[bartread]

This narrative has long since become tired.

If you don't respect your users' privacy you don't deserve to do business in the EU. And make no mistake: whether you like it or not, that legislation - or something very like it - is going to jump the Atlantic sooner or later, so why not position yourself ahead of the curve instead of stropping off and taking your ball home?

There are side-effects I don't like about GDPR, like the endless bombardment of overwrought cookie consents on every site I visit (definitely something that degrades the experience of the web), but I do like the fact that my privacy has to be respected by corporations.

[elgenie]

The cookie foolishness started as an a EU Directive that was adopted in May 2011.

It doesn't have anything to do with GDPR, but it's a fantastic example of (likely) well-intended European privacy regulation both is utterly useless and also stands zero chance of jumping the Atlantic.

[derefr]

There is a difference between respecting your customers’ privacy, and obeying the letter of the law regarding a set of artificial rituals surrounding your customers’ privacy. You can be completely compliant with the spirit of GDPR (e.g. by not storing any data in the first place), while also not wanting to spend the energy ensuring you are compliant with the letter of GDPR.

[HatchedLake721]

Cookie notifications have nothing to do with GDPR.

[bartread]

Tell that to all the companies implementing them. Now, if you click on the option to configure your cookie options you're presented with an often bewildering list of different cookie types that companies use for a variety of purposes. By either clicking "yes to all" (or similar) or selecting individual items from the list (or deselecting all) you're supposedly providing the informed consent that GDPR requires. Frankly I think often this is so confusing as to make a mockery of the whole process.

[vsl]

But they do: they are textbook example of unintended consequences of well-meant legislation.

GDPR is becoming that on steroids: the only thing that changed was for the worse: some sites outright banned EU visitors, the rest started using obnoxious terms screens that are even worse than cookie bars. Nothing really changed.

Anybody with half a brain could have seen this coming. But no, let’s double down on the same thing with GDPR. This time it will surely go down differently...

[vsl]

I want to do business with them, though, and am prevented from doing so because I live in EU.

[throwaway37585]

> If you don't respect your users' privacy you don't deserve to do business in the EU.

So you're going to make the decision of what constitutes "respecting my privacy" for every single person in the EU?

[bartread]

Me? No. That's what the legislation does.

[throwaway37585]

s/you/politicians. And your original comment implies you agree with it.

[bartread]

Yes, I agree with having my privacy protected. Do I think the legislation is perfect? No, but I think I already made that clear.

[throwaway37585]

> Yes, I agree with having my privacy protected.

This is equivocating.

The issue is not whether you agree with having your privacy protected. The issue is deciding what constitutes "respecting privacy" for every single person in the EU, and threatening people with violence if they disagree.

[briandear]

You can choose not to visit sites that don't respect your privacy. You could already do that before GDPR.