18 ms·

Good EU regulations

161 points by saubeidl 1y ago

hkon 1y ago
Is it a joke?
- pianom4n 1y ago
  I actually can't tell. The majority of these are literally examples of bad regulations. They have mass appeal without care for 2nd order effects. The top of the page is a banner rallying against a regulation that would fit right in on the page. And the fact that the site is a laggy mess just makes it a bit surreal.
shortrounddev2 1y ago
The scrolling on this website is incredibly slow
mnewme 1y ago
Great site
- dijksterhuis 1y ago
  *actually good site :p
EcommerceFlow 1y ago
[flagged]
- alextingle 1y ago
  No.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
    But some dozens have been raided/swatted/sued/had their devices confiscated, by posting their opinions about some politicians in whichever social media, not limited to facebook. edit: Especially in Germany.
- t-writescode 1y ago
  The people you’re attempting to make fun of are the British, who are famously not part of the EU anymore.
- spauldo 1y ago
  They weren't blocked or throttled by their ISP.
fleebee 1y ago
Site seems to be down? I can't access it.
- dijksterhuis 1y ago
  up for me — maybe try the vercel domain? https://actuallygoodregulations.vercel.app/ https://actuallygoodregulations.vercel.app/
  - nelsonfigueroa 1y ago
    the vercel domain worked for me, thanks!
  - fleebee 1y ago
    This works. Thanks!
hkonsti 1y ago
Site is down for me but I found this archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250823220326/https://actuallygoodregulations.eu/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250823220326/https://actuallyg...
daft_pink 1y ago
to be fair, a lot of these exist in the USA too.
- mijoharas 1y ago
  Sounds like someone should make a US version of the site. (I genuinely think it would be very helpful) I don't think the point of it is to show that these regulations are exceptional or anything. Seems to me to just be highlighting the number of regulations that we have that can make life better.
  - kehvyn 1y ago
    The USA version is just the letters ADA in gigantic font. Europe still hasn't caught up to ADA. I don't know any other really good laws that are unique to the US, but I'm sure they exist.
    - ninalanyon 1y ago
      > Europe still hasn't caught up to ADA. Really? Some examples?
    - kasabali 1y ago
      I, too, was so happy and relieved when some troll sued MIT and Berkeley over their freely available video courses. Such a great law.
- amluto 1y ago
  Sometimes a regulation is bad before it’s good. For example: toilet flush volume. We used to have 5 gpf toilets. They worked okay. They clogged on occasion but not too often. When they clogged, they would overflow after 1-2 flushes. 5 gallons was enough to keep the poop and toilet paper flowing through the drain pipes once they made it out of the toilet. They used a lot of water (5 gallons per flush!). They had basically no interesting technology to speak of. Then regulations required less water, and the new toilets were bad. They were basically the same designs, using less water, and they regularly failed to flush, they clogged frequently, and they even contributed to downstream clogs because 2-ish gallons of slowly draining water didn’t get all the waste moving adequately. Now, after years and years of bad toilets, the industry caught up. Modern toilets use even less water (often under 1.3gpf), but they use that water effectively. They flush well, generally considerably better than the old 5gpf toilets. They rarely overflow. They send the waste through the pipes forcefully. And they use less water! The industry even has standardized testing for flush performance. I wonder if better regulation could have managed the transition to avoid the interim terrible toilets. Perhaps the performance tests should have come first, then a period of financial incentives for toilets that outperformed legacy toilets along with mandatory labeling with the water usage and performance data, and only actual requirements to use less water after good enough toilets were available.
jmull 1y ago
USB-C for your gadgets is not a good regulation. The hurdle to adopting anything better is probably too high to overcome now.
- t-writescode 1y ago
  I hear your concerns, but the future is probably wireless charging and wifi communication
- Something1234 1y ago
  What would be the next better feature for a plug? It seems USB-C has it all except for being expensive on the port side with the muxers. Anything different would require tossing a bunch of still useful things. It supports fast charging and good data rates.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago
    The protocol was flawed in its design in that it does not standardize or communicate the capabilities of the cable. How do I know whether it’s charging only, data, or thunderbolt? No standard way to understand this
  - MoltenMan 1y ago
    That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know. The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is some sort of magnetic connection similar to macbook chargers to prevent damage when the cord gets pulled out. (Also I would like the USB-3 standard to not suck, but that's never happening and doesn't relate to the physical hardware anyways)
    - TrainedMonkey 1y ago
