4 ms·

As another European I consider this a grave mistake and I am not surprised that we do not see many successful startups in Europe. It is part of the narrow-minde

by jansan 3y ago

As another European I consider this a grave mistake and I am not surprised that we do not see many successful startups in Europe. It is part of the narrow-minded micro managing mindset that too many European politicians (especially the greens) have. Instead of finding an innovative solution (how about mandating ISPs to make IP addresses unmappable to a user?) they only know one solution: Making things illegal, even if in almost all cases the use is benign or even makes a lot of sense.

makeitdouble 3y ago
> how about mandating ISPs to make IP addresses unmappable to a user? I can't see how this would work in practice: you'd still have the same IP when visiting site A where your real identity is known, and site B where you didn't give them consent to access your information. The only reasonable course of action is to classify your IP as an identifying info, as site A and B exchanging info would result in your exposure (or site A and B being the same site, but you logged as different users...) Perhaps your point was on giving user different IPs for every site, potentially for every request, but then the consequences would have to be handled worldwide.
- jansan 3y ago
  Well, let's just take a look at the most benign case where a site owner was sued and convicted by simply using Google Fonts without any bad intentions and without selling or transfering any other data to Google. To Google your IP address will be worthless unless they get any link to your identity, so it solved those really simple cases where site owners accidentially violate the GDPR without any bad intentions and have to fear being sues by some random idiot in court.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    I see it from two angles: - on the benign intent and accidental violation: is it natural to go load fonts from a third party service in the first place ? I get why we arrived at this point, but hosting yourself the base resources you're using for your site shouldn't feel like some huge burden or leap from the norm. If we really see a shared benefit to having fonts on some common platform, I'd also wish it wasn't Google. Perhaps Cloudflare or Fastly ? - on IP being worthless to Google: is the "unless they get any link to your identity" even hypothetical ? I am a paying Google customer and extensively use their service. And we all do to some extent; trying the "let me live my daily life but block and avoid anything that touches Google" game would still be as critically punishing today as it was 4 or 5 years ago.
  - martin_a 3y ago
    > To Google your IP address will be worthless unless they get any link to your identity Not true. Google is used so widely that they can track and profile me all over the internet, because they can easily combine on which page I've requested fonts from them. And once I log into YouTube, they can link all those information about medical conditions I googled directly to me personally.
mk89 3y ago
> It is part of the narrow-minded micro managing mindset that too many European politicians (especially the greens) have. Ironically, even in the USA with the CCPA they are trying to regulate this somehow. This is just not something you can leave untouched. Without even mentioning other non-EU countries (China/Russia/India, etc.) that have even stricter data regulations. > Making things illegal, even if in almost all cases the use is benign or even makes a lot of sense. What is there benign about sending your IP address to 10-15 external services that have nothing to do with providing you the service in the first place? Try to install the NoScript extension and you'll see that 90% of the websites only require the main domain to be unblocked to be used. A few more websites require allowing 1-2 additional more scripts (CDN or ... payment systems/redirects, etc..). The rest is just your data being treated like toilet paper for marketing purposes. And I wouldn't even mind if they stopped there (marketing website A buys the data, and they target you with some crappy ads you won't even click on): no, they sell, and the buyer resells, etc. Is this really what makes a country innovative? Advertisements? I thought that innovation was self-driving cars, electro cars, new ways to fight diseases, digitalizing bureaucracy (which can be done without giving away your personal data to random online companies), etc.
- jansan 3y ago
  No, advetisements do not make a country innovative, and I never said that, and I have no idea why you would even bring this up. But if you are a small company in Europe that for example is producing a better and lighter cardboard box, you will have to hire a data privace specialist because you may get sued by some random idiot if you accidentially link to Google Fonts as a convenient way to display fonts, this certainly binds a lot of valuable mindshare and resources and therefore is bad for innovation. You cannot believe how much startups here have to think about GDPR even if they do not collect any data at all. Read the other answers in this thread. There are others who say that linking to Google Fonts is equal to selling your customers' data to Google. What a joke!
  - Tryk 3y ago
    Of course we should just give up and give all our data to anyone who wants it, lest we burden the developers in any way.

