[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).

[nickpp]

> European Parliament decided

You mean EU politicians decided. And it was an abusive decision which hurts more than helps. I want the right to use my data as I see fit, including exchange it for "free" services and products.

> The US government can

I do not live in the US, it's MY government I worry about, not some far distant boogeyman.

[JAlexoid]

> You mean EU politicians decided. And it was an abusive decision which hurts more than helps. I want the right to use my data as I see fit, including exchange it for "free" services and products.

Did someone ban it? Last I checked you can still give away your data.

[M2Ys4U]

>> European Parliament decided

>You mean EU politicians decided.

Well parliaments tend to have politicians as members, yes. That's generally how representative democracy works.

>I want the right to use my data as I see fit, including exchange it for "free" services and products.

You can use your own personal data however you want to, the GDPR has absolutely no limits on that. And if you want to give your express consent for others to use your personal data in any way they see fit, you can also do that. Consent is a legal basis for processing personal data, after all.

They just can't use my personal data - or the personal data of anyone else who has withheld consent - like that.

[nickpp]

> You can use your own personal data however you want to

Oh but I can't, when the companies decide not to offer those services to the EU due to the onerous requirements of GDPR. Because the GDPR was not some harmless default being changed but a horribly written regulation that affected the way software must be written, from data retention and storage to logs and analytics.

All for a bunch of politicians pretending to represent us while I am willing to bet that the vast majority of Internet EU users is busy hunting for the "Allow All" button on every damn cookie popup on every website today. There was no need in the market for this.

[dmitriid]

> Oh but I can't

Yes, you can

> when the companies decide not to offer those services

They never offered "you can freely sell your personal data to us". What they offered was "we siphon your personal data, for free, whether you want it or not, and sell it to the highest bidder".

> I am willing to bet that the vast majority of Internet EU users is busy hunting for the "Allow All" button

Ah yes. It's the politicians who are at fault, and not the companies who put up these banners in clear violation of the law.

[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.