      > That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know. There are definitely a lot of harmful regulation, but this one is amazing with close to no downsides. For one, there are magnetic adapters for everything nowadays, including USB-C ports so you can have your cake and eat it too. Second is the environmental impact of the old charger ecosystem. I lost count of how many cables and chargers I have that are now trash^1. Third one is that historically standardizing interfaces was great for innovation. ^1: Here is the various USB e-waste that I have - usb micro C (2 separate types with same name), micro usb super speed (this one is particularly cursed), mini-usb types A and B, and normal USB type A and type B.
Aaargh20318 1y ago
> “Cars must include modern life‑saving tech like automatic braking and lane‑keeping.” I rarely drive my car. When I do, 99% of the time it's within a few kilometers of my house. I have no need for lane keeping or automatic braking in city traffic, it's barely moving to begin with. My car is also getting old and will soon need replacing. Ten years ago you could buy a brand new small car for well under €10k. Sure, it didn't have all the bells and whistles but I have no need for those anyway. Nowadays, you're looking at €30k+ for a new, small car precisely because of the safety regulations, emission standards and the fact that it's practically impossible to buy a car with an ICE anymore. I understand the need for these things for cars that are driven daily, but why do they have to apply to cars that are mainly used for short trips to the grocery store? It's making cars unaffordable for the vast majority of people.
- Nextgrid 1y ago
  A lot of these features are merely software. The insane increase in car prices over the last decade is a combination of profiteering + inflation, not safety features.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  Because you're potentially moving several thousand kilos at huge speed, and the people that can find themselves in front of them should not have to trust your judgement of how safe you'll usually need the machine to be.
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    I’ll be sure to tell that to the poor person on a bicycle in the middle of the road in front of me when I come around a blind curve and can’t jump lanes so as not to hit them. “So sorry I squished you, my lane assist wouldn’t let me move out of the way in time.”
    - zeroonetwothree 1y ago
      Fortunately automatic emergency braking is another tech that hopefully your car also has.
tptacek 1y ago
It's funny that as far as HN is concerned, this site is a bid to reconstitute a large fraction of every political argument that ever happens here. It even gives me a chance to rant about bees! (My bee rant is not relevant to Europe.)
- jjani 1y ago
  Hilariously, right below your comment is this one: > You could hold this up in a room full of American business owners and watch them all cringe like a pack of vampires witnessing a cross. Not surprising that you'd find plenty of American business owners on.. an American startup platform!
  - witrak 1y ago
    Hmm... In all the cases I saw the prices were mentioned in EUR not USD as the unit. I consider it a clear indication that the discussion participants are mainly non-Americans ;-)
zeroonetwothree 1y ago
I was expecting a site with this title to be a troll when you open it it’s just a blank page.
- internet2000 1y ago
  It really should have been that.
ACCount37 1y ago
Amusing to see GDPR there. It's the law that delivers the most of avoidable user friction online, by far. It's like they saw how annoying the existing "cookie laws" were and said "we can make it worse!" GDPR might have had good ideas, but the implementation is so botched it's not even funny. Everything related to cookie consent should have been standardized and delegated to browser settings.
- sittingcite 1y ago
  Cookie Consent is from ePrivacy Directive and not GDPR.
- jjani 1y ago
  > Everything related to cookie consent should have been standardized and delegated to browser settings. Rather ironic to say this when the entire reason this stuff has been needed is that Google, which has monopolized the browser market, is an advertising company whose core business is tracking people in the first place and does everything in its power to obstruct anything that weakens it.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  GDPR us much, much more than cookie banners, that’s just an annoying not very significant distraction. It had a very significant impact privacy, worker rights and such.
  - Ekaros 1y ago
    I really sometimes feels there is lot of Cognitive dissonance going on with GDPR. On one side there is hate for these banners. On other hand they also hate when say phone company sells their location data to whoever pays... Or when this data leaks. So exactly how is that later part of selling data and gathering it unnecessarily supposed to be avoided if not by regulation like GRPR? Maybe it is just entirely different people, but there must be some overlap.
ungreased0675 1y ago
I’m sure most people who create regulations believe they’re making good ones. What’s important is to assess whether the regulations had the intended result, and what the second and third order effects were. A lot of regulations, created in good faith, would fail this test.
- NotPractical 1y ago
