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EU logic: Want to centrally track users with personally identifiably information? Great! Want to store anonymized data with local cookies, that the user can d

EU logic: Want to centrally track users with personally identifiably information? Great! Want to store anonymized data with local cookies, that the user can delete, disable, or doctor at any time? That should be heavily restricted with constant intrusive warnings.

croes 1y ago
The GDPR isn’t about anonymized data stored in local cookies.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  That's not what it was all about, but it sure was an effect of it.
throwawayqqq11 1y ago
Local governments all over the EU tried to push internet surveillance for a long time. Today, apparently the political landscale is ripe for their success. Considering the endurance and BS justifications they brought up for so long tells me, there is a is a coordinated effort behind the scenes going on for decades now. Dissmissing it with incompetence, like "EU logic" is naive, imo.
- bboygravity 1y ago
  I have the same opinion, but I can't think of who or what would be pushing for that? Unless it's just the US and NSA again actually somehow having trouble with bypassing encryption? Like just push the EU to do some more spying that the US/NSA can then use to see more? I find this somewhat hard to believe since in my mind the NSA is on every US server and can probably just get unencrypted everything from spyware (the OS itself) on all end-points. Maybe governments/humans simply eventually naturally pivot to power grabbing and this was going to happen all along everywhere? It's also not an EU-only thing. It's been happening all over the west, partners of the US and even outside of the west: UK, Australia, Colombia, Mexico, the Koreas, China, Russia, etc. Any other ideas?
  - debugnik 1y ago
    Our own governments are pushing for it, simple as that. I live in Spain, and both left and right parties, and to a lesser degree their voters, are increasingly leaning authoritarian and tacitly agree to extend surveillance; the police and specially the gendarmerie lobby for it as well. So our parties are drooling at the idea of extending surveillance by EU directive so they can point fingers at the EU instead of risking losing votes. It's no surprise to me, then, that in the document leaked to Wired in 2023[1], our country's position was the most extreme: > In our view, it would be desirable to legislatively prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption. There may have been external lobbying, but it wasn't necessary. [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/26/leaked-document-shows-spain-is-fully-on-board-with-the-eu-commissions-plan-to-criminalize-encryption/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/26/leaked-document-shows-sp...
  - lioeters 1y ago
    > coordinated effort behind the scenes going on for decades It's an open conspiracy among the global ruling class, including people and organizations collaborating at places like the World Economic Forum and Bilderberg meetings. *Adjusts tin-foil hat.* The interests of the rich and powerful are aligned to coordinate an international effort for more surveillance of the public, control of information flow and communication. It's part of the rising tide of authoritarianism and frankly fascism.
  - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
    I could call the recent right-shift in the west a coordinated effort too and in many cases, this would be a decent explanation, catching private media outlets, biased and centralizes social media, spineless populistic politicians and the donor class behind them but ... Some cases are much more benign. Like the police, only seeing their need for more privacy invasions to achive their goals, meeting a tumbling elected politician with the need to pose as tough on crime. Both sides ignore anything beyong their horizon. Here, you have good old incompetence, esp on the politicians side. Pair that again with the populus feeling the need, that something drastical has to be done and you would have an alternative explanation. As sad as it sounds, but a fascistic government, comming out of a democracy is not a failure of democracy. Many people dont care about big topics, correlations and history repeating itself. They are willing to sacrifice rights, piece by piece, others have fought died for. Besides a lack of governmental transparency, this ignorance, small and large scale, and its todays normalization are the problems i see here. I cant help it, but i realized first hand (as i assume, many others did too) that this ignorance is often more than just a small mistakem done by individuals. Today, i see it as a cognitive deficiency. Take one extreme for example, flat earthers. There are many simple physical experiments or celestial observations one could do, to conclude, that the earth is a sphere, but not for them. Confronting FEs with contradictions will only lead to reactance (ad hoc rejection), no matter how polite or enduring you are or striking your arguments are. I know this first hand. If you are lucky, you might encounter and open state of mind that struggles with the cognitive dissonance, you have induced, but only for a short time. Having lasting effects on some strongly biased mind resembles something like a long term therapy: an open mind / willingness for therapy and regular confrontig sessions. If all those self proclaimed critical thinkers were able, to not only change their minds on a whim but would actively seek contradictions in their believes on