btw I’m using HN as a convenient example; i don’t consider the maintainers to be naughty.
No. Consent is opt-in only. It must be "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her" (Recital 11)
>And you could withdraw consent by simply deleting the cookie. You’d still have your “account” and related comments
The data would remain on HN, and thus would still be processed by YC. If deleting the cookie deleted the data then that would be okay, but it doesn't.
>; I can’t figure out if the comments themselves are “personal data”. I feel like they ought not be though the linkage of author to commend might be.
Personal data is any data about an identified or identifiable individual. So not every comment would - by itself - be personal data. But some would be, and the corpus of comments by an individual might be considered personal data in the whole.
>btw I’m using HN as a convenient example; i don’t consider the maintainers to be naughty.
I find it frankly incredulous that YC doesn't know about the GDPR, and yet they refuse to comply. Does that not qualify as "naughty"?
The YC privacy policy seems to me to patently be in violation of the GDPR. Namely Article 13(2)(a), (b), (c), and (d). It's arguable whether 13(1)(a) and (f) are being complied with as well.
They also appear to rely on consent. Consent can be withdrawn at any time (Article 7(3)) and the personal data must then not be further processed.
YC could change the legal basis for processing to, say, legitimate interests. This would allow them to claim that comments are an integral part of HN and shouldn't be removed as it would cause disruption.