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USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

theregister.co.uk

21–30 of 231 posts

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#21
post #5

Such a law will not survive a Constitutional challenge. Just rent seeking by an incumbent.

Could you elaborate? Most of us are not super well versed in constitutional law.

The general claim people make suggesting things like Right To Be Forgotten or Right To Privacy is that it violates "free speech", and particularly, that via Citizens United, the US currently claims corporations have the right of free speech. Google believes, for instance, all limitations on how it provides search results as an infringement on Google's right to "say" whatever they want.

Of course, we already have a variety of limitations on free speech, plenty of laws that restrict what companies and and cannot disclose about other entities, and GDPR would be no different.

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#22
Can’t all this GDPR stuff be abstracted away into a framework? Or at least some kind of pattern/generator tooling?

It seems like there’s room for an enterprise framework that does all the compliance work for you (for US gov contacts, i18n, user info download etc). Maybe calling it enterprise is a misnomer. Maybe it’s a spec that framework’s can target or comply with?

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#23

Can we just take a step back and admit that treating an IP address as personal information is patently ridiculous?

The GDPR only does so when it can be used to identify a specific human, in which circumstance it's not ridiculous. It would be ridiculous as an absolute unqualified rule.

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#25
post #2

I think this has been discussed before - The whole foundation of SalesForce is absolutely tracking every inch of a user, who you were what whitepaper you downloaded, where you're from, which stage of the funnel you're in, which industry you belong to, what's your company size, what's its revenue and the list goes on.. So, this is pretty ridiculous coming from a CEO of such a company, but hey, any publicity is good pu…

You need a lot of software to manage and track consent, plus the history of all interactions for audit purposes. GDRP forces usage of a CRM. Just like every complication of tax law benefits HR Block, TurboTax, etc.

GDPR doesn't force consent. GDPR forces companies to think about the data they collect, and why they collect it, and what they do with it once they've got it.

They should be doing that wherever they are, otherwise you end up with eg Equifax leaking details of 130million users.

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#26

For big companies, this is a small problem to implement. For small companies, it's a big problem. I am all for protecting the consumer but GDPR is going too far with what I would call optics rather than actual consumer protection. I.e. things that look and sounds like they are protecting the user when they are really just adding more bureaucracy to the companies.

> I am all for protecting the consumer but GDPR is going too far with what I would call optics rather than actual consumer protection

Too far from what? Thanks to the GDPR, I received 100s of emails of services I never signed up for who scrapped my details from LinkedIn with bots. The industry went way too far with what would have been acceptable and that's why we need laws like this.

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#28
post #3

A consumer protection law like GDPR would probably be a good thing for US, but it's hard not to see this as SFDC saying, "As a multibillion-dollar SaaS vendor, we welcome regulation that might slow down or prevent a competitor from unseating us."

That's exactly what this is. GDPR is untenable and creates magical rights where none exist. You don't own information about you. Data is data. The only reasonable thing I can see out of it is getting companies to clarify (simplify) their EULAs.

[deleted]

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#29
post #3

A consumer protection law like GDPR would probably be a good thing for US, but it's hard not to see this as SFDC saying, "As a multibillion-dollar SaaS vendor, we welcome regulation that might slow down or prevent a competitor from unseating us."

That's exactly what this is. GDPR is untenable and creates magical rights where none exist. You don't own information about you. Data is data. The only reasonable thing I can see out of it is getting companies to clarify (simplify) their EULAs.

>You don't own information about you.

What are your credit card numbers? :)

Re: USA needs law 'a lot like GDPR' says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

#30
post #3

A consumer protection law like GDPR would probably be a good thing for US, but it's hard not to see this as SFDC saying, "As a multibillion-dollar SaaS vendor, we welcome regulation that might slow down or prevent a competitor from unseating us."

That's exactly what this is. GDPR is untenable and creates magical rights where none exist. You don't own information about you. Data is data. The only reasonable thing I can see out of it is getting companies to clarify (simplify) their EULAs.

GDPR isn't that much about the data, than about what's done with it.
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