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European countries aren’t known for strong privacy against the state. There are exceptions, but the EU’s “privacy rights” are almost exclusively against corpora

European countries aren’t known for strong privacy against the state. There are exceptions, but the EU’s “privacy rights” are almost exclusively against corporations. American privacy, by contrast, is almost exclusively focused on state surveillance. There are holes, the biggest being that foreigners on foreign soil have no privacy rights. Nor do the dead. But I’m not impressed with the “rights” Europeans have against state surveillance. Europeans aren’t willing to spend the money to do massive spy programs. Ok, fine. But that’s not the same as having civil liberties opposition. Switzerland has a reputation, good and bad, for strong privacy. But that’s not the norm.

dmix 7mo ago
I read an article that dug into public GDPR cases, which is a surprisingly small set, and it explained they have had a near zero impact on the massive advertising and data broker industry. They mostly just have a large back log of legal cases against large US companies like Google which occasionally result in fines - but even that moves very very slowly and has little impact on their global business models. They do also occasionally charged a few smaller European companies a few grand for violations. The key thing is that companies like Google and Meta run giant ad networks, there's many thousands of companies buying ads then collecting data in their own systems and reselling it. The privacy issues of data retention on Google/Meta/etc social and SaaS platforms is something to care about but it is only a small piece of the puzzle of data privacy. Ads will remain a major business for the foreseeable future as nobody is going to pay $5/m to use Instagram with no data collection.
- pyuser583 7mo ago
  I’ve read the GDPR has zero impacts on national security/law enforcement. It applies weakly to other state functions. I’ve also seen cases where GDPR is used against religious groups that have a strong religious justification for keeping lists of believers. Think Orthodox Jews and the Catholic Church, which regard family trees and baptismal certificates as semi-sacred. And kept on paper or scrolls. Not sure what to think about that. Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong.
  - tripzilch 7mo ago
    The reason why we're not keeping lists of which people believe what religion, is because such lists were extremely useful to the nazis in WW2 when exterminating Jewish people. > Think Orthodox Jews Pretty sure they would remember why this is the case. > Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong. There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so. But, I'm not familiar with these cases you mention, I think there's some details left out that should matter. The really weird thing to me, is that a sports club can keep a list of members easily (yes they need to abide by the GDPR but it's not hard), and if somehow a "religious group" can't manage that level of organization, I don't think their opinion on what objects are considered "sacred" should count for much, either. Another issue is that "religious groups" can have a different opinion of who are their members and who they get to keep data on, and it doesn't matter whether those records are "sacred" or not, according to the GDPR it is not the "religious group", but the people whose data is being kept whose opinion counts. It would be ridiculous otherwise. I had to email a Church to stop tracking me (which happens if you're baptized as a baby), and that should be my choice, it would be insane if they could claim "yeah tough luck, but our records are sacred".
    - abustamam 7mo ago