their own, the world would be a much better place. Can you tell me any historical atrocity commited by societies, where some believe about a superior truth or some absolute good/evil was not at the very core of it? I cant. The same biased reasoning about a superior truth can be found in modern politics today. In essence, its people rallying around some vague group identity or against some other group (in/out group characteristics) and irrationally attack/discard $symbol criticism as if its fight-or-flight time because the apes survival dependeds of the tribe. MAGA accolytes could realize them selfs, that 1st gen. mexican migrants have a significant lower crime rate and thus crime emerges from within the US, but they dont. It doesnt cross their mind 0, that someone willing to migrate is also willing to work for a stable future. Instead, they rally arround "mass deportation" and will post hoc rationalize any atrocity of their supreme leader. After Nazi-germany lost the war, the tribe was shattered and it was tabu to speak about or do $symbol in public. For a brief moment in time, it looked like the populus could actually learn, that history is not a loop but even though most AFD accolytes agree on the evil atrocities of that time, they still fall for the nostalgic unity strength and role model of it, they would like to see "tribe great again" and absolute evil being dealt with and ignore anything beyong, including your well-meaning, factual arguments. So why even try? I cant help it, but i think changing the message to a primarily emotional one might be a better strategy. I am not saying we should ignore factual arguments but since disgust towards out groups can be such a strong source of bias, why not use it against them and make xenophobia disgusting again, like its 1945. I like Gavin Newsoms recent trolling and hope he doesnt degrade into simple insults only. He does, what is neede, wresling with a pig and i think we all should convey the same derogatory message, while the communication channels are still unfiltered. The other side does not want to have a truley open discourse, they want us to be silent. I know, this can be seen as inflammatory and counter productive but i think the polite approach is even more futile. Now you know about my ideas :)
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  I was more so mocking the security theater in the GDPR, but now I see your frustration with how activism works in EU policy making. Because of the circumstances under which the USA was federated, we have done pretty strong systems in place to prevent local activism from having a national impact. It doesn't prevent the federal government itself from surveiling the population (e.g. the Patriot act and everything descending from it) but at least if something is legal in a state, companies in that state can generally transact with residents of any state. (for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Minneapolis_v._First_of_Omaha_Service_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Min....)
hdgvhicv 1y ago
EU logic is only government should be able to track personal information US logic is only billion dollar companies should track personal information Personally I prefer the former as governments will spend my tax money on getting the data from the billion dollar companies anyway, and those companies will exponentially monetise it because they are required to
- seydor 1y ago
  US had PRISM and countless other programs to siphon all data
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  Not that the US government doesn't constantly spy on its citizens, but I'd much rather businesses do so than the government. When I open a bank account, every bank is legally required to forward my personal information and transaction history exceeding $600/yr to the federal government, and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't have to have a Facebook account or credit or debit card (and I don't have any of those) so I only get spied on by businesses I choose to deal with. Not only that, but most businesses I deal with give me a 3% discount when using untraceable cash, instead of payment processors. On top of that, when businesses get out of hand, customers choose to support a new business and the old one fails. This can be financially detrimental to those invested in the business, but it is much, much less bloody than when the same thing happens with a government.
- mardifoufs 1y ago
  I guess that makes sense when you are part of the power wielding majority. but as someone who isn't, it's absolutely better for private corporations to have my data than governments. Sure, private corporations will end up giving said data to the government if required, but it's at least a step removed. And Facebook can't put me into MetaJail using MetaPrivatePolice (yet), whereas the government absolutely can.
lukeschlather 1y ago
The EU lets you store whatever you want in cookies as long as they are truly anonymous (do not contain unique identifiers.) What you call "anonymized data" is literally the opposite.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  The term "anonymized data" is a bit jargony, but tracking everything a person does, but not storing the name or address of the person meets the definition most organizations use for "anonymized". It's very far from "anonymous".
  - lukeschlather 1y ago
    Anonymization is a process which removes identifying information from data. Adding unique identifiers is the opposite of anonymizing data. A selection of the data stored in cookies might not contain any PII, but it still can't be said to be anonymized.

