Ask HN: Why are law documents (GDPR) so difficult to understand?

The hiring a consultant/lawyer thing has potential to be troublesome for a lot of solo devs. Such services are not cheap and it’s not uncommon for independent devs to be very much cash-strapped.

I wonder if this means we’ll start to see sites/services start out as US only and only become available in Europe once finances are no longer an issue.

My favorite website is this: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-reform/...

They have explained GDPR in reasonably everyday language, with checklists and examples. That site should be your first choice.

If you are a developer, you should check https://github.com/gdprhq/GdprHq.Io.ClientSdk - you can find interfaces and default implementations. For example, to implement the right to erasure (to be forgotten) in your app, you'll need to erase personal data and to inform an individual that you've done so. Even though actual erasure might be tricky, at least you know what you need to implement to be compliant. However, note that having the app GDPR compliant isn't the same as having the business compliant; primarily, GDPR is a set of rules and processes that apply to organizations.

> Most websites ask for users' email used as the account name.

> email address is considered a personal information.

As another poster mentioned - just don't use email.

Or if you must then just make sure you only do the minimum you have to with it - e.g. Don't send it to a third party, have a way to delete it when a user wants to close their account (unless you have a good reason to keep it - e.g. to match to a financial transaction).

What's the difficulty?

GDPR shouldn't be a burden for a small business unless the business is in the personal data space.

The magic phrase you want for Mr. Google is “legislative drafting”. In fact there is a long-existing methodology in government for writing laws and regulations. Here, for example, is the US House of Representatives’ guideline document: http://legcounsel.house.gov/HOLC/Drafting_Legislation/Drafti...

Chesterson’s Fence.

Having said that, I am a tax lawyer and I view the output of the Federal government as astonishingly bad. Poorly-written laws cause millions or billions of dollars of friction to taxpayers.

There are many reasons for why laws are written so poorly:

- the people are stupid or malicious or lazy (appealing but this conclusion reveals more about its holder than its object)

- the task of writing the law is impossible

- the people writing the law are technically deficient in this style of writing

I’m sure you can think of others.

There is another factor. After you have been a lawyer for a long time, you see the folly of believing it is possible to write binary yes/no rules to govern human behavior. Politicians believe this. An economist would call this a belief in a static economic model.

Thus, politicians think “we will impose this tax and collect a lot of money”. Then they are shocked because people change their behavior and avoid paying the tax. I do not mean maliciously. I mean like a toll-road. Imposing a toll for driving on a road will affect the traffic patterns and fewer people will drive on the road. Less money will be collected. Economists think that way. Politicians are not as . . . astute. (That statement reveals more about me than it reveals about politicians as a group). :-)

Back to why laws are so badly written. There is a second reason and it is mentioned in another comment. Lawyers and judges are comfortable with ambiguity. In tax law, we often ask for penalties to be waived for “reasonable cause”. WTF is that? Yet it (more or less) works. At the margin, some people get away with stuff that “should” be penalized. And some people are penalized “unjustly”.

This discovery in law is the result of centuries of evolution. It works. So if you see ambiguity, understand that it is a feature, not a bug.

But for tax law, quite often I think of the rules as a broken set of algebra rules written by teenage sociology majors while drunk, for bribes. Over decades. Again, this reveals more about me than the United States Code and the Treasury Department.

I see, I gored your sacred cow. It is well know that all the trades and professions had their private languages so they could discuss things and their customers did not know what they discussed. Latin for the church and medical trades. Lawyers still have their arcane tongue. Most of the others, butchers, tinkers, bakers etc had their trade language. I am from England and had a butcher and a baker in my family, and they told me bits of their language. True, it was not as comprehensive as English. I also grew up in a Yiddish speaking family, as my father was a major on the Burma Road and we housed a family of displaced persons from Poland. Mother, Father, Bubba, and two young boys - all Jewish, and me and my Mom - I soaked up yiddish and by the time the war was over I could speak it as well as most kids of 9. I used to startle the Jewish shop keepers, after WW2, when we emigrated to Canada, when this little Brit kid could know whatever they said. They were in the habit of carrying on conversations, secure in their privacy - Hah.

It stood me in good stead because I made many Jewish friends in Toronto in high school and college, because in those days there was a major barrier to many Jewish people in business circles. No brokers etc. This all changed in the mid 60's after a few prosecutions, and now it is wide open to all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craft