7 ms·

Yeah it's fear of GDPR, which is kind of like a retroactive set of standards: "we'll know an infringement when we see it", type vibe. Which of course is krypton

Yeah it's fear of GDPR, which is kind of like a retroactive set of standards: "we'll know an infringement when we see it", type vibe. Which of course is kryptonite to innovation, and ultimatly will lead to a more fragmented internet. As a European I to try see it from both sides, consumer protections are generally a good thing, but it right now being restricted by EU vagueness sucks ass because I just want to play with the cool new toys.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago
This comment always gets downvoted, but I have seen this happen in my previous company. They hired an expensive lawyer from Europe for GDPR compliance and even his suggestions didn't made sense and in the end we decided to geoblock Europe. e.g. EU didn't clearly banned consent rejection requiring more effort and just skirted around it and that's why every company have two step rejection and one step acceptance. They could have easily made law requiring sites accept DNT header but they didn't likely because of lobbying.
- saikia81 3y ago
  The first part of your comment lacks understanding of how and why the consent rejection has been worded as it has. If you want to comply it is easy. But if a company wants to skirt the regulation it is written such that the regulatory body can still get you for making it harder. DNT is not relevant as GDPR is not directly a regulation against tracking, and it certainly isn't because of lobbying.
  - YetAnotherNick 3y ago
    Not only I don't understand it, the top tier European law firm the company hired also didn't understood it. The law ALLOWS companies to skirt around it. I don't know if that's intentional or not. > If you want to comply it is easy. That's the entire antithesis of modern law as opposed to monarchy. Law should be codified in as clear rules as possible.
thibaut_barrere 3y ago
There are two sides on this coin of course. If by design you can do whatever pleases you, then yes you have a lot of innovation. But sometimes it leads to normalisation of troubles (e.g. data leaks in the US), and incredulity of the general public ("how did we even get there")? There are good reasons to ponder ethics in the original balance too, it hasn't got to be completely paralysing either. But this comes with a cost (e.g. typically, for any data-sensitive work these days complying with GDPR, a significant part of the design & implementation time is "are we compliant").
simion314 3y ago
But how can you explain OpenAI works in EU but latest google AI is not yet here. What is OpenAI GPT4 and Google bard/Gemini EU version not doing so they work in EU but the latest Google AI is doing so google is incapable of putting it in EU ? Maybe latest one is more invasive with ypur personal account? Scanning your personal data without consent ? Because seems to be a super simple business, user sends you a prompt, you run the prompt and send the result back, you keep nothing unless necessary for the service to work and give the user the ability to purge their history/data .
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
  I can't explain it. It feels like a pre-emptive fuck you from a few different companies towards the EU. I'm glad that Microsoft / OpenAI is confident enough to put out a global consumer facing gen AI offering. Maybe they received EU assurances, or maybe they have enough legal muscle to tank any possible hit, and eating Google's lunch is a prize worth the risk.
- miki123211 3y ago
  Open AI is all about LLMs, that's their entire product and core competency, so withholding access in such a big market isn't worth it to them. Sure, there's a risk, but there are far bigger risks facing Open AI now than GDPR noncompliance. Google is in a completely different situation. Gemini is, so far, a niche product, making little to no money for Google. However, due to how the GDPR works, a mistake with Gemini could cost the entire company dearly, impacting the profits they make from any other products. This is a more general principle. If you're a small startup that manufactures foos, and there's a risk that manufacturing Foos infringes on Apple's patents, well, that's just one of the risks you have to bear as a startup. If you get wiped out by a lawsuit, you're established as a limited-liability corporation for a reason, if the fine is larger than the worth of your company, you can just declare bankruptcy and go away. You can't decide to stop manufacturing Foos, as that's your entire business. If you're the size of Google, getting into the Foo-manufacturing business is not worth it. If Apple sues you, that won't just impact the Foo-manufacturing side of your business, the fine can be significantly larger than any profits you ever hoped to make from the venture, not to mention the brand damage, strain on resources etc. If Foo manufacturing is ultimately going to be a side business for you, it's probably not worth it to be the hill you die on. This is why it makes sense for startups to "move fast and break things™", and for big corporations to require countless legal reviews on the smallest of decisions.
iamflimflam1 3y ago
GDPR is all about being clear about the data you are collecting, what you are planning to do with it, and is what you are doing with it legitimate. Lots of companies come unstuck because they fall into the trap of “let’s just collect everything and see what we can do with it”. Or, I’ve got all this data I’ve collected legitimately. Who knew that you could sell it on to some data broken and make loads of money - let’s do that! Or, I’ve collected all this data, I’m just going to keep it hanging around, oops I just put it on a public bucket and leaked it all. Hmm, I’m not even sure what data we had, have we just compromised a bunch of people? Who knows…
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
  Also, GDPR compliance is forcing companies to collect and store data they wouldn't have been collecting otherwise, such as to be compliant in regards to child safety you must find out which users are children. Data itself can be seen as a somewhat radioactive commodity, requiring exquisite handling, and creating new reputational and security risks. It's not supprising that many smaller companies are saying fuck this noise.