croes 1y ago

The GDPR isn’t about anonymized data stored in local cookies.

dlcarrier 1y ago
That's not what it was all about, but it sure was an effect of it.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago

Local governments all over the EU tried to push internet surveillance for a long time. Today, apparently the political landscale is ripe for their success. Considering the endurance and BS justifications they brought up for so long tells me, there is a is a coordinated effort behind the scenes going on for decades now. Dissmissing it with incompetence, like "EU logic" is naive, imo.

bboygravity 1y ago
I have the same opinion, but I can't think of who or what would be pushing for that? Unless it's just the US and NSA again actually somehow having trouble with bypassing encryption? Like just push the EU to do some more spying that the US/NSA can then use to see more? I find this somewhat hard to believe since in my mind the NSA is on every US server and can probably just get unencrypted everything from spyware (the OS itself) on all end-points. Maybe governments/humans simply eventually naturally pivot to power grabbing and this was going to happen all along everywhere? It's also not an EU-only thing. It's been happening all over the west, partners of the US and even outside of the west: UK, Australia, Colombia, Mexico, the Koreas, China, Russia, etc. Any other ideas?
- debugnik 1y ago
  Our own governments are pushing for it, simple as that. I live in Spain, and both left and right parties, and to a lesser degree their voters, are increasingly leaning authoritarian and tacitly agree to extend surveillance; the police and specially the gendarmerie lobby for it as well. So our parties are drooling at the idea of extending surveillance by EU directive so they can point fingers at the EU instead of risking losing votes. It's no surprise to me, then, that in the document leaked to Wired in 2023[1], our country's position was the most extreme: > In our view, it would be desirable to legislatively prevent EU-based service providers from implementing end-to-end encryption. There may have been external lobbying, but it wasn't necessary. [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/26/leaked-document-shows-spain-is-fully-on-board-with-the-eu-commissions-plan-to-criminalize-encryption/ https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/26/leaked-document-shows-sp...
- lioeters 1y ago
  > coordinated effort behind the scenes going on for decades It's an open conspiracy among the global ruling class, including people and organizations collaborating at places like the World Economic Forum and Bilderberg meetings. *Adjusts tin-foil hat.* The interests of the rich and powerful are aligned to coordinate an international effort for more surveillance of the public, control of information flow and communication. It's part of the rising tide of authoritarianism and frankly fascism.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  I could call the recent right-shift in the west a coordinated effort too and in many cases, this would be a decent explanation, catching private media outlets, biased and centralizes social media, spineless populistic politicians and the donor class behind them but ... Some cases are much more benign. Like the police, only seeing their need for more privacy invasions to achive their goals, meeting a tumbling elected politician with the need to pose as tough on crime. Both sides ignore anything beyong their horizon. Here, you have good old incompetence, esp on the politicians side. Pair that again with the populus feeling the need, that something drastical has to be done and you would have an alternative explanation. As sad as it sounds, but a fascistic government, comming out of a democracy is not a failure of democracy. Many people dont care about big topics, correlations and history repeating itself. They are willing to sacrifice rights, piece by piece, others have fought died for. Besides a lack of governmental transparency, this ignorance, small and large scale, and its todays normalization are the problems i see here. I cant help it, but i realized first hand (as i assume, many others did too) that this ignorance is often more than just a small mistakem done by individuals. Today, i see it as a cognitive deficiency. Take one extreme for example, flat earthers. There are many simple physical experiments or celestial observations one could do, to conclude, that the earth is a sphere, but not for them. Confronting FEs with contradictions will only lead to reactance (ad hoc rejection), no matter how polite or enduring you are or striking your arguments are. I know this first hand. If you are lucky, you might encounter and open state of mind that struggles with the cognitive dissonance, you have induced, but only for a short time. Having lasting effects on some strongly biased mind resembles something like a long term therapy: an open mind / willingness for therapy and regular confrontig sessions. If all those self proclaimed critical thinkers were able, to not only change their minds on a whim but would actively seek contradictions in their believes on their own, the world would be a much better place. Can you tell me any historical atrocity commited by societies, where some believe about a superior truth or some absolute good/evil was not at the very core of it? I cant. The same biased reasoning about a superior truth can be found in modern politics today. In essence, its people rallying around some vague group identity or against some other group (in/out group characteristics) and irrationally attack/discard $symbol criticism as if its fight-or-flight time because the apes survival dependeds of the tribe. MAGA accolytes could realize them selfs, that 1st gen. mexican migrants have a significant lower crime rate and thus crime emerges from within the US, but they dont. It doesnt cross their mind 0, that someone willing to migrate is also willing to work for a stable future. Instead, they rally arround "mass deportation" and will post hoc rationalize any atrocity of their supreme leader. After Nazi-germany lost the war, the tribe was shattered and it was tabu to speak about or do $symbol in public. For a brief moment in time, it looked like the populus could actually learn, that history is not a loop but even though most AFD accolytes agree on the evil atrocities of that time, they still fall for the nostalgic unity strength and role model of it, they would like to see "tribe great again" and absolute evil being dealt with and ignore anything beyong, including your well-meaning, factual arguments. So why even try? I cant help it, but i think changing the message to a primarily emotional one might be a better strategy. I am not saying we should ignore factual arguments but since disgust towards out groups can be such a strong source of bias, why not use it against them and make xenophobia disgusting again, like its 1945. I like Gavin Newsoms recent trolling and hope he doesnt degrade into simple insults only. He does, what is neede, wresling with a pig and i think we all should convey the same derogatory message, while the communication channels are still unfiltered. The other side does not want to have a truley open discourse, they want us to be silent. I know, this can be seen as inflammatory and counter productive but i think the polite approach is even more futile. Now you know about my ideas :)
dlcarrier 1y ago
I was more so mocking the security theater in the GDPR, but now I see your frustration with how activism works in EU policy making. Because of the circumstances under which the USA was federated, we have done pretty strong systems in place to prevent local activism from having a national impact. It doesn't prevent the federal government itself from surveiling the population (e.g. the Patriot act and everything descending from it) but at least if something is legal in a state, companies in that state can generally transact with residents of any state. (for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Minneapolis_v._First_of_Omaha_Service_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Min....)

