> They clearly mean to ban online tracking. There's your error. GDPR is not about online advertising. Things regulated by GDPR: * CCTV in public spaces. * M

> They clearly mean to ban online tracking. There's your error. GDPR is not about online advertising. Things regulated by GDPR: * CCTV in public spaces. * Medical records. * Employment records that businesses keep about their employees. * Credit reports. * Government records like voter databases and housing information. * Trawling public business filings to send direct-mail spam. * The loyalty card issued by your grocery store which tracks your purchases. * The CRM database used by the sales guys in your SaaS company to keep track of hot leads. GDPR regulates a wide array of data collection, and outright banning is not the correct solution for most of them. So it's about what obligations are attached to data collection and processing. Online advertising is only a small part of what's being regulated. Even online, there are modes of data collection which are permissible. E.g. collecting anonymous site statistics for your own internal use. The obligations get harder and harder to satisfy when your business practice is to spread data hither and yon to whomever will pay a nickel for it.