 years and the same GDPR regulations will have entirely established and cemented the tech giants (the only ones with the army of lawyers on retainer) as the only players possible.
- dannyw 6y agoWHOIS privacy has existed for a long time, your argument is moot.
- superkuh 6y agoDomains with WHOIS privacy services holding the domain for them still had email addresses before. Most whois privacy services provided forwarding to the actual owner. This is no longer true. Your counter-argument is moot.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago>Oh, it' accomplished something. It entirely ruined WHOIS so that you can no longer just pull up domain contact information. That was ICANN's decision. They implemented a scorched-earth policy in response to the GDPR rather than, say, showing corporate ownership information and hiding personal ownership information. It was petty, and, I imagine, would not have happened if ICANN wasn't a US corporation.