These regulations seem worse than nothing. We already have browsers, we can block and filter cookies based on our individual preference and adjust depending on our tolerance for privacy vs functionality. How has this changed the data collection practices of Facebook or Google in any meaningful way? Not enough people are asking what effect the many new regulatory burdens will have for the internet. It entrenchs the ex…
Blocking cookies on the browser side is a cat-and-mouse game where the cat is a multi-billion-dollar corporation and the mouse is a handful of volunteers.
You're also vastly oversimplifying the tracking issue to just “cookies”. The big advertising networks will use any method imaginable to track you. In the US (sans e.g. CA) they do not even have to tell you that they're tracking you, let alone tell you what they're doing with the information or let you opt out.
The GDPR gives you rights that work against all kinds of tracking.
> How has this changed the data collection practices of Facebook or Google in any meaningful way?
They have to tell us what they are and obtain our consent before doing them. They also have to tell regulators before doing novel and particularly intrusive things.
> Not enough people are asking what effect the many new regulatory burdens will have […]
The burden of putting the least effort to respect people's privacy is a good one. If you actually aren't trying to spy on people the burden imposed by GDPR is much less, perhaps giving good actors a competitive advantage. You don't even need consent most of the time.