Was this posted from a Brussels IP? This certainly seems to reflect how the EU regulators see themselves, but I haven't met many real Europeans who have themselves realized any actual value coming from their laughable, vague attempts at legislating the problems away. The best they've managed is making some Europeans smug, but their data still exists in all the same places. Worst case a few fines get levied, for megacorps that can easily afford them, while small businesses grapple with confusing and vague language that threaten to punish them even absent any actual harms or even ill intentions.
So, if Europeans think these rules improved the situation, they are smug and dont count.
Frankly, in here EU did a good job, certainly better then USA does. It would be neat if USA made similar laws too.
Megacorps do get bigger fines then small companies, actually. Megacorps existence is also literally result of winner takes all and rich are untouchable legal system cranked to 11 Americans are proud of.
I didn't say the happy Europeans don't count, I said that their data is still in all the same places as everyone else's and thus haven't realized any concrete benefit. The requests to be able to download your data which almost no one ever does, all the requirements of keeping the data on EU servers, all that stuff, never has a measurable impact on anyone's quality of life. And people in the EU still choose free, ad-supported crap just like they do everywhere else.
And the regulatory environment 100% advantages large businesses who can afford to hire dozens of compliance attorneys, and who can handle the risks of noncompliance fines.
PS: I'm not saying US regulates anything effectively either. We just allow every merger until 2 remain in a given market, and then say "Good. We still have competition. Everything must be fine!"
People in the EU are still using Instagram/Facebook/WhatsApp. Zuckerberg did a "ok, if you don't want us to track you, you can pay 12€/month" and everyone just smashed the "I consent to get my data mined forever" button.
Not to mention that we *still* have lobbying for chat control.
Every measure from the EU is, as always, meant to look like our beloved bureaucrats are doing something but absolute ineffective at changing the status quo.
Everywhere there is a choice. If, for instance, you don't want Facebook to have your data, don't use Facebook and block their domains using an adblocker to prevent leakage via cookies on sites that have their JS running.
The folly is that EU regulators have duped people into believing that they can read and even participate in free-as-in-beer social media sites without any of 'their data' ever being held by anyone else. And that the information of what a person did on a single site on a given day is "personal data" even if it isn't ever tied to your identity or ever used to do anything but try to show that browser a more relevant ad.
The root cause of both the general public's discomfort and the overcollection of data is the ad-supported model itself. The EU punted on that hard problem and instead wastes everyone's time trying to pretend the ad-supported models can function with 100% personal data control.
Things elsewhere are bad, but the EU is worse because it lies to people about the efficacy of its regulations and the whole apparatus only exist to make lawmakers and lobbyists a justification for their existence.
Let's stop pretending that the EU has done anything more than political theater.
> What do you suggest instead?
Break apart any company that has more than 150 employees (by employee, also count individuals working more than 50% of the time to the same company): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31317641