  I agree. It would be one thing if they did an independent analysis on the outcomes of each regulation and arrived at an evidence-based conclusion (and even then it would still be very difficult or impossible to achieve objectivity). But from what I can tell, it basically boils down to "let's just read the bullet points for each one and put it on the list if they sound good", which is misleading and even dangerous. Chat Control should be on the list by those standards.
  - immibis 1y ago
    > Chat Control should be on the list by those standards But it isn't, so maybe those aren't the standards?
    - jenadine 1y ago
      It isn't because it is not yet accepted
- Epa095 1y ago
  There seems to be a implicit assumption here that the world witouth the regulation is the 'natural' one, which should not be disturbed without good reason? Not entailing regulations also has second and third order effects, and usually nobody is considering them (unless it can increase revenue).
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    Yes, the default state of the world is unregulated. Why does that seem strange to you?
apsec112 1y ago
The first example I saw (think the order might be randomized?) was an EU ban on plastic straws, which is silly. Straws are a negligible fraction of plastic waste, and have no good substitute ("compostable" plastic straws are also banned; paper straws fall apart easily; metal/glass straws are inconvenient and require washing). This would flunk any serious cost/benefit analysis. You can hide the costs by making them regulatory instead of financial (the inconvenience of not having plastic straws doesn't appear in GDP stats), but the costs are still there, they're just hidden.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  That was the first one for me as well and I was surprised they included it. I have never seen a disposable straw that does the job well, except for plastic. I actively avoid restaurants that use the cardboard straws because of it. That's how bad they suck. I can't believe the EU was foolish enough to ban plastic straws when there just isn't an actual viable alternative.
  - kyriakos 1y ago
    Quality of non plastic straws has improved dramatically, I don't even notice they are not plastic anymore. Unless you are sucking on a drink for hours they don't disintegrate.
    - wqaatwt 1y ago
      > has improved dramatically They are not covered with PFAS anymore?
      - kyriakos 1y ago
        Dramatically as in their ability of not melting while drinking.
    - lurking_swe 1y ago
      enjoy the paper straw coated in tasty PFAS i guess? As far as i can tell that’s the norm… i avoid straws altogether.
SpecialistK 1y ago
It's a cool concept, but let's be honest: it's what the author thinks are good regulations. And it only ever can be, because policy is subjective. I happen to agree with almost all of them, and most doubt is the devil in the details. The efficiency one, for example - if efficiency in an appliance comes at the expense of longevity (ie, it uses less materials or R&D is put into power use over anything else) then that may be a net negative. And the GDPR, a great regulation for customer data, has had the side effect of putting cookie law banners everywhere which makes the web more frustrating. And I hate to say it, because it's my own weird ick, but I will forgo eating if the only utensils are wood. Simply cannot handle the feeling of it against my teeth and tongue. Thank God there are newer compostable single use utensils becoming common.
- Pooge 1y ago
  > And the GDPR, a great regulation for customer data, has had the side effect of putting cookie law banners everywhere which makes the web more frustrating I say it countless times, but no. Data harvesting Big Tech put cookie banners everywhere and make the web frustrating for you. If they respected Do Not Track, they would not need to show you the banner. Instead, they don't take it into account and prefer to show you a banner that takes up all page instead of having a small banner that asks you if you want to agree to optional cookies.
  - NeuralNomaD123 1y ago
    [dead]
  - SpecialistK 1y ago
    That doesn't pass the sniff test. If a masked assailant in the street is going to rob me, but has to say a certain sentence before so and almost uniformly does, that speaks to the legal priorities of those making the laws. If hoovering up my data is bad, make it illegal. Don't wrap it up in niceties and then deflect the blame.
    - Pooge 1y ago
gnarlouse 1y ago
You could hold this up in a room full of American business owners and watch them all cringe like a pack of vampires witnessing a cross.
- esperent 1y ago
  > You could hold this up in a room full of ~~American business owners~~ Hackernews commenters and watch them all nitpick and prevaricate until they've convinced themselves that every regulation here is, in fact, negative.
GeoAtreides 1y ago
“Your data. Your rules. Consent, transparency, security — and the right to say ‘delete it’.” You see that HN? The right to delete my data? it's the law, please stop breaking the law and implement a way to delete my data as I see fit.
- immibis 1y ago
  YC is a US company with no obligation to comply with EU laws. They've explicitly stated they have no intention of complying with EU laws. Makes a lot of sense for venture capitalists, I guess. They'd ignore US laws when they could, too.
PeterStuer 1y ago