by jansan 3y ago

makeitdouble 3y ago

> how about mandating ISPs to make IP addresses unmappable to a user? I can't see how this would work in practice: you'd still have the same IP when visiting site A where your real identity is known, and site B where you didn't give them consent to access your information. The only reasonable course of action is to classify your IP as an identifying info, as site A and B exchanging info would result in your exposure (or site A and B being the same site, but you logged as different users...) Perhaps your point was on giving user different IPs for every site, potentially for every request, but then the consequences would have to be handled worldwide.

jansan 3y ago
Well, let's just take a look at the most benign case where a site owner was sued and convicted by simply using Google Fonts without any bad intentions and without selling or transfering any other data to Google. To Google your IP address will be worthless unless they get any link to your identity, so it solved those really simple cases where site owners accidentially violate the GDPR without any bad intentions and have to fear being sues by some random idiot in court.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I see it from two angles: - on the benign intent and accidental violation: is it natural to go load fonts from a third party service in the first place ? I get why we arrived at this point, but hosting yourself the base resources you're using for your site shouldn't feel like some huge burden or leap from the norm. If we really see a shared benefit to having fonts on some common platform, I'd also wish it wasn't Google. Perhaps Cloudflare or Fastly ? - on IP being worthless to Google: is the "unless they get any link to your identity" even hypothetical ? I am a paying Google customer and extensively use their service. And we all do to some extent; trying the "let me live my daily life but block and avoid anything that touches Google" game would still be as critically punishing today as it was 4 or 5 years ago.
- martin_a 3y ago
  > To Google your IP address will be worthless unless they get any link to your identity Not true. Google is used so widely that they can track and profile me all over the internet, because they can easily combine on which page I've requested fonts from them. And once I log into YouTube, they can link all those information about medical conditions I googled directly to me personally.

mk89 3y ago

> It is part of the narrow-minded micro managing mindset that too many European politicians (especially the greens) have. Ironically, even in the USA with the CCPA they are trying to regulate this somehow. This is just not something you can leave untouched. Without even mentioning other non-EU countries (China/Russia/India, etc.) that have even stricter data regulations. > Making things illegal, even if in almost all cases the use is benign or even makes a lot of sense. What is there benign about sending your IP address to 10-15 external services that have nothing to do with providing you the service in the first place? Try to install the NoScript extension and you'll see that 90% of the websites only require the main domain to be unblocked to be used. A few more websites require allowing 1-2 additional more scripts (CDN or ... payment systems/redirects, etc..). The rest is just your data being treated like toilet paper for marketing purposes. And I wouldn't even mind if they stopped there (marketing website A buys the data, and they target you with some crappy ads you won't even click on): no, they sell, and the buyer resells, etc. Is this really what makes a country innovative? Advertisements? I thought that innovation was self-driving cars, electro cars, new ways to fight diseases, digitalizing bureaucracy (which can be done without giving away your personal data to random online companies), etc.

jansan 3y ago
No, advetisements do not make a country innovative, and I never said that, and I have no idea why you would even bring this up. But if you are a small company in Europe that for example is producing a better and lighter cardboard box, you will have to hire a data privace specialist because you may get sued by some random idiot if you accidentially link to Google Fonts as a convenient way to display fonts, this certainly binds a lot of valuable mindshare and resources and therefore is bad for innovation. You cannot believe how much startups here have to think about GDPR even if they do not collect any data at all. Read the other answers in this thread. There are others who say that linking to Google Fonts is equal to selling your customers' data to Google. What a joke!
- Tryk 3y ago
  Of course we should just give up and give all our data to anyone who wants it, lest we burden the developers in any way.