Live data from Hacker News

Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

gpdp.it

571–580 of 614 posts

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#571
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad law for the reasons above. Ie, onerous toward regular businesses Ie, used to greatly expand bureaucracy and overhead Ie, used by unelected bureaucrats to wage battles of personal vendetta against specific companies instead of doing what laws do, which is set unambiguous standards for all

GDPR compliance is actually trivial to implement if you manage your users’ data in ways that wouldn’t surprise them negatively. There's not much more. > unelected bureaucrats Does the American elect the IRS or the FTC bureaucrat?

Well, read the thread above you. GDPR is so complex that even the people who passed it can’t tell you the scope given the intentional ambiguity.

I have officials in the EU on the record that IP addresses are deemed personal information and if your business uses AWS and unintentionally passed IP addresses over to any resource in the US, you are technically in violation.

Will you be hanged for this today? Probably not. But all it takes is one negative press cycle for the idiots there to interpret and enforce this as they have shown the willingness to do in the past.

The point about unelected bureaucrats isn’t the unelected part. It’s the lack of oversight or consequence or clear demarcation of legislative power from the executive.

The bureaucrats have taken it upon themselves to issue multiple specific rules that go over and beyond the text of any law. See the case of the CNIL in France. They had a court ruling around their rules for cookies on Google go against them and they continued to insist that they would enforce said law. They issued an “FAQ” on their website that indicated threatening language against businesses that flouted their previous comments that were now deemed incorrect by a court of law and had the audacity to press on.

Like I said, the EU is an abusive monarchy

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#572
post #445
post #91

Another decision in a long stream that will make it much harder for EU start-ups companies to catch up to American ones. With absolutely no improvements to actual EU citizen well being.

Let me guess, you're from the US and user surveillance is beneficial to your business so naturally everyone with non-capitalist (read not $$$-centric) ideology is plain wrong. EU startups don't have to "catch up" or even compete with US start ups.

Does this imply that the EU is "non-capitalist" or something?

"EU startups don't have to "catch up"..." then don't get surprised when EU talent is poached by US and Asian HRs for x2-x3 rates. And before you're gonna talk about all those "free" (taxpayer funded) services and how no European would ever move to Asia or NA, i'd like to remind you that we're in the remote work world now :)

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good Laws are objective, not subjective There's a difference between the way French and Germans write laws and the way we write them in the UK; I prefer the UK style, which leaves less room for interpretation. > basically every small business in the EU is in violation right now Only if they're handling personal data. Most small businesses don't. Sure, if your business is collecting personal data, then GDPR is a pro…

> There's a difference between the way French and Germans write laws..(and the U.k.) Interesting way of saying they are bad laws. If you cannot, as a business have certainty in your prediction of the regulatory environment, you're pretty fucked. I wouldn't expect a piece of the bureaucratic establishment such as yourself to understand the struggles of setting up and running a business. What was your role as DPO again…

> I wouldn't expect a piece of the bureaucratic establishment such as yourself

Good Lord, presumptions much?

I said I was DPO in my last job. I was also the main sysadmin, and as my main role a website developer. This was a company of 10 people including the bosses. Someone had to take on the role.

> It must take a special kind of asshole to say this.

It must take a special kind of asshole to say that, to someone you haven't met and know nothing about.

> but you don't want to say it explicitly here since it makes you look bad. Gotcha.

Not really; I've never evaluated AWS for compliance. The reason I didn't say that is because it's not something I know about. We didn't use AWS; I've used it, but in someone else's coding shop, where AWS compliance wasn't my concern.

May I suggest that you're a bit hasty with words like "clown", "asshole", "weasel" and "gotcha"?

> And of course, the European people elected you their lord and savior to tell businesses which tech stacks they pick and choose because of your interpretation of arbitrary laws. See the problem here yet?

How are things over there in Conclusions, where you seem to have jumped? I have never told anyone what tech stack they should use.

> THE LEGISLATURE CANNOT DISCRIMINATE AGAINST A SINGLE ENTITY THIS WAY.

Where in the GDPR is GA mentioned? Or AWS, for that matter?

For the sake of clarity, no legislature had anything to do with the GDPR; it was promulgated by the European Commission, an important part of the EU bureaucracy, and I have never worked for any part of the EU bureaucracy. In fact, I no longer even live in the EU.

> A weasel through and through. What else did i expect from someone in your position?

And what position is it, that you think I occupy? FTR, I'm a retired software developer. The position I occupy is sitting in an armchair.

> So, illegal abuse of power by Government to target a company is fine by you, Mr. DPO ?

Nope. In fact I'm also against legal abuse of power, whether by government or anyone else.