“Take your streaming subscriptions with you: watch and listen anywhere in the EU.” In other words, allow publishers to region lock digital content deals to a specific EU country, even though (in theory) the EU is "Single Market for goods and services". There are good EU regulations. There are also some very bad onces.
- intothemild 1y ago
  Except that's not how it works. (So far) Each one of my subscriptions just show me content of the local country. So say Netflix, it's say French Netflix, when I'm in France and so on. Same with Spotify. The law is just setup so services can't block you from using your subscription in another country. Which honestly I don't think was a problem in the first place. Now if there was a law to make these damn things give you all the language and subtitle options.... I'd be all for that. Because the big problem (again Netflix is a good example) is when travelling, is for the most part subtitles are only in usually two languages. The native language of the country, and English. On vacation and want to watch something in another language? Ok now you need a third language (English) in order to watch it. Even though Netflix has the subtitles in every language.
  - PeterStuer 1y ago
    If I travel anywhere in Europe, my Prime account is still locked to the same useless crappy Belgium catalogue because "licenses" Meawhile the TV sites are region locked, so you can't watch Belgian TV from Spain because "licenses". So much for the single common market.
- Epa095 1y ago
  How does the first entail the second? The way I read the text of the law, it acknowledges that there are regional locking inside the EU, and you should be allowed to bring your subscriptions with you as you travel the EU. Sounds like you would want the law to be a different law, enforcing the EU to be a single market for all intellectual property and subscriptions. I think that sounds like a good idea, but it's a different law.
dkiebd 1y ago
> Your internet provider can’t block or throttle websites. The open web stays open That’s so false it’s not even funny. I live in Spain and there are a TON of blocked websites.
- zosima 1y ago
  Blocked by court or state. Private ISPs can't block sites. And this is true for almost all these legislations. They remove power from individuals and companies, while avoiding to limit EU and state power in any meaningful way.
  - dkiebd 1y ago
    But the government is much more of an enemy to me than my ISP, not to mention I can switch ISPs but I can’t switch governments.
    - 0dayz 1y ago
      >but I can’t switch governments. Maybe use the time machine to move out of Franco's Spain?
      - dkiebd 1y ago
        What percentage of citizens do you think support the blocking of websites for reasons of copyright? We have as much choice in the matter as we would have under Franco.
        0dayz 1y ago
        If the people don't agree with something they can always do three things in a democratic country: * start a party to push for legislative changes that resonate with what the people want * vote for a party that propose to change certain legislation to something more adjacent to what the people want * people can lobby the government via interest groups or as a collective to influence politicians or if the constitution allows for it try and hold a popular vote on the issue(s)
DoctorOW 1y ago
This stupid effect they have following your cursor around is infuriating on mobile devices, and now that I'm on desktop where it works as designed, it still is super distracting from the text.
amai 1y ago
Anyone ever bought shoes or clothes or tires in the EU? The sizes are absolutely not metric and a complete mess! Not to start about traffic rules, sizes of streets, traffic signs etc. Nothing is regulated, nothing is standardized. But the worst missing regulations which are keeping the continent back are missing standards for train traffic in the EU: E.g. there are about 10 different https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrification_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrificatio... in the EU. In addition their are thousands of incompatible regulations regarding train signals. The EU could have high speed trains from Lissabon to Helsinki. But I guess the US will introduce metric units before the EU will solve their train traffic mess.
- M95D 1y ago
  Not sure what you're talking about. Road signs and rules are the same. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic We're working on the rest: - ISO 8559 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System
OptionOfT 1y ago
(sidenote) Neither Google nor Cloudflare resolve the domain for me: /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 1.1.1.1 Server: 1.1.1.1 Address: 1.1.1.1:53 ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 8.8.8.8 Server: 8.8.8.8 Address: 8.8.8.8:53 ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 9.9.9.9 Server: 9.9.9.9 Address: 9.9.9.9:53 Non-authoritative answer: www.actuallygoodregulations.eu canonical name = 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Name: 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Address: 216.198.79.1 Name: 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Address: 64.29.17.1 Non-authoritative answer: www.actuallygoodregulations.eu canonical name = 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com

