[ckastner]

Max Schrems is just incredible. Just look at his Wikipedia page [1] and see how many EU-US data transfers he's challenged successfully.

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

At this point, I wonder why the EU doesn't consult him personally prior to enacting some law. It's not as if they don't consult with others as well.

[Fnoord]

> At this point, I wonder why the EU doesn't consult him personally prior to enacting some law. It's not as if they don't consult with others as well.

Because it costs companies a lot of money to merge to EU-only market, while waiting for the wheels of justice to grind buys time (for EU-only market).

[Sporktacular]

That's right, but the US does this all the time with its military/intelligence networks, China does the same for it's public internet. It's not like their providers are running at a loss, they just need the right incentives.

[cblconfederate]

What's the end goal of all this? Information (data) technology has essentially left europe

The EU is never held accountable for the laws they make, and i m not aware with them consulting with local entrepreneurs. It seems only lobbyists and politicians have access

[no_time]

>Tech has essentially left europe

If your "Tech" can't work without siphoning up and selling people's personal data to the highest bidder, Good.

[Aerroon]

Then how do they make money? Everything is a subscription service? Cable TV 2.0? Can you use the internet normally by avoiding these services? No Google, no YouTube, no Windows, no Android etc.

Right now we basically get the products of the internet for free. If you kill advertising as monetization you don't have those free services anymore. And if you have to pay for everything then you'll leave even more of a trail on what you did. It just might not be accessible to corporations, but it'll still exist.

[no_time]

>Windows

lol most people pay money for windows (even against their will if they want to buy a laptop for example) and still get ads and telemetry cranked to the max. What's up with that?

>Android

Another bad example. In a less shitty world where the majority share of the global mobile OS duopoly isn't owned by a glorified surveillance company, the support of a device would be covered by, and only by the sale price of the device. Which wouldn't be such a huge cost if Android better had engineered HAL and better standards so every device could update from the same repo tree.

>if you have to pay for everything then you'll leave even more of a trail on what you did.

This is my problem with Kagi[0](frequently posted here). This is more of the fault of the current global payment infrastructure than any ordinary tech company's. But if you think that the current ad infested browsing experience makes you any more private I have bad news for you. Namely fingerprintJS[1].

You might be asking what are my solution's to these problems. And my answer is that I have no idea. The only thing I know is that I'm seriously jaded with the current {mono,duo}poly ridden state of tech.

[0]: https://kagi.com/ (currently throwing internal server error lol)

[1]: https://fingerprintjs.com/

[freediver]

> You might be asking what are my solution's to these problems. And my answer is that I have no idea.

The thing is you always pay, just the currency changes. In one case you pay with your data and in another with money out of your pocket. At least with the appearance of Kagi, now people also have the second option on the table. For web search it did not exist previously and having more options is always good thing from a consumer perspective.

[no_time]

Definitely. I may have went too hard on you guys previously. Wishing you the best of luck :^)

[M2Ys4U]

Banning behavioural advertising is not the same thing as banning advertising in its entirety.

Newspapers, for example, survived for centuries on a mixture of subscriptions and advertising before they could snoop on their readers to decide which ads to show.

TV and radio advertising right now works as a funding model without syphoning personal data.

[Aerroon]

TV, radio, and newspaper ads are also local. They do not have international reach. Would ads be useful to you in Russian or Chinese? Would the company paying for the ads find it useful that you get those ads? No, they wouldn't, but on the internet without data everyone would get all of the ads.

[labawi]

You don't need to snoop on your visitors to choose a language. Choosing an ad based on browser preferred language or geoip is not behavioral advertising. It is behavioral advertising when you record the data, when you track the user and show your ad on a site with the lowest bid instead of the relevant site that your target audience originally visited.

You don't need the persons purchasing history, sex, marital status, age, ethnicity, interests, political orientation, a list of visited sites and all data you can get your hands on, to choose a language.

[freediver]

"Free" commercial services were made possible only in recent years with the advent of ad-tech that was able to monetize the data being gathered.

If you want an alternative to that, yes then of course you have to pay for it.

[JAlexoid]

The primary reason to collect personal data is retargeting, which is a massive waste of money. (Have you ever heard of the game theory?) Google(search) and YouTube Ads rely on content you're being served to actually target ads, that's much more relevant and drives higher click-though rates.

PS: I definitely pay for Windows, MacOS, iPad OS and Android. Developers of those systems get paid from proceeds of hardware sales.

[Aerroon]

>Google(search) and YouTube Ads rely on content you're being served to actually target ads, that's much more relevant and drives higher click-though rates.

Then how come I get ads in my native language despite almost never watching or searching for content in my native language? Obviously ads in my native language are more useful, because I might actually partake in those services. Walmart advertising to me would never matter, because I will never be able to get to a Walmart.

[zwaps]

For what’s worth, Windows is paid and there are better alternatives to all the other things you mentioned. I do not use any of them.

[Zerverus]

Just let the patsies add it to the blockchain themselves, give them tales of web3 ;)

[kmlx]

> If your "Tech" can't work without siphoning up and selling people's personal data to the highest bidder, Good.

Not good, not good at all. The idea is to find a common ground, not to push potentially innovative businesses and people to the rest of the planet.

[blitzar]

If we outlaw {child slave labour/people trafficing/theft/explotation/etc} it will just push potential businesses to another country and we will lose out on the innovation.

