[ckastner]

The title should have mentioned the person by name: it's Max Schrems [1].

He has a legal background, and has fought a number of high-profile privacy cases in Europe.

The day the GDPR came into effect, he filed violations complaints against Facebook and Google in four different jurisdictions. He's a spearhead figure in this regard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems

[dewey]

I already knew it was him when reading the headline, weird that they skipped over that. It's kind of a household name if you are at all interested in privacy or are aware of the Facebook privacy issues at this point.

[chrisseaton]

> The day the GDPR came into effect, he filed violations complaints against Facebook and Google in four different jurisdictions.

When people do this it comes across as malicious harassment rather than a genuine legal complaint for harm caused. Why so many jurisdictions, and why on the very day it came into effect?

[foepys]

Oh no, somebody save Google, please. A single lawyer is harassing this poor trillion dollar company.

He has any right to use all existing laws to file complaints. When a new law is being introduced it should be followed immediately, especially when it impacts the lives of many. Would you argue that a speeding ticket is harassment when the fines were raised just the day before? No, you wouldn't because that would be ridiculous.

[chrisseaton]

> When a new law is being introduced it should be followed immediately, especially when it impacts the lives of many. Would you argue that a speeding ticket is harassment when the fines were raised just the day before?

When there's a new law or a new speeding limit on an existing road the police do usually spend a while just politely warning people about it before they charge anyone.

He's an activist. Not someone who's genuinely been harmed and seeking a legal resolution as a last resort after trying to resolve in good faith first.

[foepys]

As another poster pointed out, GDPR had a 2 year (!) period where it was already a law in all EU countries but was not enforced for exactly that reason. Try telling a cop that you need to be notified 2 years in advance.

Privacy advocates have been saying for years that Google is building profiles for every user on the internet. You were not able to get to know what Google knows about you. This changed and it is really good that it changed.

[vertex-four]

The EU tried to resolve the issue in good faith - they passed the GDPR with two years between publishing the law for all to see, and the date at which it would start being enforced. The various privacy-violating companies did not act in good faith by attempting to comply with the law and the guidance surrounding it, instead hoping that they could put it off until they got sued over it.

[hadrien01]

FAANGs had more than two years to prepare between the voting of GDPR (april 2016) and its implementation date (may 2018)

[matheusmoreira]

> it comes across as malicious harassment rather than a genuine legal complaint

Legal harassment is an issue when individual citizens and small businesses are targeted with frivolous lawsuits clearly intended to burn as much of their time and money as possible.

This is not the case here. Google and Facebook deserve every privacy lawsuit they get. They have the resources to deal with it too.

[ckastner]

> When people do this it comes across as malicious harassment rather than a genuine legal complaint for harm caused. Why so many jurisdictions, and why on the very day it came into effect?

The very day should be obvious: because these companies had two years to prepare for and become compliant with the GDPR.

This wasn't Facebook et al. saying "oh no, we need more time please'. This was them saying "we made up our mind on the implementation; if you disagree, we'll let a judge decide."

No idea about the jurisdictions, but I'd expect there to be good reasons, too. He's an activist, but I never perceived him as an over-the-top "in-your-face" activist. On the contrary.

[kroltan]

Well, he couldn't file violations if there were no violations in effect, no? Does not mean that he does not feel he was damaged before then.

[nelaboras]

because it wasn't fully clear which jurisdiction would apply.