Good EU regulations

161 points by saubeidl 1y ago

hkon 1y ago

Is it a joke?

pianom4n 1y ago
I actually can't tell. The majority of these are literally examples of bad regulations. They have mass appeal without care for 2nd order effects. The top of the page is a banner rallying against a regulation that would fit right in on the page. And the fact that the site is a laggy mess just makes it a bit surreal.

shortrounddev2 1y ago

The scrolling on this website is incredibly slow

mnewme 1y ago

Great site

dijksterhuis 1y ago
*actually good site :p

EcommerceFlow 1y ago

[flagged]

alextingle 1y ago
No.
- LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
  But some dozens have been raided/swatted/sued/had their devices confiscated, by posting their opinions about some politicians in whichever social media, not limited to facebook. edit: Especially in Germany.
t-writescode 1y ago
The people you’re attempting to make fun of are the British, who are famously not part of the EU anymore.
spauldo 1y ago
They weren't blocked or throttled by their ISP.

fleebee 1y ago

Site seems to be down? I can't access it.

dijksterhuis 1y ago
up for me — maybe try the vercel domain? https://actuallygoodregulations.vercel.app/ https://actuallygoodregulations.vercel.app/
- nelsonfigueroa 1y ago
  the vercel domain worked for me, thanks!
- fleebee 1y ago
  This works. Thanks!

hkonsti 1y ago

Site is down for me but I found this archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20250823220326/https://actuallygoodregulations.eu/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250823220326/https://actuallyg...

daft_pink 1y ago

to be fair, a lot of these exist in the USA too.

mijoharas 1y ago
Sounds like someone should make a US version of the site. (I genuinely think it would be very helpful) I don't think the point of it is to show that these regulations are exceptional or anything. Seems to me to just be highlighting the number of regulations that we have that can make life better.
- kehvyn 1y ago
  The USA version is just the letters ADA in gigantic font. Europe still hasn't caught up to ADA. I don't know any other really good laws that are unique to the US, but I'm sure they exist.
  - ninalanyon 1y ago
    > Europe still hasn't caught up to ADA. Really? Some examples?
  - kasabali 1y ago
    I, too, was so happy and relieved when some troll sued MIT and Berkeley over their freely available video courses. Such a great law.
amluto 1y ago
Sometimes a regulation is bad before it’s good. For example: toilet flush volume. We used to have 5 gpf toilets. They worked okay. They clogged on occasion but not too often. When they clogged, they would overflow after 1-2 flushes. 5 gallons was enough to keep the poop and toilet paper flowing through the drain pipes once they made it out of the toilet. They used a lot of water (5 gallons per flush!). They had basically no interesting technology to speak of. Then regulations required less water, and the new toilets were bad. They were basically the same designs, using less water, and they regularly failed to flush, they clogged frequently, and they even contributed to downstream clogs because 2-ish gallons of slowly draining water didn’t get all the waste moving adequately. Now, after years and years of bad toilets, the industry caught up. Modern toilets use even less water (often under 1.3gpf), but they use that water effectively. They flush well, generally considerably better than the old 5gpf toilets. They rarely overflow. They send the waste through the pipes forcefully. And they use less water! The industry even has standardized testing for flush performance. I wonder if better regulation could have managed the transition to avoid the interim terrible toilets. Perhaps the performance tests should have come first, then a period of financial incentives for toilets that outperformed legacy toilets along with mandatory labeling with the water usage and performance data, and only actual requirements to use less water after good enough toilets were available.

jmull 1y ago

USB-C for your gadgets is not a good regulation. The hurdle to adopting anything better is probably too high to overcome now.

t-writescode 1y ago
I hear your concerns, but the future is probably wireless charging and wifi communication
Something1234 1y ago
What would be the next better feature for a plug? It seems USB-C has it all except for being expensive on the port side with the muxers. Anything different would require tossing a bunch of still useful things. It supports fast charging and good data rates.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 1y ago
  The protocol was flawed in its design in that it does not standardize or communicate the capabilities of the cable. How do I know whether it’s charging only, data, or thunderbolt? No standard way to understand this
- MoltenMan 1y ago
  That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know. The one thing I can think of off the top of my head is some sort of magnetic connection similar to macbook chargers to prevent damage when the cord gets pulled out. (Also I would like the USB-3 standard to not suck, but that's never happening and doesn't relate to the physical hardware anyways)
  - TrainedMonkey 1y ago
    > That's the entire problem though, isn't it? Now we'll never know. There are definitely a lot of harmful regulation, but this one is amazing with close to no downsides. For one, there are magnetic adapters for everything nowadays, including USB-C ports so you can have your cake and eat it too. Second is the environmental impact of the old charger ecosystem. I lost count of how many cables and chargers I have that are now trash^1. Third one is that historically standardizing interfaces was great for innovation. ^1: Here is the various USB e-waste that I have - usb micro C (2 separate types with same name), micro usb super speed (this one is particularly cursed), mini-usb types A and B, and normal USB type A and type B.

