[horseLOGIC]

I'm unhappy with this because now I have to do a lot of extra work verifying that I'm not breaking some law, then implement changes in both code and license agreements, then get all the users to agree.

I've had zero profit from user data so far - to the contrary. If everyone could be billed just with some cryptocurrency, totally anonymous, that would be great.

[krageon]

The only thing I can do as a customer is be mildly amused at the fact that you're complaining it's inconvenient for you to respect my privacy now that a law is coming into effect forcing you to do so.

From the other end of the spectrum, I know you're wildly exaggerating the difficulty of compliance.

[horseLOGIC]

It's not inconvenient, it's costing me money. I don't want your data, I need to collect it and store it to comply with other laws, now I need to verify that the particular way I collect and store that data isn't violating some other new law.

You are not my customer, but even if you were, keep in mind that for every piece of regulation (and there's tons of it!) I need to fulfill, I have to pay, which means you need to pay. I need to set prices to keep my bottom line. If I can't keep my bottom line, I'll eventually stop providing the service, because I'm not providing it for fun. That's for paid services.

Now, some companies don't even charge you, they provide (aggregate) data about you to advertisers, who are then willing to pay more for their ads. It only makes sense, how much would you pay for an ad for a piece of specialized software that gets shown to the wrong audience 99.99% of the time? What's going to happen if that kind of data usage becomes infeasible? Those companies need to start charging, or go out of business. There will be less free services. I suppose that helps companies who do charge, but it hurts people who can't pay and don't care about data collection.

I'm not providing such a service, but if I was, you would be paying me with your "privacy". If "respecting your privacy" means you don't want to pay, you can get lost, because you're only costing money. The definition of "customer" is that you compensate the other side.

[gnicholas]

Your comment led me to wonder if any businesses are considering raising prices for EU customers as a result of this law. I'm not so much wondering about the "we lost revenue because we can't sell your data anymore", but more along the lines of "complying with the regulatory environment in this region is expensive, and we pass the cost of compliance along to customers in the region".

I recently learned about the AU warranty rules, which are very consumer-friendly — and which a commenter pointed out might be the reason that Apple and others charge significantly more when selling products in AU.

Note: I'm not saying anyone should raise prices as a result of GDPR, just wondering if anyone has done so.

[pheleven]

Yes, it's being considered.

[gnicholas]

Do you think companies will/should make explicit the cause of higher/differential pricing? On the one hand, it could anger consumers. On the other hand, it would provide transparency so that consumers would understand where the price increase came from.

[pheleven]

Honestly, it's not my call to raise prices or not, but it doesn't seem like they intend to hide it, should it happen.

[DanBC]

> I need to collect it and store it to comply with other laws, now I need to verify that the particular way I collect and store that data isn't violating some other new law.

Have you seen this? It seems to say that GDPR allows you to do what you're doing.

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-6-gdpr/

> processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject;

[horseLOGIC]

I fully it expect it to allow it, but you can't just pick one line out of the whole text and be done. For instance, what's the definition of processing? How does it cross-reference with the whole body of other EU regulations? Etc.

[salvar]

Did you actually look into the GDPR before jumping to these conclusions about the effects on your business? For example, if you have a legitimate need for user data (e.g. "I need to collect it and store it to comply with other laws") then the GDPR does not apply. This is very plainly laid out for those that care to actually inform themselves.

[horseLOGIC]

> Did you actually look into the GDPR before jumping to these conclusions about the effects on your business?

The fact that I have to look into the GDPR already proves my conclusion to be true. I fully expect there to be few if any issues, but I still need to verify against the regulation, which is thousands of lines of text.

I can't just refer to "salvar on hackernews" saying it's "legitimate" if it's for legal compliance.

[salvar]

Yes, you need to look into regulations to make sure you're complying with them. I really hope that this is not news to you if you are running a business or service.

[krageon]

If you need to have data to comply with other laws, the GDPR does not apply and thus there is no problem.