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General question to EU people: do you enjoy trading data privacy for consolidation of goods/services into larger and larger corporations? After all, they are th
by hownottowrite 5y ago
General question to EU people: do you enjoy trading data privacy for consolidation of goods/services into larger and larger corporations? After all, they are the only ones can afford such expensive relationships.
Edit: This question isn’t about compliance. That’s easy. It’s about the downstream impact of “missing” data in the advertising ecosystem.
Some posters have pointed out that the EU still has a viable local press and a history of supporting smaller businesses. All true and something that sets it apart from the US.
Also, my original question is a admittedly cheeky, but I am interested in how smaller companies actually compete if their options for targeted marketing are limited.
- marginalia_nu 5y agoIn general I feel the EU bureaucracy doesn't understand the problems well enough, so the solutions typically tend to be annoying and expensive without mitigating the problem (and often the problem they attempt to solve sounds like it was formulated 10-15 years ago).
- retrobox 5y agoThe data privacy laws makes people think harder about the collection and usage of data. That’s definitely a good thing. What I don’t want to see is big corporations subvert that
- hownottowrite 5y agoBut how do smaller companies function in such an environment without being subsumed into larger marketplaces?
- hugi 5y ago-
- hownottowrite 5y agoLack of accurate targeting leads to lower ROI. If you’re trying to build a direct sales business that would seem to be a rather large impediment.
- reaperducer 5y agoThe same way they have for the last thousand years? Tech isn't magic. It's still just a business.
- drawfloat 5y agoThe alternative being weak data privacy laws and the same consolidation happening anyway? But yes, I'm fine with it. Compliance is really not that hard until you reach the scale of those same dominant players.
- hownottowrite 5y agoSo you’re saying yes because you believe the consolidation is happening regardless? Probably true in Europe. Regulation and taxation schemes are onerous there. Only the large can survive.
- drawfloat 5y agoThat's a very weird reading of that response. But no, that's not at all what I said.
- hownottowrite 5y agoI just read your edit. It doesn’t seem like I had a weird reading at all.
- Jensson 5y agoThe companies consolidate in USA regardless of what Europe does, nothing Europe does will change that.
- Jensson 5y agoBig companies dominate much more in USA than Europe though, Europe has way more small local companies that compete with Amazon etc.
- hownottowrite 5y agoAbsolutely a fair point. How do they get your attention though?
- krono 5y agoToday this is not something that affects day-to-day lives in any meaningful way I don't think. Additionally, the EU seems to be big enough of a market for corporations to still bother with providing privacy-friendly variants of their products that mostly function in exactly the same way.
- hownottowrite 5y agoBut how do smaller companies make you aware of their products if they can’t target you?
- Semaphor 5y agoI don’t know, I have all ads blocked everywhere and still discover new products. I also discovered new things, before the internet was such an ad-ridden mess that adblockers became a requirement for decent UX.
- Un1corn 5y agoJust like before there were targeted ads?
- hownottowrite 5y agoWell, before targeted ads there were blogs and they were well read. Not so much anymore since Google decimated that channel.
- pgeorgi 5y agoThink "before blogs". Windows 3.1 rose to dominance when the Internet wasn't a factor for the vast majority of computer users (and even less for everybody else). How could they possibly have acquired customers back then?!?
- hownottowrite 5y agoWith money… lots and lots of it spent on brand level marketing in print media as well as with direct sales reps.
- phicoh 5y agoLarger and larger corporations are needed to violate EU privacy rules and get away with it. After the initial scare of the GDPR, most organisations found a way to live with them. But obviously, it will become very tricky, and potentially costly if you want to violate people's privacy.
- hownottowrite 5y agoI guess it depends on the products and services and where they originate. Many media companies outside the EU have simply opted out of doing business there. I know the same is true of some smaller direct retailers.
- phicoh 5y agoThat makes sense. For company that has a few potential customers in a region with complex legislation it may make sense to get avoid those customers because of cost of complying with the legislation may be higher than what the customers are worth. A similar example is that many banks outside the US prefer not to have US citizens as customer. This is also because complying with US laws is more costly than the money made from US citizens. When it comes to smaller retailers, that is probably due to the EU tax rules. That's a pity. But possibly hard to improve.
- hownottowrite 5y agoYes, the VAT structure is particularly painful for retailers outside EU for many reasons.
- guerrilla 5y agoI believe you are misinformed and have formed a false dichotomy here. It's easy to primarily use small businesses, who are doing relatively fine. The only exception I can think of is grocery stores but that was the case here long before GDPR and also isn't the case in the rest of Europe. I suspect it's to do with the geography of my country.
- hownottowrite 5y agoThen explain how a smaller company markets goods and services in the EU without resorting the brand level advertising? Lack of targeting data makes it financially impossible until a company reaches a certain size.
- guerrilla 5y agoThe same way they always have, obviously? Also, they seem to have no problem reaching me on Facebook (the only place I can't block ads.)
- mopsi 5y agoI use newspaper ads, billboards and social media presence. Works fine. I don't need to see your nudes, know your friends, hoard your browsing history.
- hownottowrite 5y agoNewspaper ads are a fair point. Europe still has a functional local press ecosystem. That’s dead in the US.
- Jensson 5y agoI type into Google "buy computer online" and get 9 different local online shops where I can buy computers, none of them are Amazon. One of them was an ad, but the rest were just search results. Not sure why you think this wouldn't work in Europe.