Aaargh20318 1y ago

> “Cars must include modern life‑saving tech like automatic braking and lane‑keeping.” I rarely drive my car. When I do, 99% of the time it's within a few kilometers of my house. I have no need for lane keeping or automatic braking in city traffic, it's barely moving to begin with. My car is also getting old and will soon need replacing. Ten years ago you could buy a brand new small car for well under €10k. Sure, it didn't have all the bells and whistles but I have no need for those anyway. Nowadays, you're looking at €30k+ for a new, small car precisely because of the safety regulations, emission standards and the fact that it's practically impossible to buy a car with an ICE anymore. I understand the need for these things for cars that are driven daily, but why do they have to apply to cars that are mainly used for short trips to the grocery store? It's making cars unaffordable for the vast majority of people.

Nextgrid 1y ago
A lot of these features are merely software. The insane increase in car prices over the last decade is a combination of profiteering + inflation, not safety features.
torben-friis 1y ago
Because you're potentially moving several thousand kilos at huge speed, and the people that can find themselves in front of them should not have to trust your judgement of how safe you'll usually need the machine to be.
- dgfitz 1y ago
  I’ll be sure to tell that to the poor person on a bicycle in the middle of the road in front of me when I come around a blind curve and can’t jump lanes so as not to hit them. “So sorry I squished you, my lane assist wouldn’t let me move out of the way in time.”
  - zeroonetwothree 1y ago
    Fortunately automatic emergency braking is another tech that hopefully your car also has.

tptacek 1y ago

It's funny that as far as HN is concerned, this site is a bid to reconstitute a large fraction of every political argument that ever happens here. It even gives me a chance to rant about bees! (My bee rant is not relevant to Europe.)

jjani 1y ago
Hilariously, right below your comment is this one: > You could hold this up in a room full of American business owners and watch them all cringe like a pack of vampires witnessing a cross. Not surprising that you'd find plenty of American business owners on.. an American startup platform!
- witrak 1y ago
  Hmm... In all the cases I saw the prices were mentioned in EUR not USD as the unit. I consider it a clear indication that the discussion participants are mainly non-Americans ;-)

zeroonetwothree 1y ago

I was expecting a site with this title to be a troll when you open it it’s just a blank page.

internet2000 1y ago
It really should have been that.

ACCount37 1y ago

Amusing to see GDPR there. It's the law that delivers the most of avoidable user friction online, by far. It's like they saw how annoying the existing "cookie laws" were and said "we can make it worse!" GDPR might have had good ideas, but the implementation is so botched it's not even funny. Everything related to cookie consent should have been standardized and delegated to browser settings.

sittingcite 1y ago
Cookie Consent is from ePrivacy Directive and not GDPR.
jjani 1y ago
> Everything related to cookie consent should have been standardized and delegated to browser settings. Rather ironic to say this when the entire reason this stuff has been needed is that Google, which has monopolized the browser market, is an advertising company whose core business is tracking people in the first place and does everything in its power to obstruct anything that weakens it.
wqaatwt 1y ago
GDPR us much, much more than cookie banners, that’s just an annoying not very significant distraction. It had a very significant impact privacy, worker rights and such.
- Ekaros 1y ago
  I really sometimes feels there is lot of Cognitive dissonance going on with GDPR. On one side there is hate for these banners. On other hand they also hate when say phone company sells their location data to whoever pays... Or when this data leaks. So exactly how is that later part of selling data and gathering it unnecessarily supposed to be avoided if not by regulation like GRPR? Maybe it is just entirely different people, but there must be some overlap.

ungreased0675 1y ago

I’m sure most people who create regulations believe they’re making good ones. What’s important is to assess whether the regulations had the intended result, and what the second and third order effects were. A lot of regulations, created in good faith, would fail this test.

