I find it fascinating how people blame the solution while it's the symptom that bothers them and they don't even notice the disease.

GDPR isn't only related to internet services. I received a phone call today from my mobile operator, they got bought by a larger company and it was a sales call. However, they were asking to speak to person in charge in regards to company-wide mobile subscription and services - we use none.

What was disturbing is that I was contacted on my private phone number in regards to a sales call related to the company I work at.

The details I left when buying their mobile service (which was 20 years ago) don't contain where I work at. I didn't work at all at the time, but I kept paying for the service.

I didn't update my account details so I found it a huge surprise when they knew exactly who to call and on what number.

Being a EU citizen, I went GDPR on them. I don't want people to call my personal number and disturb me in my own free time with sales calls in regards to my company. How did they get my details? Who authorized them to contact me? I've many questions and luckily - now I have legal backing when asking them to anonymize my data.

I think people get too tied up in the problem (and I agree it is a problem) that they just dismiss the flaws with GDPR.

I really think (like the one I describe) that for many cases GDPR isn't going to have the desired effect, if the result is that we have to sit through notices on every site and click away to get through them.

> The way GDPR works out it sort of expects us to care to follow this annoying process, and I don't think people do / want to and thus ultimately won't make good choices.

This is simply false. GDPR only allows opt-in for these choices, companies are just implementing GDPR incorrectly.

I keep seeing this response but I've seen no articles about the EU laying down the law and punishing these so blatantly obvious infractions. So either companies are not implementing it incorrectly or the GDPR has no teeth. The EU needs to act on these bad actors sooner than later if they want people to actually respect the spirit of the law.

Enforcement is only still starting up. Officially as of May this year, with the possibility of handing out fines for violations up to two years back from that date.

https://iapp.org/news/a/heres-why-the-first-gdpr-fines-could...

That's not how any of this works. We weren't going to get fines dropping on the first day.

"The EU is going to extract huge fines from everyone and their dog!"

"GDPR is useless, they aren't even fining violations!"

I'm waiting for "They are applying the law inconsistently - we got away with obvious violations for a year and now we don't anymore. The injustice!"

I really hope it doesn't take the EU over 4 full months to prove a cookie banner is in violation. That seems like a straight forward infraction if the way people have interpreted the law is accurate.

sigh..

the cookie banner has nothing to do with GDPR..

Not the old one. The new ones asking for your preferences on where your information can be sold.

I should have been more specific. I meant good choice as something other than just clicking to get past the notice.