      > There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so. What? To many people, the Bible is just a book. To Christians its sacred. This doesn't mean it's immutable (the original Bible wasn't in English after all), it just means it's important to them. For the records, the records themselves could be sacred, but the practical implications of them are not sacred. But if Catholics have a sacred record of everyone who had been baptized at a church, then that should be different from their mailing list. God did not instruct the chrich to email everyone who was ever baptized there. Plus, at some point in the church's age, there will be more dead people on the list of people who were baptized than alive people. It doesn't make sense to send an email blast to more dead people than alive, so they must trim the mailing list every so often.
- DANmode 7mo ago
  Not “nobody” - just not as many people they’re value-extracting from now. So why change?
- BobbyTables2 7mo ago
  Even if one paid monthly, why would they actually stop the data collection?
  - dmix 7mo ago
    Well YouTube offers a no ads version for money. I personally don’t see a realistic alternative to ad supported social media so you’d have to ask someone who does think that.
TacticalCoder 7mo ago
[flagged]
- rcxdude 7mo ago
  I mean, it is very useful to keep in mind that for any question of 'can you guarantee that X government system won't be used for Y in the future' the answer is 'no', because the government is what makes the rules. That would hopefully work to prevent X being built, but I think it's better than pretending that it's possible to guarantee Y won't happen.
- aspect0545 7mo ago
  > Lately the EU Commission came up with a plan to create an inventory of every single valuable items owned by every single EU citizen: from Magic The Gathering and Pokemon cards to jewelry/heirloom, paintings, gold and silver coins/bars, cryptocurrencies coins, watches, cars, boats, etc. Anything with some value: would go in the inventory. >The European Parliament asked the question: "Can you guarantee us this will never ever be used as a basis to confiscate these items?" to which the European Commission answered: "No, we cannot guarantee that". Excuse me for not taking this at face value but this sounds like disinformation. Where did you get that from?
  - solstice 7mo ago
    After quickly googling, it seems that the plans do not go as far as they make them out to be. The things to be catalogued are only those relevant in the fight against money-laundering. That's hardly "full commie style inventory of every single item with any value". Links (in German, unfortunately): - https://dpa-factchecking.com/germany/240812-99-93247/ https://dpa-factchecking.com/germany/240812-99-93247/ - https://www.money-coaching.de/politik-und-meinung/eu-vermoegensregister-was-wirklich-geplant-ist-und-was-nicht https://www.money-coaching.de/politik-und-meinung/eu-vermoeg... - https://creditanstalt.co.at/2025/10/08/vermoegensregister-in-der-eu/ https://creditanstalt.co.at/2025/10/08/vermoegensregister-in...
- LadyCailin 7mo ago
  This is just actual straight up bullshit. Either you’re starting this misinformation campaign, or yourself gullible enough to just be repeating it.
roger110 7mo ago
I think the US basically sees DMA, GDPR, etc as a tariff
- ta9000 7mo ago
  It’s definitely made browsing the open web a worse experience. There should be global opt in/out.
  - Frieren 7mo ago
    > There should be global opt in/out. They should not be. That there is people willing to give their data to big corporations and foreign countries by extension puts everybody at risk. It is a matter of national security and it should not be allowed, no opt in option.
    - ta9000 7mo ago
      Woof. How about we let users decide, thanks.
      - Frieren 7mo ago
        > Woof. How about we let users decide, thanks. Are they deciding with full understanding of what does it mean to accept such terms or are they just "accepting" to stop being bothered with pop ups. The industry loves to give people "a choice" when they know that the average user can be coerced to accept anything. That is not a real choice, and it should be illegal. User profiling is a crime and should be treated as such.
  - computerthings 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - croon 7mo ago
    Companies made browsing the web a bad experience, not GDPR. This sentiment is so widespread I'm starting to wonder if it's astroturfed by anti-GDPR lobbying.