Instead of locking your front door you should find common ground with the local thiefs so they only steal half your stuff, smash the old TV not the new one, only beat you half way dead and only kill one of your children. Anything less would just be undermining the fantastic innovation potential in your local home invasion and robbery sector.

[nickpp]

The fact that you need to equate something most people find quite harmless (data acquisition for targeted ads) with child slave labor, trafficking, robbery and murder only points out how weak your argument is.

[blitzar]

There are many people on the timeline of human history that believe that child slave labor, trafficking, robbery and murder are all harmless. These are all things that have been commonplace at various points in history.

If you are in an area with any population density you are sat within a few miles of more people that have committed or are currently committing those acts, with no regret at all, than there are CEO's of companies that do data acquisition for targeted ads.

[zwaps]

All of these things are illegal for good reason, they harm people.

But, the argument is simple: In all these cases businesses do something illegal and therefore either need to be stopped, or stop existing.

People who use this tech are criminals, and everyone knows it. Everyone has known it, even in the US. Look at how many people use ad blockers and anti tracking scripts. It is time to stop allowing literal criminals at tech companies to repeatedly break the law and face no consequences whatsoever.

It has been going on for years, and it needs to be fought just like any of the other horrible things.

[M2Ys4U]

Governments have a duty to protect the human rights of their citizens, and that includes privacy.

Innovation is not always a good thing - Think of it as a vector and not a scalar. Increasing the magnitude of innovation would be bad if the direction of innovation is harmful.

[nickpp]

> Innovation is not always a good thing

Maybe so, but you do not get to decide which innovation is good and which is bad. People do. And most of us do not give a flying monkey about data companies collect about us. What's the worst they will do: better ads?!

We do care about privacy from governments though, but that is never legislated, is there?

[soco]

And it is exactly the people of Austria who elected those politicians who enacted the laws which all innovating companies must respect. So apparently the people of Austria DO give a flying monkey about this topic.

[M2Ys4U]

>Maybe so, but you do not get to decide which innovation is good and which is bad.

I didn't decide, the European Parliament decided. And they made the decision to protect our (collective and individual) human rights.

>We do care about privacy from governments though, but that is never legislated, is there?

Privacy from governments is exactly what this case is about.

The US government can - in secret, with practically non-existent oversight, and absolutely no means of redress - simply take personal data sent from the EU to the US. Because of this, the US is not deemed to have "equivalent protection" to the GDPR and thus transfer of personal data from the EU to the US is banned (unless it's made technically impossible for the US entity to comply with an order from the US government to access it).

[cblconfederate]

Human rights also include access to learning, education and news. Having them for free online is the best option. But you cant have both at the same time

[NotVerstappen]

Very well put.

In that framing, it is often the case that US-led "capitalism-at-any-cost" over-indexes on scaling the magnitude of the vector while leaving the direction free to be influenced by other entities. The EU approach is to disregard the magnitude while keeping tighter bounds on the direction.

I'd like to think that bodes well for the UK, since we historically have trodden the middle ground between both camps - but I'm sure we'll find some way of fucking it up and gaining neither magnitude nor direction.

[no_time]

This is the common ground. My ideal would be banning all forms of personalized advertisement and banning the sale of sensitive medical information.

[rhn_mk1]

Not every potential innovation's cost is acceptable. This draws a line.

[WhatsName]

Not sure, if it's bias due to being part of the netsec bubble, but there is a growing market of privacy as a feature. Also in the wake of countless breaches companies get more aware of how and where the data is stored.

If your product isn't addressing this, you're probably at a growing competitive disadvantage.

[azernik]

Changing the law to suit "local entrepreneurs" is, politically, seen as the same thing as changing it to suit any other lobbyist. The software industry's interests are not seen as politically "cleaner" than those of any other industry.

[JAlexoid]

Extending laws to apply to all in the market is not "favoring local entrepreneurs".

[azernik]

The parent comment used those exact words ("consulting with local entrepeneurs") as a reason not to implement GDPR. I was pointing out that this is did not convey the clean-and-efficient image they had in mind when framed that in opposition to lobbyists.

[iqanq]

>The EU is never held accountable for the laws they make

Of course it is. The tech sector is practically non-existant here, and if something works out, they leave for the US. Isn't that what being accountable is?

[pmlnr]

The shortsighted definition of "tech sector" of some people is hilarious.

[nickpp]

Here in Europe we are running software tools and platforms written in the US, owned by USA-companies, on hardware designed in the US. And the people who created all that include lots of bright ex-Europeans.

What do you find hilarious about that?

[azernik]

And all those American tools would not work without East Asian (mostly Taiwanese and South Korean) hardware. Tech is global, and that doesn't mean every part of the industry is everywhere.

[anthk]

Without some European hardware the US would do nothing.

[nickpp]

True, we're not completely out of the loop. But let's not fool ourselves: we are far from running the show. And with an attitude like this we will be left watching how progress and innovation will keep coming from the US, driven by our own best and brightest emigrated there.

[pmlnr]

...

Same for hardware. Europe is quite big on embedded, think of Siemens just as an example.

[MomoXenosaga]

This is a self-inflicted wound. The EU needs to look to China in order to fix this. Impose draconian laws to clamp down and control the tech industry.

Anything else WILL lead to loss of sovereignty. Control the data.