[FredPret]

It’s not the difficulty level that people object to.

It’s a combination of two things:

1) the law comes to the rest of the world from Europe. We (rest of the world) didn’t vote in the people who brought it. We’ve had quite enough of Europeans making rules for the rest of the world in the past few centuries thank you very much.

2) GDPR encodes an expectation that may or may not be common in the EU, but certainly isn’t common elsewhere. I don’t have any expectation of privacy when I walk in public or when I give any information at all to a business. My solution to this is: a) I wear pants outside, and b) I don’t give out private information. Whether the business ecosystem knows their age and purchasing patterns is largely immaterial to virtually everyone I’ve ever met.

And don’t show me a survey showing people don’t like it - if you prime people with the question, of course they will respond that way. They know their info is being gathered, and they just don’t think it’s as big a deal as GDPR would like it to be.

[sputr]

So, I get your point. I can see how (1) can be aggravating. Can't really say anything to defend it, that's the Brussels effect for you. From the point of view of your own sovereignty, it's a bad thing, period. From the point of view of an effect on the lives of average people, I'm not so sure, it's so cut and dry.

Now, point (2) is, unfortunately, in the same vein as smoking, pollution, seat belts etc. Uninformed people (uninformed because they have better things to do) are not protected from their lack of knowledge. They suffer the consequences just the same.

And while I agree that and informed person, making a self-destructive choice has (in most cases) the right to do so, there is something to be said about the very, very powerful exploiting the uninformed. And this is where GDPR comes into play. It's protecting normal people, from a very, very big threat, that is not that obvious and is being wielded by the powerful.

GDPR is one of those laws restraining western corporations from going full dystopian future on us all. I said restraining, to be honest, I think it's just slowing them down.

And as far as surveys go - it used to be the same here. Europeans didn't care and said exactly the same things (i.e. the famous "i didn't do anything wrong, so I have nothing to hide") and then activists worked for years to educate them that, at the very least, it's leading them to buy things at higher prices. Now most people are extremely sensitive to their data.

[FredPret]

I get it - what you're saying is a very common-sense regulation. Reasonable people can disagree about this.

But different societies prefer a different balance here.

Americans are used to a more caveat emptor situation. Europeans want more regulation. Which one to choose is a political choice.

What's happening is that the political choice that the EU went with is being forced on the rest of us, whether we like it or not.

[ImPostingOnHN]

With all due respect, you're speaking on behalf of 1 person here, not an entire country of people, and certainly not the entirety of the non-E.U. world. "We" can speak for ourselves, and don't all agree with the views you're ascribing to us. And "I" don't agree with the sort of stereotyping I'm responding to.

I'm personally glad someone is doing something for my privacy here. My own government, due to regulatory capture, is unlikely to act in my best interests here.

[FredPret]

Uh, what?

Because the EU is forcing you to do something that you want to do anyway, you now like it?

If you want cookie banner laws in your non-EU country, vote for it.

I don’t want some bureacrat I didn’t vote for issuing diktats that affect how I build my business and my websites.

The entire point is that we all need representatives in government.

[ImPostingOnHN]

The EU isn't forcing me or you to do anything.

The article elaborates on this point: There Is No Cookie Banner Law. Only bad website operators choosing to abuse their users with annoying consent dialogs.

Nobody in Europe is issuing "diktats", meaning citizen-supported legislation I guess, or affecting your business, unless you're trying to deal with their citizens' data. Just don't process EU citizen data and it's not an issue. Better yet, just don't track users.

In any case, your disagreement only serves to underscore that you were speaking on behalf of 1 person, not any country or countries. Otherwise, we wouldn't be disagreeing!

[FredPret]

I actually self-host all my web assets and use Matomo already. So I do actually agree with the premise.

What I object to strenuously is someone dictating terms to the world from distant shores, especially since they seem not to get how the internet works (it’s all funded by ads, online sales, and ads for online sales, all of which involve metrics and tracking!)

The diktats I mentioned include a ruling that Google Fonts are illegal now. So if I’m using those, or I’m using Google Analytics, and a European happens across my site, I’m now a criminal? Fuck that.

The consequences of contravening the GDPR are uncertain but sounds scary. This is terrible for the open and free internet.