dmix 7mo ago

I read an article that dug into public GDPR cases, which is a surprisingly small set, and it explained they have had a near zero impact on the massive advertising and data broker industry. They mostly just have a large back log of legal cases against large US companies like Google which occasionally result in fines - but even that moves very very slowly and has little impact on their global business models. They do also occasionally charged a few smaller European companies a few grand for violations. The key thing is that companies like Google and Meta run giant ad networks, there's many thousands of companies buying ads then collecting data in their own systems and reselling it. The privacy issues of data retention on Google/Meta/etc social and SaaS platforms is something to care about but it is only a small piece of the puzzle of data privacy. Ads will remain a major business for the foreseeable future as nobody is going to pay $5/m to use Instagram with no data collection.

pyuser583 7mo ago
I’ve read the GDPR has zero impacts on national security/law enforcement. It applies weakly to other state functions. I’ve also seen cases where GDPR is used against religious groups that have a strong religious justification for keeping lists of believers. Think Orthodox Jews and the Catholic Church, which regard family trees and baptismal certificates as semi-sacred. And kept on paper or scrolls. Not sure what to think about that. Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong.
- tripzilch 7mo ago
  The reason why we're not keeping lists of which people believe what religion, is because such lists were extremely useful to the nazis in WW2 when exterminating Jewish people. > Think Orthodox Jews Pretty sure they would remember why this is the case. > Regulating a sacred scroll like a database table seems wrong. There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so. But, I'm not familiar with these cases you mention, I think there's some details left out that should matter. The really weird thing to me, is that a sports club can keep a list of members easily (yes they need to abide by the GDPR but it's not hard), and if somehow a "religious group" can't manage that level of organization, I don't think their opinion on what objects are considered "sacred" should count for much, either. Another issue is that "religious groups" can have a different opinion of who are their members and who they get to keep data on, and it doesn't matter whether those records are "sacred" or not, according to the GDPR it is not the "religious group", but the people whose data is being kept whose opinion counts. It would be ridiculous otherwise. I had to email a Church to stop tracking me (which happens if you're baptized as a baby), and that should be my choice, it would be insane if they could claim "yeah tough luck, but our records are sacred".
  - abustamam 7mo ago
    > There is actually no perceivable or material difference between something that is considered "sacred" and that which is not. It really hinges on whether some subset of some splinter of some religion considers it so. What? To many people, the Bible is just a book. To Christians its sacred. This doesn't mean it's immutable (the original Bible wasn't in English after all), it just means it's important to them. For the records, the records themselves could be sacred, but the practical implications of them are not sacred. But if Catholics have a sacred record of everyone who had been baptized at a church, then that should be different from their mailing list. God did not instruct the chrich to email everyone who was ever baptized there. Plus, at some point in the church's age, there will be more dead people on the list of people who were baptized than alive people. It doesn't make sense to send an email blast to more dead people than alive, so they must trim the mailing list every so often.
DANmode 7mo ago
Not “nobody” - just not as many people they’re value-extracting from now. So why change?
BobbyTables2 7mo ago
Even if one paid monthly, why would they actually stop the data collection?
- dmix 7mo ago
  Well YouTube offers a no ads version for money. I personally don’t see a realistic alternative to ad supported social media so you’d have to ask someone who does think that.

TacticalCoder 7mo ago

[flagged]

rcxdude 7mo ago
I mean, it is very useful to keep in mind that for any question of 'can you guarantee that X government system won't be used for Y in the future' the answer is 'no', because the government is what makes the rules. That would hopefully work to prevent X being built, but I think it's better than pretending that it's possible to guarantee Y won't happen.
aspect0545 7mo ago
> Lately the EU Commission came up with a plan to create an inventory of every single valuable items owned by every single EU citizen: from Magic The Gathering and Pokemon cards to jewelry/heirloom, paintings, gold and silver coins/bars, cryptocurrencies coins, watches, cars, boats, etc. Anything with some value: would go in the inventory. >The European Parliament asked the question: "Can you guarantee us this will never ever be used as a basis to confiscate these items?" to which the European Commission answered: "No, we cannot guarantee that". Excuse me for not taking this at face value but this sounds like disinformation. Where did you get that from?
- solstice 7mo ago
  After quickly googling, it seems that the plans do not go as far as they make them out to be. The things to be catalogued are only those relevant in the fight against money-laundering. That's hardly "full commie style inventory of every single item with any value". Links (in German, unfortunately): - https://dpa-factchecking.com/germany/240812-99-93247/ https://dpa-factchecking.com/germany/240812-99-93247/ - https://www.money-coaching.de/politik-und-meinung/eu-vermoegensregister-was-wirklich-geplant-ist-und-was-nicht https://www.money-coaching.de/politik-und-meinung/eu-vermoeg... - https://creditanstalt.co.at/2025/10/08/vermoegensregister-in-der-eu/ https://creditanstalt.co.at/2025/10/08/vermoegensregister-in...
LadyCailin 7mo ago
This is just actual straight up bullshit. Either you’re starting this misinformation campaign, or yourself gullible enough to just be repeating it.

roger110 7mo ago

I think the US basically sees DMA, GDPR, etc as a tariff

ta9000 7mo ago
It’s definitely made browsing the open web a worse experience. There should be global opt in/out.
- Frieren 7mo ago
  > There should be global opt in/out. They should not be. That there is people willing to give their data to big corporations and foreign countries by extension puts everybody at risk. It is a matter of national security and it should not be allowed, no opt in option.
  - ta9000 7mo ago
    Woof. How about we let users decide, thanks.
    - Frieren 7mo ago
      > Woof. How about we let users decide, thanks. Are they deciding with full understanding of what does it mean to accept such terms or are they just "accepting" to stop being bothered with pop ups. The industry loves to give people "a choice" when they know that the average user can be coerced to accept anything. That is not a real choice, and it should be illegal. User profiling is a crime and should be treated as such.
- computerthings 7mo ago
  [dead]
- croon 7mo ago
  Companies made browsing the web a bad experience, not GDPR. This sentiment is so widespread I'm starting to wonder if it's astroturfed by anti-GDPR lobbying.