[alter_eco123]

> How do you explain the GDPR then?

I'm not sure what you mean.

Is it not obvious that politicians don't want to bust their biggest (potential) campaign contributors for GDPR violations?

Isn't it obvious that we don't have any more privacy now than before GDPR, because governments are still spying the shit out of us all?

In light of that, is it not obvious that GDPR's real goal is something other than improving our privacy?

Do you genuinely think governments (or EU bureaucrats) actually care about us or our privacy? If not, why would you think GDPR was devised for our benefit?

And gosh, it sure makes it more difficult for small businesses to stay viable, and wouldn't it be nice for big corporations to have fewer potential competitors/disruptors around?

[distances]

> Do you genuinely think governments (or EU bureaucrats) actually care about us or our privacy?

Yes

> And gosh, it sure makes it more difficult for small businesses to stay viable, and wouldn't it be nice for big corporations to have fewer potential competitors/disruptors around?

This is just ridiculous. Politics is still driven by the will to improve societies instead of just a cold grab of money and power. Your level of cynicism is just over the charts.

[hnisgroupthink]

Politics is about expanding power of the political elite while using "improving societies" and other Orwellian language to justify it.

Maybe you should be a little more cynical.

[Angostura]

> Maybe you should be a little more cynical

Or maybe you should consider that good government and regulation, of which there is still much, is actually the most effective protection against uncontrolled corporate interest.

[hnisgroupthink]

Government and corporation are one and the same these days. They graft onto each other and feed one another, like unions and other collectivist organizations.

Why do you think tax money goes to ship amazon packages?

[vertex-four]

As much as I don’t much like the concept of the state, could you please not apply American criticisms of the US Government to all Governments around the world? It makes you look silly - most of Europe have fundamentally different criticisms of their Governments, and especially of the EU.

[theshadowknows]

I would like to learn those criticisms! I believe I read somewhere that most Scandinavians for example trust their government while they may disagree with individual policies. Are EU states similarly trusted on the whole?

[distances]

There's a certain amount of distrust among the populace towards other states if that's what you're asking, though I'd say that depends on how anti-EU the individual is. This seems to be on a steady rise due to the populist movements all around.

And yes I can confirm, in Northern Europe there is a fundamental trust on the government. I, for one, believe that none of our politicians are outright bought; some of them may drive pro-business policies, but from my vantage point the level of cynicism exhibited in this discussion falls squarely to a bucket of loony conspiracy theories.

[olavk]

In my anecdotal experience, people in Eastern Europe (former Warsaw Pact countries) are extremely cynical towards politicians and the political system while Scandinavians in general have a lot of trust in the system even if they mistrust some individual politicians.

In the approach towards regulation, I think the major difference compared to the US is that Europeans mistrust businesses just as much as politicians. GDPR is a result of mistrust in businesses. Stating that politicians are corrupt, as Americans are wont to do, is not really an argument against regulation like GDPR unless you believe businesses never act against the interests of the public.

[kazen44]

most western european nations yes,

in EE, a lot of countries are still dealinig with the intertia of the post-communist goverment and its institutions.

[jdietrich]

>Is it not obvious that politicians don't want to bust their biggest (potential) campaign contributors for GDPR violations?

In the UK, campaign contributions are almost completely irrelevant. Political parties can spend no more than £46,000 per candidate at each election. Our major parties literally have more money than they can spend. Most European countries have similarly strict campaign finance legislation.

>Isn't it obvious that we don't have any more privacy now than before GDPR, because governments are still spying the shit out of us all?

Corporate data mining and political surveillance are somewhat distinct issues. Here in the UK, government agencies have relatively broad powers to collect and use data on citizens. In Germany, privacy rules are extraordinarily strict. As long as member states are abiding by the ECHR, it's a matter for their national parliaments.

>In light of that, is it not obvious that GDPR's real goal is something other than improving our privacy?

No.

>Do you genuinely think governments (or EU bureaucrats) actually care about us or our privacy?

Some politicians are obviously pro-surveillance. Some are strongly pro-privacy. That's sort of how democracy works - a democracy where all politicians agree on everything isn't much of a democracy at all. There are major differences of opinion between member states and within member states, differences of opinion between parties and within parties. There are three parties in Germany's current coalition government, all of whom have significantly different policies with respect to privacy.

>And gosh, it sure makes it more difficult for small businesses to stay viable, and wouldn't it be nice for big corporations to have fewer potential competitors/disruptors around?

GDPR has little or no impact on a large proportion of small businesses, because their businesses don't depend on the processing of personal data. If your data processing operations are small-scale, straightforward and legitimate, it isn't hard to comply with GDPR. Some small businesses have been significantly impacted, mainly because they have been flagrantly disregarding the Data Protection Directive for many years. Most of the GDPR isn't new, it's just the old data protection laws with credible powers of enforcement.

The changes made by the GDPR are mostly updates to reflect the changing nature of personal data processing. The Data Protection Directive came into force in 1995. At that time, nobody really anticipated the sheer scale and pervasiveness of personal data harvesting that the internet would facilitate.

[norswap]

In Belgium political parties are funded by the government, and companies may not fund them. I'm sure it is the same in many other European countries.

[enitihas]

How are new parties formed there? What proportion of funding new parties receive there?

[hyperman1]

I understood the money is divided up corresponding to the number of votes: If you get 10% of the votes, you get 10% of the money.

There is a 'kiesdrempel' declaring you need 5% of a district's votes before you can function as a party. There are I think 11 districts, so the theoretical maximum is (100/5)*11=220 political parties.

New parties create a document, the 'voordrachtsacte' which needs a minimal number of signatures. When you get enough people to sign it (again apercentage of the inhabitants of the region that's holding an election), you have managed to start a new party.

In practice there are about 3-5 big ones for each half of the country, plus a lot of small parties which are mostly ignored as background noise and are mostly dead at the next election.

Some background noise parties I remember because of their humoristic values were WOW (Gething older with grace), and BANAAN (banana, who had a slogan like: dont be a pear, vote banana)

[jdietrich]

I'm not Belgian and don't know the intricacies of their political system, but they have no shortage of political parties. At the 2014 elections, 13 different parties won seats in the Chamber of Representatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_of_Representatives_(Be...

[kazen44]

in the netherlands, new parties are mainly formed from A) politicans from older parties who want to bring it to a new direction. or B) people who are already active in the political world, like journalists or social activists.

[olavk]

> Is it not obvious that politicians don't want to bust their biggest (potential) campaign contributors for GDPR violations?

In Europe, members of the judicial branch are not up for direct popular election and therefore does not campaign. I guess this is less democratic, but it means the judicial branch (which decides who to "bust") is not beholden to campaign contributors which is a good thing.