You seem to be very angry; perhaps social media is not for you.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#574
post #91

Another decision in a long stream that will make it much harder for EU start-ups companies to catch up to American ones. With absolutely no improvements to actual EU citizen well being.

The EU hasn’t shaken off their roots in monarchy. Using the power of the state to go after a single private entity since they have a blood feud with said entity and are now finding all sorts of excuses to hit them economically. I’ve been following the cases with regard to privacy in the EU and it’s a complete joke. You have all these onerous rules against any web technology making it near impossible for startups to f…

> The UK is sick and tired of this and has recently begun moving to ignore these onerous rules. All power to them.

I don't think so; the UK passed the Data Protection Act 2018 just 4 years ago, to bring GDPR into UK law. That is: the DPA is normal statute legislation, unlike the GDPR itself, which is a bureaucrat-made regulation. The DPA was passed by both houses of Parliament.

So what are these mysterious moves to ignore the law? The only such moves I'm aware of are some plans to remove the European Court of Human Rights from UK law (ain't gonna happen - the ECHR is written into the Good Friday Agreement), and the UK's decision to ignore the decision of the ICJ concerning the Chagos Islands.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU hasn’t shaken off their roots in monarchy. I know, right. I mean obviously the world's most famous royal family (our British one) isn't really a monarchy so that doesn't count. And they certainly don't get previews and vetos on our laws, or given hundreds of millions from the licence fees for offshore wind farms, or own a notable percentage of the land. As for GDPR, compliance is pretty straightforward provi…

Do you have a point, asshole? There's more in that comment above than the bait you took.

You are right that my point wasn't clear and I apologise for that.

Your comment started by saying that the EU (as a negative) has not shaken off monarchy and ended with a contrast with the UK (a positive comparison). My point was that the UK (I am British) is even more steeped in monarchy/tradition so that can't be the cause.

Then I addressed your complaints in the middle paragraph about the GDPR by pointing out that compliance is reasonably simple for sites already having good behaviour.

And finally as you started with the EU and ended with the UK I pointed out that the new UK proposals are more onerous than the GDPR ones (thanks to the verification requirement).

You're free to disagree, and again I apologise for not being clear enough, but those were my points.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#576
post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDPR compliance is actually trivial to implement if you manage your users’ data in ways that wouldn’t surprise them negatively. There's not much more. > unelected bureaucrats Does the American elect the IRS or the FTC bureaucrat?

Well, read the thread above you. GDPR is so complex that even the people who passed it can’t tell you the scope given the intentional ambiguity. I have officials in the EU on the record that IP addresses are deemed personal information and if your business uses AWS and unintentionally passed IP addresses over to any resource in the US, you are technically in violation. Will you be hanged for this today? Probably not.…

> I have officials in the EU on the record that IP addresses are deemed personal information and if your business uses AWS and unintentionally passed IP addresses over to any resource in the US, you are technically in violation.

Of course, everybody knows that. You have to have good reasons to store people’s IP addresses (ie security logs, which must be disconnected from the tracking/telemetry system).

> Will you be hanged for this today? Probably not. But all it takes is one negative press cycle for the idiots there to interpret and enforce this as they have shown the willingness to do in the past.

If the regulator finds out that your analytics or recommendation system (which again is not the system where you store logs) is collecting and processing IP addresses without users’ consent, they will ask you to stop. If you don’t they will eventually fine you.

> The point about unelected bureaucrats isn’t the unelected part. It’s the lack of oversight or consequence or clear demarcation of legislative power from the executive.

GDPR has been made/negotiated by the European Parliament (which is elected directly), by the Council of the EU, which is composed by ministers of member states, and by the Commission (whose members are elected by the Parliament and the Council). These are the legislative and executive branches of the EU, not a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.

If you were referring to the regulator, well, all regulator bodies are made of “unelected bureaucrats” by design (that’s why they are referred to as “independent agencies”).

> The bureaucrats have taken it upon themselves to issue multiple specific rules that go over and beyond the text of any law. See the case of the CNIL in France. They had a court ruling around their rules for cookies on Google go against them and they continued to insist that they would enforce said law.

It seems that you are very agitated because the CNIL (some unelected bureaucrats) imposed a blanket ban on cookie walls and then the Council of State (some other unelected bureaucrats) held that such blanket ban could not be imposed. An honest observer would acknowledge that these things happen everyday (the Council of State wouldn’t otherwise exist), the matter is quite complex and that the gist of the matter hasn’t changed: “in order for consent to be freely given, access to services and functionalities must not be made conditional on the consent of a user to the storing of information, or gaining of access to information”. So one may still be fined for a cookie wall.

If what is upsetting you is instead a court case, the only one I could find is the recent 150mln€ fine that Google appealed on jurisdictions grounds and that was upheld, again, by the Council of State.