YetAnotherNick 3y ago

This comment always gets downvoted, but I have seen this happen in my previous company. They hired an expensive lawyer from Europe for GDPR compliance and even his suggestions didn't made sense and in the end we decided to geoblock Europe. e.g. EU didn't clearly banned consent rejection requiring more effort and just skirted around it and that's why every company have two step rejection and one step acceptance. They could have easily made law requiring sites accept DNT header but they didn't likely because of lobbying.

saikia81 3y ago
The first part of your comment lacks understanding of how and why the consent rejection has been worded as it has. If you want to comply it is easy. But if a company wants to skirt the regulation it is written such that the regulatory body can still get you for making it harder. DNT is not relevant as GDPR is not directly a regulation against tracking, and it certainly isn't because of lobbying.
- YetAnotherNick 3y ago
  Not only I don't understand it, the top tier European law firm the company hired also didn't understood it. The law ALLOWS companies to skirt around it. I don't know if that's intentional or not. > If you want to comply it is easy. That's the entire antithesis of modern law as opposed to monarchy. Law should be codified in as clear rules as possible.

thibaut_barrere 3y ago

There are two sides on this coin of course. If by design you can do whatever pleases you, then yes you have a lot of innovation. But sometimes it leads to normalisation of troubles (e.g. data leaks in the US), and incredulity of the general public ("how did we even get there")? There are good reasons to ponder ethics in the original balance too, it hasn't got to be completely paralysing either. But this comes with a cost (e.g. typically, for any data-sensitive work these days complying with GDPR, a significant part of the design & implementation time is "are we compliant").

simion314 3y ago

But how can you explain OpenAI works in EU but latest google AI is not yet here. What is OpenAI GPT4 and Google bard/Gemini EU version not doing so they work in EU but the latest Google AI is doing so google is incapable of putting it in EU ? Maybe latest one is more invasive with ypur personal account? Scanning your personal data without consent ? Because seems to be a super simple business, user sends you a prompt, you run the prompt and send the result back, you keep nothing unless necessary for the service to work and give the user the ability to purge their history/data .

HlessClaudesman 3y ago
I can't explain it. It feels like a pre-emptive fuck you from a few different companies towards the EU. I'm glad that Microsoft / OpenAI is confident enough to put out a global consumer facing gen AI offering. Maybe they received EU assurances, or maybe they have enough legal muscle to tank any possible hit, and eating Google's lunch is a prize worth the risk.
miki123211 3y ago
Open AI is all about LLMs, that's their entire product and core competency, so withholding access in such a big market isn't worth it to them. Sure, there's a risk, but there are far bigger risks facing Open AI now than GDPR noncompliance. Google is in a completely different situation. Gemini is, so far, a niche product, making little to no money for Google. However, due to how the GDPR works, a mistake with Gemini could cost the entire company dearly, impacting the profits they make from any other products. This is a more general principle. If you're a small startup that manufactures foos, and there's a risk that manufacturing Foos infringes on Apple's patents, well, that's just one of the risks you have to bear as a startup. If you get wiped out by a lawsuit, you're established as a limited-liability corporation for a reason, if the fine is larger than the worth of your company, you can just declare bankruptcy and go away. You can't decide to stop manufacturing Foos, as that's your entire business. If you're the size of Google, getting into the Foo-manufacturing business is not worth it. If Apple sues you, that won't just impact the Foo-manufacturing side of your business, the fine can be significantly larger than any profits you ever hoped to make from the venture, not to mention the brand damage, strain on resources etc. If Foo manufacturing is ultimately going to be a side business for you, it's probably not worth it to be the hill you die on. This is why it makes sense for startups to "move fast and break things™", and for big corporations to require countless legal reviews on the smallest of decisions.

iamflimflam1 3y ago

GDPR is all about being clear about the data you are collecting, what you are planning to do with it, and is what you are doing with it legitimate. Lots of companies come unstuck because they fall into the trap of “let’s just collect everything and see what we can do with it”. Or, I’ve got all this data I’ve collected legitimately. Who knew that you could sell it on to some data broken and make loads of money - let’s do that! Or, I’ve collected all this data, I’m just going to keep it hanging around, oops I just put it on a public bucket and leaked it all. Hmm, I’m not even sure what data we had, have we just compromised a bunch of people? Who knows…

HlessClaudesman 3y ago
Also, GDPR compliance is forcing companies to collect and store data they wouldn't have been collecting otherwise, such as to be compliant in regards to child safety you must find out which users are children. Data itself can be seen as a somewhat radioactive commodity, requiring exquisite handling, and creating new reputational and security risks. It's not supprising that many smaller companies are saying fuck this noise.