It seems like the same group could definitely be responsible. I see no contradiction.

We've seen this in reports after GDPR go live where Google's advertising market share went up: they had the resources to demonstrate compliance as well as a better ability to get consent (google vs random ad exchange asking for your consent.. google vs a restaurant you go to a few times a year..).

People announce good intentions and create laws and regulations embodying these intentions. They don't look at what the second and third order responses are likely to be, just at what they consider bad behavior and what looks to be a first order response to that. It is very, very hard to create laws and regulations that will have the actual effect that you intend but it is very easy to write laws that have good names and have superficial appeal.

Whether the subject is market structure, privacy, or taxation, far too many supposedly intelligent people adopt or accept the superficial response rather than the well thought through one. You wouldn't accept that approach in your code but you're happy to accept it in national and international governance.

People are then shocked that they don't obtain their desired results and argue for new, improved, superficial laws and regulations.

Managing how the regulatory burden falls is a core part of lawmaking. GDPR fails in this respect.

Complain-investigate regimes (where complaints frequently trigger a regulatory interaction) are effective. They're also among the most-onerous forms of oversight. (Second to mandatory licensing and auditing.)

Add to that the power of each of the EU's twenty-eight national data regulators to interpret the rules. Result? A law that's great for Facebook and Google and terrible for almost anyone else. To wit, Facebook and Google's shares of EU advertising has risen since GDPR went into effect.

Isn't this the expected result? Now only a small number of (relatively) trusted companies have my data, not multiple fly-by-nights who may or may not be trusted ALL trying to gather it. To me, that's a net gain - Google/Facebook would have got that data _anyway_, but I now have less companies trying to gather it _as well_.

I'm not sure it's net negative in the case of the GDPR. As a sibling (cousin?) poster said, good riddance. No company should be allowed to mismanage my personal data, big or small. Until I see evidence that GDPR compliance is cost prohibitive enough to suppress startup formation, I won't be convinced that the tradeoff isn't worth it.

The other issue is philosophical. You seem to want proof that a company should exist and require extraordinary evidence against a law. I want proof that a law should exist and require extraordinary evidence against a company. As a shorthand its France vs America. You'll note that we're not using Minitel bur rather a board hosted by a VC operation who shares a mindset with the founding team of Uber.

Hazlitt: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”

Meanwhile, big data companies are going to be prime targets, and will be forced to either change, or start paying a significant fraction of their global revenue in fines every year until changed or bankrupt.

New and coming businesses require jumping through more hoops to implement GDPR, while big players with their lawyer armies have no trouble adjusting to regulation, hindering competition.

It has to be freely given consent, so it cannot be a prerequisite.

It looks as though the proposed copyright changes are more of the same, horrible for smaller businesses and potentially resulting in the EU being actively cut out of even more Internet services because compliance is too onerous. Let's hope they do a better job of fixing it or forget the whole thing this time around.

The GDPR became law two years ago; lots of companies that really should have known better ignored it until the eleventh hour. It is materially similar to the Data Protection Directive, which was passed in 1995. Had companies actually paid attention to the DPD, the GDPR would have been largely unnecessary. The GDPR isn't trivial to comply with, but data protection is not a trivial matter.

The proposed Copyright Directive is in parts severely misguided and I will be petitioning my MEPs accordingly.

Or live in a corporate ruled regulation free dystopia.

Can you imagine how much businesses are ilegal now? Telemarketing is ilegal now, consultancy companies can't recruit new people via email or phone. People are yet to realize the true impact of GDPR.

GDPR is pro big business. For example, Google, Facebook have not changed their tracking activities at all. OTOH, many small businesses had to stop tracking people and gather less data.

There’s a lot of money in personalized ads and many people here bring home the bacon due to tracking, so GDPR is threatening their future.

It’s amazing to witness. I mean, several years back I was naive enough to think that the smart people of HN are above such hypocrisy. How wrong I was.

I have been involved btw in implementing GDPR compliance. The companies facing difficulties are those that were irresponsible with user data to begin with. And indeed GDPR is a threat to their business model if they don’t change. Which is good – if GDPR wouldn’t be a threat to the business model of irresponsible companies, then it wouldn’t be relevant at all.

Also that line about big companies being the only ones capable of implementing GDPR is ridiculous payed marketing via tainted publications like TechCrunch and it’s catching on apparently.

But yes, it’s about time companies show some responsibility for it. Because if your whole business model relies on the ignorance of users, you’re doing something nefarious.

Shocking that the shills are on the right side of the WOGPC, OR (less surprising) your assumption is incorrect.

I doubt you will address the real issue; that this a EU gov mandated memory hole and the GDPR is the obvious framework to start with in the historically standard incrementalism approach.

He already tried to push a similar law in germany, somewhat successfully in that the parliament basically holed it out to be effectively worthless for what he attempted to do.

The reason this gets any support at all is because of corporations like Axel Springer SE (not to be confused with Springer S+B Media) which are the utmost cancer on modern journalism and media.

Of course, once it got through they managed to get delisted on Google News as a reaction and IIRC it took about 48 hours for them to cave in instead of demanding money from Google.

At the moment the CDU fraction in the EU parliament is pushing this and trying to pressure other parties into voting yes.

It should be noted that as in all governments, the EU does do several things at once and different interest groups may propose laws so the people who build up the GDPR may have no involvement in this.

How can you defend a legislation that makes everyone illegal, even outside your jurisdiction?