3 ms·

Germany is not a common law country and neither are any other EU countries. Higher court decisions (which I don’t think is the case here) can set jurisprudence

Germany is not a common law country and neither are any other EU countries. Higher court decisions (which I don’t think is the case here) can set jurisprudence but it’s not the same thing as in a common law system. Also national court decisions do not apply to other member states.

MattHeard 3y ago
A lot of courts use rulings from other countries where the cases are similar. Any interpretation by the Berlin regional court that GDPR implies that DNT should be treated as a GDPR opt-out should be easily adopted by courts in other countries deciding similar cases.
- mfalcao 3y ago
  I’d have to read this specific decision but my opinion is that while the GDPR says the user can refuse consent “by automated means” it doesn’t specify what those means are, thus making it quite hard to follow, enforce and therefore likely that other courts will decide differently on similar cases. E.g. would my own “X-Tracking-Is-Stupid: don’t track me” header be valid as refusing consent? What if I add it as a query parameter in the URL? And so on - DNT is not special in the eyes of the law.
  - ZiiS 3y ago
    DNT is both common practice and a documented standard; the law will take both these into account in judging it vs `X-Tracking-Is-Stupid`.
    - mfalcao 3y ago
      I disagree that it’s common practice or standard. The W3C never even standardized it, mainly because of low adoption: https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc69352a77d87dfd2310 https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc6935...
roomey 3y ago
Ireland is a common law country, and coincidentally the European headquarters of many internet giants
- mfalcao 3y ago
  Ah yes I forgot about Ireland! It’s the only one though
  - johneth 3y ago
    Cyprus too.
- Chris2048 3y ago
  For tax purposes AFAIK. It also has a terrible record on GDPR: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/dpc-data-protection-gdpr-helen-dixon https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/dpc-data-protecti...

MattHeard 3y ago

A lot of courts use rulings from other countries where the cases are similar. Any interpretation by the Berlin regional court that GDPR implies that DNT should be treated as a GDPR opt-out should be easily adopted by courts in other countries deciding similar cases.

mfalcao 3y ago
I’d have to read this specific decision but my opinion is that while the GDPR says the user can refuse consent “by automated means” it doesn’t specify what those means are, thus making it quite hard to follow, enforce and therefore likely that other courts will decide differently on similar cases. E.g. would my own “X-Tracking-Is-Stupid: don’t track me” header be valid as refusing consent? What if I add it as a query parameter in the URL? And so on - DNT is not special in the eyes of the law.
- ZiiS 3y ago
  DNT is both common practice and a documented standard; the law will take both these into account in judging it vs `X-Tracking-Is-Stupid`.
  - mfalcao 3y ago
    I disagree that it’s common practice or standard. The W3C never even standardized it, mainly because of low adoption: https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc69352a77d87dfd2310 https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc6935...

roomey 3y ago

Ireland is a common law country, and coincidentally the European headquarters of many internet giants

mfalcao 3y ago
Ah yes I forgot about Ireland! It’s the only one though
- johneth 3y ago
  Cyprus too.
Chris2048 3y ago
For tax purposes AFAIK. It also has a terrible record on GDPR: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/dpc-data-protection-gdpr-helen-dixon https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/dpc-data-protecti...