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by jacquesm 1057 days ago
That's what the companies make browsing the web in the EU look like nowadays. It's their decision to abuse us - and the law - and it is on them to fix it. If you check the enforcement tracker you can get an idea of what the tip of the iceberg looks like, the data that's lost/sold/leaked. Then take into account that just like with a real iceberg the bulk of the leaks and breaches goes unreported (and probably a large fraction of them goes undetected until the data shows up on some marketplace).

Until the GDPR a lot of this went on anyway, but totally invisible, now at least we have some idea of the magnitude of the problem and companies have an incentive to at least try to get it right. Not that many of them do. People that are categorically against government regulation tend to point at this and say 'see: that's what you get'. But they forget that in the relationship between companies and individuals it is the companies that on balance have the most power and there is ample evidence that this power then gets abused. Hence regulation. I'm all for tightening the rules another notch or two and adding a zero to the average fine. Because there is still a lot of room for improvement.
1 comments
PrimeMcFly 1057 days ago
> That's what the companies make browsing the web in the EU look like nowadays. It's their decision to abuse us - and the law - and it is on them to fix it.

No, it's the EU that mandated those popups - an asinine solution to the tracking problem. The EU gets the blame.

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jacquesm 1057 days ago
The EU does not mandate popups. The EU mandates consent to be tracked. You could simply not track and then you wouldn't need consent. Or you could do it without a popup.
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PrimeMcFly 1057 days ago
> The EU does not mandate popups. The EU mandates consent to be tracked.

Same difference. Semantics.

> You could simply not track and then you wouldn't need consent.

Not all tracking is malicious. It's not going to disappear, hence the popups.

As I said, it's an asinine solution. It's as useless as the default browser nonsense. The EU seems to make one of these annoying blunders every decade or so, next one should be coming up.

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jacquesm 1057 days ago
You have cause and effect mixed up, that's fine by me but you're not helping yourself - or the rest of the world - by doing that. The EU is simply trying to ensure that the rights of its subjects are respected. Companies apparently care more about their bottom line than either the comfort or the rights of those subjects and that is why you have those popups. Note that on my website there are no such popups and yet I'm completely in compliance with the law. Every other website could do the same.
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PrimeMcFly 1057 days ago
> You have cause and effect mixed up, that's fine by me but you're not helping yourself - or the rest of the world - by doing that.

That's simply not true.

The EU legislated solution is directly responsible for the popup spam. There were other alternate solutions that would not lead to popup spam.

Your site may not need a popup, but many more complex sites do, and not because they are doing nefarious things.

It's OK to admit the EU makes bonehead decisions sometimes.

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