[not_kurt_godel]

What specifically do you take exception to with regard to GDPR/EU Internet laws? Having hands-on experience with compliance, I find GDPR to be quite reasonable - if anything, I'd say it's overly lax with regards to deletion of data that's not visible to the user (i.e. logs, 'shadow profiles', etc.).

[aerovistae]

Maybe GDPR is okay, I'm not terribly well informed about it. But every couple weeks the entire internet is up in arms against a new attempt by the EU to censor the entire internet, and I've been dealing for too long with the damn "We use cookies" pop-up they ignorantly required.

So I'm just saying their track record isn't great.

[not_kurt_godel]

> the entire internet is up in arms against a new attempt by the EU to censor the entire internet

I must be out of the loop because I'm not familiar with what "the entire Internet" is up in arms about. Can you give a specific example?

Re:cookies - you do realize that "we use cookies" almost universally means "we use third-party cookies" and that third-party cookies are the number one way that advertisers and other unsavory entities track your Internet usage across sites, right? Don't you think people deserve to know that their Internet usage is essentially being tracked granularly without their consent or knowledge for profit? If not, why not?

[simplecomplex]

What material harm or damage to you or your person did you experience prior to GDPR that GDPR has prevented or compensated for?

[not_kurt_godel]

What material harm or damage would you suffer if I snooped on all of your Internet browsing activity with the knowledge of who you are in real life and kept that information around forever to use for whatever purposes I so choose?

[simplecomplex]

Straw man. That’s not analogous to what was being discussed. A better analogy is: HN can see my email because I gave it to them to login. I don’t need to request what HN is doing with my email, because I already know I gave it to them. Giving them my email doesn’t harm me. Using it to do something illegal might, but the GDPR wouldn’t be able to stop that.

[not_kurt_godel]

You misunderstand how third-party cookies & tracking work. You also misunderstand the intent of the legislation if you think GDPR is about preventing 'illegal' things. It's about protecting individual citizens' sovereignty and privacy.