I found this from 2013:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreans-use-internet-exp...
Anyone have an update to that story? I know in Korea they use a ton of apps to order things all the time now. Maybe this law was phased out, or just didn't apply to phones?
Not to take away from your broader point. Laws are just such a terrible development model. Everything's tested live and you can't easily revert anything.
> Natural persons may be associated with online identifiers provided by their devices, applications, tools and protocols, such as internet protocol addresses, cookie identifiers or other identifiers such as radio frequency identification tags. This may leave traces which, in particular when combined with unique identifiers and other information received by the servers, may be used to create profiles of the natural persons and identify them.
From: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL....
Quoting recital 30 of gdpr
"NATURAL PERSONS MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH ONLINE IDENTIFIERS…SUCH AS INTERNET PROTOCOL ADDRESSES, COOKIE IDENTIFIERS OR OTHER IDENTIFIERS…. THIS MAY LEAVE TRACES WHICH, IN PARTICULAR WHEN COMBINED WITH UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS AND OTHER INFORMATION RECEIVED BY THE SERVERS, MAY BE USED TO CREATE PROFILES OF THE NATURAL PERSONS AND IDENTIFY THEM."
Encoding the usage of a particular (probably otherwise short-lived) technology in law is generally a pretty bad idea. Sure, have the EU write laws about cookies - the two outcomes are A) this becomes useless when people switch to a different tech stack that doesn’t use cookies B) we’re stuck using 30-year-old technology to try to get things done, at least for regulated industries like banking or government services. Like the IE regulatory situation in Korea but worse.