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> Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be? A large proportion of folks on HN seem to think GDPR is "out to get" everyone rather than a set of

by lol768 5y ago

> Are you making this more complicated than it needs to be? A large proportion of folks on HN seem to think GDPR is "out to get" everyone rather than a set of common sense regulations that should not at all be a concern for an individual who's serving a blog or personal site and doing nothing to collect PII/track their visitors. I don't understand why this view is so prevalent.

reificator 5y ago
> I don't understand why this view is so prevalent. Fearmongering from those actually affected by these common sense regulations.
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
Companies whose bottom lines are affected by GDPR are screaming that it's too difficult to understand and apply. Many HackerNews, especially for some reason North American ones, are parroting what they hear in this echo chamber without giving it a glimpse of a thought. I think we underestimate the power of PR way too often. Last I've read GDPR itself it's been way clearer than any of the Terms of Service written by the very same companies who complain that GDPR is too incomprehensible.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- rhizome 5y ago
  I don't think "parroting" is very charitable. What I think is going on is that we have a bunch of people who are seeing the internet driven by ads that are only a synthesis of print ads and TV commercials. The fact that the medium of advertising (and business itself, evidenced by all the people who say that's the only way businesses can be run anymore) resembles the past so much means the value of participating in it at all for Computer Science and nerdly interests in general is contained on the backend, in the surveillance. I think the resistance to this (not to mention the suit against Google to prevent them from eliminating third-party cookies from Chrome) is because advertising becomes boring without the PII shenanigans. If you can't slice and dice people's activities into predictions about what they're going to click on if not buy, then what did I acquire these student loans for, to write HTML and JavaScript like a schmoe? Of course reality is more particularized and varied, but in the big picture I think GDPR and other threats to surveillance advertising is treated as an existential threat to an entire class of skills, skills that can buy houses.

by lol768 5y ago

reificator 5y ago

> I don't understand why this view is so prevalent. Fearmongering from those actually affected by these common sense regulations.

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

Companies whose bottom lines are affected by GDPR are screaming that it's too difficult to understand and apply. Many HackerNews, especially for some reason North American ones, are parroting what they hear in this echo chamber without giving it a glimpse of a thought. I think we underestimate the power of PR way too often. Last I've read GDPR itself it's been way clearer than any of the Terms of Service written by the very same companies who complain that GDPR is too incomprehensible.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 5y ago
I don't think "parroting" is very charitable. What I think is going on is that we have a bunch of people who are seeing the internet driven by ads that are only a synthesis of print ads and TV commercials. The fact that the medium of advertising (and business itself, evidenced by all the people who say that's the only way businesses can be run anymore) resembles the past so much means the value of participating in it at all for Computer Science and nerdly interests in general is contained on the backend, in the surveillance. I think the resistance to this (not to mention the suit against Google to prevent them from eliminating third-party cookies from Chrome) is because advertising becomes boring without the PII shenanigans. If you can't slice and dice people's activities into predictions about what they're going to click on if not buy, then what did I acquire these student loans for, to write HTML and JavaScript like a schmoe? Of course reality is more particularized and varied, but in the big picture I think GDPR and other threats to surveillance advertising is treated as an existential threat to an entire class of skills, skills that can buy houses.