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Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

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Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#21

Post by nottorp »

dijit wrote: post #20
nottorp wrote: post #14

Well, the cookie popups have helped me become more selective in my browsing. If they don't make it reasonably easy to opt out, I just don't open the site. But the real benefit is this: Some random online store that i bought something from once decided to send me a spam sms around black friday. One email and 24 hours later, all the data they had about me was deleted. Of course, this only works if you're in europe buyi…

The cookie pop ups were a thing before, I guess being able to opt-out is a neat feature but there are certainly companies who do not comply when you choose to opt-out. (Looking at you Verizon, yes I know it’s you behind “oath”.)

If i see the "oath" message when following a link, i close the browser tab :)

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#22

Post by shreyshrey »

We make file sharing and sync platform with GDPR specific functionalities. In high level GDPR and the fines have forced companies to take inventory of PII data they have and also limit the collection and storage of them. Also companies have started appointing DPOs. Thats a welcome addition.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#23

Post by HatchedLake721 »

Yes - from inside knowledge, the lead/customer data being sold from business to business has either massively changed or completely stopped.

Personally, I barely receive any out of the blue marketing calls or texts anymore. If someone dubious market’s me via phone or email, I know my rights and I can follow how they acquired my data and who sold them my personal details.

As a software developer/entrepreneur, it made me think more about personal data and has affected my architectural decisions.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#24

Post by s_dev »

Immediately many EU companies just dumped their data that they were arbitrarily collecting because it became a liability overnight instead of something that may be an asset in the future.

Many of these companies didn't have consent to have the data to begin with or at least no way to show that they collected it.

A good example is Wetherspoons Pub chain dropping their email database they used to spam people with. I've noticed I'm not caught in any more breaches according to Troy Hunt whilst before I was getting my email breached once a year by some company. According to Troy Hunt's breach DB, over a dozen companies with my credentials have been breached forcing me to never use those email/password combinations again.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#25

Post by cataflam »

All marketing email has an unsubscribe link if it didn't before, and you know it actually works now to stop the emails, not just confirm your email address works.

You also know you can get all the information a company has on you, and get them to delete it if you need to. I haven't made use of it yet, but I've read of people who have.

From inside the business side, I see most companies thinking about GDPR compliance when developing new products and features. What was never the case before and you notice now is they try to minimize PII collected to avoid headaches, and they are very careful about how data is shared with 3rd parties, asking for consent before doing it, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#28

Post by matthewmacleod »

throwno wrote: post #26

I don't know about privacy, but it certainly increased the amount of popups I have to click through daily. Thanks, wise European bureaucrats.

Blame the content providers who are unnecessarily tracking you, and not the legislators that force them to now tell you.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#29

Post by cj »

I operate a B2B SaaS. We sell a service to other SaaS companies. To deliver our service, we are sent PII from our customers which we process as a subprocessor under GDPR.

From the perspective of selling a B2B SaaS service, GDPR has been incredibly successful at making Security & Compliance an important discussion that is had during the sales process. Most leads will have security/compliance as an agenda item during sales calls, while before GDPR this was much less common.

GDPR has effectively turned Security & Compliance into a selling point and a point of competitor differentiation (it was this way in the past too, but much more so after GDPR). I think in the long run, this has/will result in companies having a heightened awareness of security/privacy and budgeting more time and money on security, simply because GDPR has connected it more directly to the business's bottom line.

I think it's good in the long run. In practice, the result is probably a decrease in risk of data breaches (less companies have your data, and the ones that do are more aware of their responsibility to treat it properly).

It's important to note that this benefits everyone (not just people of the EU). Very few companies will go through the trouble of treating EU data differently than non-EU data. Everyone is benefitting.

Re: Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy?

#30

Post by ivanhoe »

It does give you a (perhaps false?) sense of having some level of control over what is stored where and how much tracking happens. Also, as an unintended side-effect, it helped boost my productivity a bit, as when I open some link and the page keeps twisting my arm to accept all the cookies, I just close the whole tab and go do something more useful instead. And lots of sites, especially news and media related, do this - I skip like 1 in 5 pages because of badly implemented or hostile privacy dialogs.
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