[a3_nm]

> You guys chose to make your traffic radioactive

Er. I vote in an EU country, but I don't feel like I "chose" anything. GDPR was mostly developed by institutions (Council of Europe, European Commission) formed of people that were not directly elected by European voters. In any case, given that personal data management issues are not a prominent part of the political discourse (even in the EU), I'd be surprised if any of the people in charge were elected because of their position on data protection.

It so happens that European institutions have come up with GDPR, but I don't think it is fair to see it as a conscious choice from EU voters.

> the reality is that EU residents are going to be blocked from a large percentage of the world’s websites

I'd be interested in seeing supporting evidence for this rather surprising claim. I'd conjecture that the "vast majority" is the long tail of small websites who haven't heard about GDPR or don't care about it; so I'm not too worried.

[sambe]

Let's stop peddling the misconception that the EU operates significantly differently than any other Western democracy. The civil servants answer ultimately to the MEPs, who are elected. Most people either do not vote or do not engage, as is the case to a lesser extent in their national elections. You can still lobby your MEP when an issue was not part of their platform.