NotPractical 1y ago
I agree. It would be one thing if they did an independent analysis on the outcomes of each regulation and arrived at an evidence-based conclusion (and even then it would still be very difficult or impossible to achieve objectivity). But from what I can tell, it basically boils down to "let's just read the bullet points for each one and put it on the list if they sound good", which is misleading and even dangerous. Chat Control should be on the list by those standards.
- immibis 1y ago
  > Chat Control should be on the list by those standards But it isn't, so maybe those aren't the standards?
  - jenadine 1y ago
    It isn't because it is not yet accepted
Epa095 1y ago
There seems to be a implicit assumption here that the world witouth the regulation is the 'natural' one, which should not be disturbed without good reason? Not entailing regulations also has second and third order effects, and usually nobody is considering them (unless it can increase revenue).
- qcnguy 1y ago
  Yes, the default state of the world is unregulated. Why does that seem strange to you?

apsec112 1y ago

The first example I saw (think the order might be randomized?) was an EU ban on plastic straws, which is silly. Straws are a negligible fraction of plastic waste, and have no good substitute ("compostable" plastic straws are also banned; paper straws fall apart easily; metal/glass straws are inconvenient and require washing). This would flunk any serious cost/benefit analysis. You can hide the costs by making them regulatory instead of financial (the inconvenience of not having plastic straws doesn't appear in GDP stats), but the costs are still there, they're just hidden.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
That was the first one for me as well and I was surprised they included it. I have never seen a disposable straw that does the job well, except for plastic. I actively avoid restaurants that use the cardboard straws because of it. That's how bad they suck. I can't believe the EU was foolish enough to ban plastic straws when there just isn't an actual viable alternative.
- kyriakos 1y ago
  Quality of non plastic straws has improved dramatically, I don't even notice they are not plastic anymore. Unless you are sucking on a drink for hours they don't disintegrate.
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    > has improved dramatically They are not covered with PFAS anymore?
    - kyriakos 1y ago
      Dramatically as in their ability of not melting while drinking.
  - lurking_swe 1y ago
    enjoy the paper straw coated in tasty PFAS i guess? As far as i can tell that’s the norm… i avoid straws altogether.

SpecialistK 1y ago

It's a cool concept, but let's be honest: it's what the author thinks are good regulations. And it only ever can be, because policy is subjective. I happen to agree with almost all of them, and most doubt is the devil in the details. The efficiency one, for example - if efficiency in an appliance comes at the expense of longevity (ie, it uses less materials or R&D is put into power use over anything else) then that may be a net negative. And the GDPR, a great regulation for customer data, has had the side effect of putting cookie law banners everywhere which makes the web more frustrating. And I hate to say it, because it's my own weird ick, but I will forgo eating if the only utensils are wood. Simply cannot handle the feeling of it against my teeth and tongue. Thank God there are newer compostable single use utensils becoming common.

Pooge 1y ago
> And the GDPR, a great regulation for customer data, has had the side effect of putting cookie law banners everywhere which makes the web more frustrating I say it countless times, but no. Data harvesting Big Tech put cookie banners everywhere and make the web frustrating for you. If they respected Do Not Track, they would not need to show you the banner. Instead, they don't take it into account and prefer to show you a banner that takes up all page instead of having a small banner that asks you if you want to agree to optional cookies.
- NeuralNomaD123 1y ago
  [dead]
- SpecialistK 1y ago
  That doesn't pass the sniff test. If a masked assailant in the street is going to rob me, but has to say a certain sentence before so and almost uniformly does, that speaks to the legal priorities of those making the laws. If hoovering up my data is bad, make it illegal. Don't wrap it up in niceties and then deflect the blame.
  - Pooge 1y ago

gnarlouse 1y ago

You could hold this up in a room full of American business owners and watch them all cringe like a pack of vampires witnessing a cross.

esperent 1y ago
> You could hold this up in a room full of ~~American business owners~~ Hackernews commenters and watch them all nitpick and prevaricate until they've convinced themselves that every regulation here is, in fact, negative.

GeoAtreides 1y ago

“Your data. Your rules. Consent, transparency, security — and the right to say ‘delete it’.” You see that HN? The right to delete my data? it's the law, please stop breaking the law and implement a way to delete my data as I see fit.

immibis 1y ago
YC is a US company with no obligation to comply with EU laws. They've explicitly stated they have no intention of complying with EU laws. Makes a lot of sense for venture capitalists, I guess. They'd ignore US laws when they could, too.

