Yes, this is the most confusing thing - a lot of posters talk about "being sued because of GDPR" but that's not how it works. And it's always people with the same arguments - small companies, getting sued, crazy money for lawyers, etc.
If I was paranoid, I would think this is some kind of organized campaign to spread FUD and have as many people be against GDPR as possible, perhaps as a way to make sure something similar won't happen in the US.
It's probably just misinformed people.
One of those things is not like the others.
I have no idea where the meme about exploitative lawyers looking for minor non-compliance came from, because the primary means of enforcement under the GDPR is regulatory action. The whole strategy of threatening legal action to prompt a profitable out of court settlement is much less viable under typical EU legal systems than in the US anyway.
However, GDPR definitely can cause significant compliance overheads for small organisations, including those who have done nothing wrong. The official guidance is still terrible, and just the uncertainty around several key points is a problem for reasons we've previously discussed at length on HN.
Trusting in regulators to do the right thing is also a risky strategy. I write this as someone whose business really did receive a crippling demand for monies never owed direct from an EU government tax office after the VAT changes, with very scary accompanying threats and impossibly short timescales to respond, and there were many thousands of other small businesses similarly attacked just in the incidents I'm personally aware of.
From a pragmatic point of view, the regulator in my country is well known to be under-funded and under-staffed, but even that doesn't necessarily help because as with other issues within their remit, it makes smaller organisations easier targets than those with big legal departments to fight back.
Probably. There seems to be a real disconnect between US and EU perception of legal and business landscapes here, with the US worrying about the EU legislation more than those based in the EU, who would be far more affected by it (after all, they can't "shut out" Europe).
No, and for a good reason. Just like if you could opt out of employee protection laws, the "opt out" would soon become mandatory to get a job.
> You can choose to work more than 48 hours a week on average if you’re over 18. This is called ‘opting out’.
> Your employer can ask you to opt out, but you can’t be sacked or treated unfairly for refusing to do so.
https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...
I don't think that's necessarily true. If a company does not provide the service in the EU but there is demand for it, someone else will fill the spot.
Laws are not mailing lists.
$20 million in fines that - despite the protestations of everyone that has ever commented in these threads - can be imposed for a first, single violation, without any warnings. If they meant for there to be any safeguards for companies, that language would have been built into the GDPR. But it wasn't. There are no limits, other than $10/$20 million.
The GDPR replaces the Data Protection Directive, which left the levels of penalty to the discretion of individual member states. In the UK, the maximum fine for a breach of the Data Protection Act (the British implementation of the DPD) is £500,000. You can see a full list of enforcement action taken by the Information Commissioner's Office at the link below. I defy you to find a single example of a monetary penalty that was disproportionate.
When it comes to getting the max fine at first strike. The GDPR is not the first law in the EU with teeth. There are strict laws about corruption, pollution and antitrust here as well. Do companies get dinged with max penalty from the start violating these laws, not that I've seen. Why should enforcement of the GDPR be different from the current laws?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/1...
GDPR has strong language around the purpose of fines and the kinds of considerations that should be made before imposing them. Being overly punitive, especially if a company shows good faith effort to comply, would only welcome judicial oversight. What would the EU gain in such a scenario? And what could the EU lose in such a scenario?
It gains the millions of dollars from the fines, in addition to aiding local EU competitors by bankrupting or hobbling their international foes. It loses nothing.
You can’t see why that’s an incentive and indeed an invitation to abuse GDPR?
First, I have significant trouble believing that the entire European Union would collude to attack international companies in favour of local companies. For a perfect example of this, do some research into the International Procurement Instrument. The IPI is an example of when the EU as a whole has bent over backwards to make sure that non-EU companies have fair access to EU public contracts, even if the playing fields are not level and EU companies don't have equivalent access to the non-EU markets. I assume that you're North American (I am too), so reading about the IPI will seem like comedy hour at Bizarro world, particularly when you see how difficult protectionism is in the EU.
Second, it's worth noting that your scenario as described gets uncomfortably close to a definition of passive corruption. Again, I have significant trouble believing that you could get so many people to agree to do something so potentially explosive.
And third, the EU currently has a very strong tool in its arsenal to enhance data security. The GDPR is very strong because it's ambiguous and people like you are scared of it. The moment that GDPR starts to face legal challenges, that ambiguity will get chipped away.
Liability for what? You're not going to get sued. At worst you're going to get fined for negligence, probably after after repeated warnings. I don't think you can find insurance against willful repeated misconduct.
It's only if your service can't possibly comply without losing your bottom line that you have to worry, in which case the GDPR is working as intended.
Find a better business model for EU costumers, or cease your presence there. It's a win-win for EU consumers either way.