- Fargren 5y ago> Lack of targeting data makes it financially impossible until a company reaches a certain size. This seems to be a premise you are working with, but as someone with my feet in Europe, it just is not true. Lack of targeting data may make it a bit more expensive to market goods, not "financially impossible". I see ads from small companies all the time. Some are even related to my interest, specially when they are located close to things related to the ads.
- kenty 5y agoAs an IT professional, I don't like it at all. The plethora of laws makes it much harder to do business in the EU: If you want to process any kind of data you are immediately forced to spend a lot of money on security certifications. This increased cost and velocity reduces the competitiveness of EU based companies which need to capture their home-market first. This is one of the potential factors why the EU loses out to other markets in startup-friendliness.
- hownottowrite 5y agoThis is what I expected to hear. We had similar issues in the US with corporate tech when various financial regulations came down in the early ‘00s
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwawaymanbot 5y agoThat turned out well for American and the world in 2008 didn’t it?
- guerrilla 5y agoSo you're going to keep asking people until you hear what you expect to hear instead of looking at the evidence? Based on your behavior here, it seems like you have already formed your conclusion and are only looking to hear specifically what you want instead of listening to the majority.
- hownottowrite 5y agoNot at all on either account.
- GordonS 5y agoWhat are these security certifications you are referring to, and who required you to get them?
- 5y ago
- hugi 5y agoAs a European running multiple sites and services, you seem to have no idea what you're talking about. The EU rules are quite simple and easy to follow, and I love having real privacy protection from corporate interests.
- wongarsu 5y agoI can see how reworking an existing system to be GDPR compliant can be a major headache. But for anything designed from the ground up the rules are really easy to follow and quite sensible.
- hownottowrite 5y agoSure they are simple to follow. The question I have for you is how do you attract new customers?
- madmoose 5y agoBy providing useful products or services?
- wutwutwutwut 5y agoAs a company you need to follow the law. As a company, to attract new customer you sell something useful. Those two aren't mutually exclusive. For example, you can sell a service to a customer even if you respect their privacy.
- mrweasel 5y agoAds are still legal, that hasn’t changed. You can still target customer based on the sites the visit or the sesrches they make. Sales people, well agencies, are just super pissed that they now have to do actual work. For years they’ve been able to make money by clicking around in AdWords and Facebook ads, now the real sales people has to get back to work.
- hownottowrite 5y agoA couple people here have said "make something useful." Fascinating. So make something useful but then how do you actually get it in front of people without resorting to very expensive and inefficient brand advertising?
- hnlmorg 5y agoSmaller companies have fewer compliance concerns and thus have an easier and cheaper job conforming. As for the comment about "consolidation of goods/services into larger and larger corporations", that's very much an Americanisation. It's usually the American firms that go for global monopolies. I'm not saying we don't have large multi-nationals in the Europe as well but there is a real culture for supporting independent businesses here which I've not noticed in America (it might exist there but I've not seen it as prevalent there during my visits). Frankly, the only people GDPR affects is those it's expressly there to protect us from. So I consider that a win.
- hownottowrite 5y agoThe culture for supporting small businesses is a very fair point. Americans talk about it but in practice the support is very weak. Europe also retains strong local press operations so advertising in newspapers is actually viable. That’s dead in the US.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI wonder what demographic is reading physical newspapers in Europe to cause a difference compared to the US.
- kiryin 5y agoPeople saying that the laws are only there to ruin your business are mainly non-Europeans who have at most read a shallow blog posts on the topic, also written by non-Europeans. The EU laws and regulations are quite simple to follow, and I dare say that it's much more difficult for those large corporations you mentioned because they usually have much more responsibilities. Smaller companies with a smaller scope do not have to worry about rules which do not concern them and their business. So, to answer your question, yes, this is exactly what I want personally. For-profit actors need to be scrutinized.
- hownottowrite 5y agoBut if the rules impact a smaller company’s ability to market against larger and better funded competitors isn’t that an issue as well? Ultimately my question isn’t about compliance. That is relatively simple. It’s about the downstream effects.
- pyrale 5y ago> do you enjoy [...] consolidation of goods/services into larger and larger corporations? I mean, it seems the US has completely abandoned their policy of breaking anti-competitive companies in favor of what essentially looks like surveillance mercantilism. In that context, your question is ambiguous: are you, as often happens here, arguing that EU attempts at regulation entrench monopolies, or are you arguing that the EU should take significant actions to break US tech monopolies' presence in Europe? In the first case, I believe there is ample evidence that anti competitive behaviour by tech companies is widespread enough that regulation doesn't significantly improve their position. As for the second argument, the US government has always vigourously pushed back against any EU attempt at unfavourable regulation.
- hownottowrite 5y agoNeither actually. My question is more about downstream impacts on smaller companies. For example, Apple rolls out privacy controls in iOS 14. The story is about big adtech vs Apple privacy, but the downstream impact is that smaller businesses can no longer target effectively. GDPR and similar privacy moves in Europe have the same impact. The result is that smaller companies either evaporate or move to marketplaces because they can no longer acquire customers at acceptable rates.
- pyrale 5y ago> The result is that smaller companies either evaporate or move to marketplaces because they can no longer acquire customers at acceptable rates. I am a bit stuck here, what do you call smaller businesses? Rolling out effective targeted advertising is hard in the first place. It's even more so in an environment like Europe where potential buyers are fragmented across countries with different languages, cultures, and so on. If anything, effective privacy laws levels the playing field. That's good for companies that can't afford a large marketing budget.
- hownottowrite 5y agoLet’s say companies with revenue between 500K and 5M Euro in annual income, but certainly smaller businesses can stand up targeted ads even if they’re just going self-serve.