hdgvhicv 1y ago

EU logic is only government should be able to track personal information US logic is only billion dollar companies should track personal information Personally I prefer the former as governments will spend my tax money on getting the data from the billion dollar companies anyway, and those companies will exponentially monetise it because they are required to

seydor 1y ago
US had PRISM and countless other programs to siphon all data
dlcarrier 1y ago
Not that the US government doesn't constantly spy on its citizens, but I'd much rather businesses do so than the government. When I open a bank account, every bank is legally required to forward my personal information and transaction history exceeding $600/yr to the federal government, and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't have to have a Facebook account or credit or debit card (and I don't have any of those) so I only get spied on by businesses I choose to deal with. Not only that, but most businesses I deal with give me a 3% discount when using untraceable cash, instead of payment processors. On top of that, when businesses get out of hand, customers choose to support a new business and the old one fails. This can be financially detrimental to those invested in the business, but it is much, much less bloody than when the same thing happens with a government.
mardifoufs 1y ago
I guess that makes sense when you are part of the power wielding majority. but as someone who isn't, it's absolutely better for private corporations to have my data than governments. Sure, private corporations will end up giving said data to the government if required, but it's at least a step removed. And Facebook can't put me into MetaJail using MetaPrivatePolice (yet), whereas the government absolutely can.

lukeschlather 1y ago

The EU lets you store whatever you want in cookies as long as they are truly anonymous (do not contain unique identifiers.) What you call "anonymized data" is literally the opposite.

dlcarrier 1y ago
The term "anonymized data" is a bit jargony, but tracking everything a person does, but not storing the name or address of the person meets the definition most organizations use for "anonymized". It's very far from "anonymous".
- lukeschlather 1y ago
  Anonymization is a process which removes identifying information from data. Adding unique identifiers is the opposite of anonymizing data. A selection of the data stored in cookies might not contain any PII, but it still can't be said to be anonymized.