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How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

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Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#191
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for phrasing your concerns about this regulation in such a nice way. I tried to articulate it in an earlier post but it was very controversially received. Overall, this will be yet another additional challenge for EU-based startups in comparison with their US peers and keep armies of lawyers busy.

I just want to point out it keeps armies of US engineers employed too. The amount of work I've had for EU companies implementing their EU regulations as a US tech worker is confusing and funny. This is just another opportunity for easy money if you're in the states and enjoy/don't mind compliance work.

[deleted]

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood what would happen if Google or Facebook just ignored EU regulations, claimed that they were not under the EU's jurisdiction, and ignored any judgement. Would the EU erect a great firewall at that point?

Things like this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-executive-arrested-in-... The advantage of having armies and police forces is that you can lock people up who don't adhere to your rules. Good luck having any employees in Europe if you decide to ignore their regulations!

And that includes ever visiting or transiting through those countries.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#194
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for phrasing your concerns about this regulation in such a nice way. I tried to articulate it in an earlier post but it was very controversially received. Overall, this will be yet another additional challenge for EU-based startups in comparison with their US peers and keep armies of lawyers busy.

I just want to point out it keeps armies of US engineers employed too. The amount of work I've had for EU companies implementing their EU regulations as a US tech worker is confusing and funny. This is just another opportunity for easy money if you're in the states and enjoy/don't mind compliance work.

It's good in your working for a large company in the States but not great if you're working for a small company in the EU.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#195
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First of all, it should be common sense that no one has the right to force legitimate news articles to disappear because they don't like the content, but that is what the EU has ruled should happen. No, it is about deleting personal data attached to your user account, not "news articles". This thing intends to make the "delete my account" button to actually, you know, "delete my account", instead of fake-deleting i…

You missed the point: if I take an image backup of a disk and store it, even in encrypted format, and it contains John Doe's account, and he comes along and asks for his account deleted, I would have to purge not just my database record, but the backups images from the past as well. That invalidates ALL of my backups. It's not often practical to backup INDIVIDUAL users..

This is not an unsolvable problem.

Does your data not have a lifetime anyways? Do you really need to store everything forever? If you have system that just tracks changes and one that occasionally records full state, after you delete someone from prod you could simply overwrite old full-state backups with your new, post-deletion backup and update your change-only backups to replace data about that user with `deleted`.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#196
post #189

And if you think GDPR is a toothless joke, let's take a look at the defined fine stucture. It is pretty simple, only 3 levels (strikes for the fellow Americans): Strike 1 - Stern warning letter Strike 2 - 2% of your TOTAL GLOBAL REVENUE Strike 3 - 4% of your TOTAL GLOBAL REVENUE (or 20mil EUR, whichever is higher) And now you know why GDPR is a board level topic. Keep in mind that the EU/US Safe Harbor agreement got…

For startups - GDPR is like Y2K at the time, a GOLDMINE. So much opportunity to sell solutions, from real to snake oil. GDPR compliance is already and will continue to trigger a massive wave of investment. I'll start by saying that I have found myself leaning in favor of this law -- I've made a much longer comment about it and won't rehash it, but I wanted to make sure my statements that followed weren't taken as a b…

Yea this exactly, all this does is make sure that the big players stay big.

It also gives a REALLY good pathway for any big company to take down a smaller company that is competing on data.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#197
What does the first footnote mean?

> "Nor can they deny access to their services to users who refuse to opt-in to tracking.[1]"

> "[1] Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) [2016] OJ L119/1. See Recital 42’s reference to “without detriment”, Recital 43’s discussion of “freely given” consent, and Article 7(2) prohibition of conditionality. See also the UK Information Commissioner’s Office’s draft guidance on consent, 31 March 2017, p. 21, which clearly prohibits so-called “tracking walls”."

What, in this regulation, prevents the company from denying users (who opt out) access to a service they provide free of charge or a downgraded experience? And how would a court measure the level of service?

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#198
post #159

I encourage a little more thought before cheering this on as a win. While GDPR isn't as ridiculous as the Cookie Law, it still shows that the EU/EC don't understand the technology they are trying to regulate, and it comes at a huge cost to tech companies. Take the right to be forgotten . First of all, it should be common sense that no one has the right to force legitimate news articles to disappear because they don't…

If you follow GDPR strictly you would need to be able to purge the data from your backups. Now most backups are considered immutable, so you aren't going to do that Encrypt with a user-specific key, and destroy that key to drop all backups concerning that user.

Don't assume the law makes a distinction between data which is destroyed and data which is irretrievable. I can easily see someone arguing that the data is not destroyed -- there's simply a very, very low chance that anyone will be able to retrieve it. You and I both know that argument makes no sense, but hey, it's the law -- it doesn't have to make sense, it just has to convince a few people with power that you're wrong.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#199
post #41

I see this as yet another tax on (European) startups who have to invest even more resources into regulatory compliance. This prohibition of freely using all available data will create great arbitrage opportunity for the shadow economy, and will have a net negative effect on innovation. I think prohibition has very bad side effects, and that MORE transparency is the way forward in politics, economy, and also society.…

> I see this as yet another tax on (European) startups who have to invest even more resources into regulatory compliance. This also affects American companies and the degree it affects you primarily depends on how much of your business model was depending on you doing nefarious things with customer data.

>depends on how much of your business model was depending on you doing nefarious things with customer data

From what's written in the article it seems it impacts anyone who is doing anything with data, which is basically every startup.

Re: How the GDPR Will Disrupt Google and Facebook

#200
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any operations in the EU. I don't collect revenue directly from EU residents using my services. I have no presence in Europe, but some Europeans do use my website (it's a free Internet). What's the EU going to do? They have no jurisdiction over me.

If Europeans use your website and don't pay for it that's fair game largely. The details are a bit more complicated.

That's strange - so it doesn't protect the data EU citizens give out when using free services?
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