Its intended to fuck over Facebook. If you're charging for a service you can simply offer a discount for allowing data collection after bumping prices for everyone by the same amount, Facebook however isn't charging. Facebook can't offer a discount on free, and they can't just force only users who opt-out to go pay (because that falls afoul of the first quote you put).

Basically this puts Facebook in a real tight situation, I honestly wonder how they will survive it.

They can start charging everyone and offer a "data-share discount" back to free.

They would survive but I imagine that would either cause enourmous sign-up friction, or if they hide it too well, might run afoul of the law?

Yeah, it would not go well for them for sure.

I don't think that specific part fucks over Facebook; Facebook doesn't sell data (it sells ads based on the data, which, having skimmed the law, it doesn't seem to cover).

Opt-out for GDPR is under 1%. Most people don't care at the moment, sadly.

However, a mass movement to opt-out would absolutely affect them. This lays the groundwork for that, and thats what they should be afraid of.

Is opt out given equal weighting or hidden 3 pages deep into "Learn more" > "manage preferences" while opt in is just an "ok" (or worse "X") away. the one site I know that gave that yes/no choice was Wikia, and they've converted to the dark patterns approach now too so presumably they saw their opt out rate as too high and were emboldened by others getting away with it

> Opt-out for GDPR is under 1%. Most people don't care at the moment, sadly.

Correct.

On top of that, many people on HN, aware of the privacy implications, continue to have a Google Home / Alexa in their homes. Myself included.

Sadly, I (and many people) simply don't care about privacy. The probability/expected negatives of surveillance abuse is far less than the benefit of being able to turn my lights on and off with my voice.

The US will for sure become like China in 10-20 years, with regards to surveillance.

>The US will for sure become like China in 10-20 years, with regards to surveillance.

I very much doubt it. It is one thing when a bunch of small and big companies collect pieces of data about you, and another when the centralized governmentt does it.

Also, it really matters what that data is used for. I would be hard-pressed to compare the onslaught of personalized ads with "disappearing" people who speak out against the government. Just look at US-related political posts on twitter. Why would you even need surveillance if people feel perfectly safe to publicly air out their negative feelings towards the government to a giant audience.

What's the opt-in? GDPR doesn't allow opt-out as a default.

IANAL, but I'm guessing it's the difference between opting in and opting out?

For example, I think it would be legal for Verizon to get around this law by increasing their prices by $5 across the board, and offering a $5 rebate for customers who want to opt-in to their data being sold.

But it would not be legal for Verizon to allow customers to opt-out of data collection by paying an extra $5 a month.

In the first approach, Verizon will not track by default and customers have to opt-in.

In the second approach, Verizon will track by default and customers have to opt-out.

Assuming that's true, then it's just accounting for social behavior.

A user isn't "paying" for privacy. Privacy comes by default (for a price) and a company can pay a user to harvest their data.

Financially, they both work out the same, but based on opt-in, opt-out behaviors and perception I presume they have a different impact. The wording specified by the law says that users should have a default expectation of privacy. They can actively choose to give that up for a fee.

The business profit loss side of it says, you can't build a business that assumes it gets to profit off harvesting user's data for free. User data has value, place a value on it, and make it an explicit part of the transaction.

It's all about marketing and perception. See how credit card companies set rules regarding surcharges and cash. Before credit card companies tried to prevent a discount being offered if a customer paid cash as stipulation for taking credit cards. Durbin Act of 2010 changed that which made it legal in all 50 states.

> Durbin Act of 2010 changed that

Ah! I was always saying I'm surprised by the brazenness of gas stations to offer cash discounts in violation of their credit processing agreements. Today I learned that as of 2010 the law protects them. Thanks!

The gimmick has always been that you can't charge more for using a credit card, but you can offer a cash discount. So basically you just have to advertise the credit card price rather than it being a surprise fee added on at the last second.

Which makes sense, most other countries actually roll sales tax and others into the advertised prices, and what you see is what you'll pay out the door.

Right, but before 2010 the credit processing agreements could (and always did) include language that you could not offer a different price to credit customers and cash customers, discount or not. Otherwise you would lose your ability to accept credit cards. Some places would still offer a cash discount and assume they wouldn't get caught, but most places didn't risk it.

Because then they'll have to be up front about "why" they're charging you a lower amount, which puts a real dollar value on the data for the user, something which previously was never disclosed.

It might be a matter of semantics? You can quote a standard price, and then give a discount for allowing data collection, but you can't quote a standard price, and then add a surcharge for disallowing data collection.

I agree that there is no practical difference between the two, but given how deceptive companies can be when disclosing various pricing and hidden fees, this might be an attempt to curb that behavior?

There's definitely a difference in outcomes between

1) allowing customers to opt-in to data collection by giving a them reward. In this case, the default behavior does not involve data collection

2) allowing customers to opt out of data collection by paying a penalty. In this case, the default behavior involves data collection.

People usually don't bother to opt out.

The way I'm guessing that will be clarified is that if you are charging for your product, you cannot offer a lower price point for allowing data collection. This will probably boil down to professional, paid for services, being allowed to collect only a small amount of information, and what is strictly needed.

The second line would allow companies to pay people to permit them to collect information. I imagine that because of the first statement, a company that is charging for the service cannot take advantage of this statement.

It sounds like this means it'll have to be clearly disclosed up front as a bonus, rather than being charged after the fact as a penalty and hidden somewhere in the ToS.

Maybe something like the advertised price of the service must be the price without data collection.