PeterStuer 1y ago

“Take your streaming subscriptions with you: watch and listen anywhere in the EU.” In other words, allow publishers to region lock digital content deals to a specific EU country, even though (in theory) the EU is "Single Market for goods and services". There are good EU regulations. There are also some very bad onces.

intothemild 1y ago
Except that's not how it works. (So far) Each one of my subscriptions just show me content of the local country. So say Netflix, it's say French Netflix, when I'm in France and so on. Same with Spotify. The law is just setup so services can't block you from using your subscription in another country. Which honestly I don't think was a problem in the first place. Now if there was a law to make these damn things give you all the language and subtitle options.... I'd be all for that. Because the big problem (again Netflix is a good example) is when travelling, is for the most part subtitles are only in usually two languages. The native language of the country, and English. On vacation and want to watch something in another language? Ok now you need a third language (English) in order to watch it. Even though Netflix has the subtitles in every language.
- PeterStuer 1y ago
  If I travel anywhere in Europe, my Prime account is still locked to the same useless crappy Belgium catalogue because "licenses" Meawhile the TV sites are region locked, so you can't watch Belgian TV from Spain because "licenses". So much for the single common market.
Epa095 1y ago
How does the first entail the second? The way I read the text of the law, it acknowledges that there are regional locking inside the EU, and you should be allowed to bring your subscriptions with you as you travel the EU. Sounds like you would want the law to be a different law, enforcing the EU to be a single market for all intellectual property and subscriptions. I think that sounds like a good idea, but it's a different law.

dkiebd 1y ago

> Your internet provider can’t block or throttle websites. The open web stays open That’s so false it’s not even funny. I live in Spain and there are a TON of blocked websites.

zosima 1y ago
Blocked by court or state. Private ISPs can't block sites. And this is true for almost all these legislations. They remove power from individuals and companies, while avoiding to limit EU and state power in any meaningful way.
- dkiebd 1y ago
  But the government is much more of an enemy to me than my ISP, not to mention I can switch ISPs but I can’t switch governments.
  - 0dayz 1y ago
    >but I can’t switch governments. Maybe use the time machine to move out of Franco's Spain?
    - dkiebd 1y ago
      What percentage of citizens do you think support the blocking of websites for reasons of copyright? We have as much choice in the matter as we would have under Franco.
      - 0dayz 1y ago
        If the people don't agree with something they can always do three things in a democratic country: * start a party to push for legislative changes that resonate with what the people want * vote for a party that propose to change certain legislation to something more adjacent to what the people want * people can lobby the government via interest groups or as a collective to influence politicians or if the constitution allows for it try and hold a popular vote on the issue(s)

DoctorOW 1y ago

This stupid effect they have following your cursor around is infuriating on mobile devices, and now that I'm on desktop where it works as designed, it still is super distracting from the text.

amai 1y ago

Anyone ever bought shoes or clothes or tires in the EU? The sizes are absolutely not metric and a complete mess! Not to start about traffic rules, sizes of streets, traffic signs etc. Nothing is regulated, nothing is standardized. But the worst missing regulations which are keeping the continent back are missing standards for train traffic in the EU: E.g. there are about 10 different https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrification_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_railway_electrificatio... in the EU. In addition their are thousands of incompatible regulations regarding train signals. The EU could have high speed trains from Lissabon to Helsinki. But I guess the US will introduce metric units before the EU will solve their train traffic mess.

M95D 1y ago
Not sure what you're talking about. Road signs and rules are the same. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Signs_and_Signals - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic We're working on the rest: - ISO 8559 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Train_Control_System

OptionOfT 1y ago

(sidenote) Neither Google nor Cloudflare resolve the domain for me: /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 1.1.1.1 Server: 1.1.1.1 Address: 1.1.1.1:53 ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 8.8.8.8 Server: 8.8.8.8 Address: 8.8.8.8:53 ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL ** server can't find www.actuallygoodregulations.eu: SERVFAIL /opt/adguardhome/work # nslookup www.actuallygoodregulations.eu 9.9.9.9 Server: 9.9.9.9 Address: 9.9.9.9:53 Non-authoritative answer: www.actuallygoodregulations.eu canonical name = 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Name: 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Address: 216.198.79.1 Name: 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com Address: 64.29.17.1 Non-authoritative answer: www.actuallygoodregulations.eu canonical name = 87dde843d494d012.vercel-dns-017.com