Either way, I wouldn’t get too agitated about complex court cases in foreign countries thousands of kilometres from my home and whose language I don’t speak.

> Like I said, the EU is an abusive monarchy

I will point to Proposition 7 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and I won’t indulge you further on this.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#577
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

something I'm not getting here. If you buy a EU engineered IoT home appliance that has PII including, whether a user is presently inside their home, then every company I know operating in this market uses US based clouds (what other options are there LOL) to do things like digital twin or device shadows but by using a local availability zone. So this is very different than GA, but depending on the threat-model can be…

I am only aware of Hetzner. (German) The other day I was checking out there offerings and I was amazed at how easy it is to order a vm. And then it is live the next second. It is amazing. Obviously they don’t have full range of services the big three have. But maybe just enough anyway.

They routinely refuse new accounts if something looks fishy (to them). They don't provide extra information or even accept payment in advance.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU hasn’t shaken off their roots in monarchy. Using the power of the state to go after a single private entity since they have a blood feud with said entity and are now finding all sorts of excuses to hit them economically. I’ve been following the cases with regard to privacy in the EU and it’s a complete joke. You have all these onerous rules against any web technology making it near impossible for startups to f…

> The UK is sick and tired of this and has recently begun moving to ignore these onerous rules. All power to them. I don't think so; the UK passed the Data Protection Act 2018 just 4 years ago, to bring GDPR into UK law. That is: the DPA is normal statute legislation, unlike the GDPR itself, which is a bureaucrat-made regulation. The DPA was passed by both houses of Parliament. So what are these mysterious moves to i…

Are you. . . For real in this thread? Can you please stop commenting about things you seem to have zero context in and zero interest in following even casually? https://www.itpro.co.uk/policy-legislation/data-protection/3...

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a difference between the way French and Germans write laws..(and the U.k.) Interesting way of saying they are bad laws. If you cannot, as a business have certainty in your prediction of the regulatory environment, you're pretty fucked. I wouldn't expect a piece of the bureaucratic establishment such as yourself to understand the struggles of setting up and running a business. What was your role as DPO again…

> I wouldn't expect a piece of the bureaucratic establishment such as yourself Good Lord, presumptions much? I said I was DPO in my last job. I was also the main sysadmin, and as my main role a website developer. This was a company of 10 people including the bosses. Someone had to take on the role. > It must take a special kind of asshole to say this. It must take a special kind of asshole to say that, to someone you…

The fact that you still can’t bring yourself to admit here what you did in another comment says more than I ever could.

ie, that any small or big business inadvertently sending even an IP address that isn’t even stored to touch a US based resource in something as innocuous as AWS.

Seeing your other recent comment here, it seems you’re just a moron with a nationalistic tendency to support your countrymen (and women). Oh well, objectivity dies and future generations on your continent suffer. Who cares, right? You’re retired.

Re: Italian watchdog bans use of Google Analytics

#580
post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, read the thread above you. GDPR is so complex that even the people who passed it can’t tell you the scope given the intentional ambiguity. I have officials in the EU on the record that IP addresses are deemed personal information and if your business uses AWS and unintentionally passed IP addresses over to any resource in the US, you are technically in violation. Will you be hanged for this today? Probably not.…

> I have officials in the EU on the record that IP addresses are deemed personal information and if your business uses AWS and unintentionally passed IP addresses over to any resource in the US, you are technically in violation. Of course, everybody knows that. You have to have good reasons to store people’s IP addresses (ie security logs, which must be disconnected from the tracking/telemetry system). > Will you be…

> Of course, everybody knows that

Lol. Thank you for agreeing. You're completely wrong about the fines part, it is discretionary. ie, if tomorrow, there is a negative press cycle, you will certainly be hit with any punishment of their choosing. The incremental warning and fines approach has no practical or legal basis.

If it does, get it in writing from __ANY__ entity entrusted with enforcing the GDPR, you will be laughed out of the room. Europe is a clown show. Ambiguity rules.

> These are the legislative and executive branches of the EU, not a bunch of unelected bureaucrats.

Oh really? Read my comment again. These assholes in the executive are directly changing the letter of the law. ie LEGISLATING.

They are further doing so with the stated objective of harming a single company. I can point you to the statements of a hundred or so elected officials, not least of all the president of the European Comission who said so in no uncertain terms when she was in the US for SXSW.

> It seems that you are very agitated because

I didn't ask you to diagnose anything, Dr. Phil. Sit the fuck down and read the comment again. The Council of State in France is who the CNIL reports to. They are the administrative justice Supreme Court.

When an agency goes fucking rogue against their oversight body while trying to kill a company, what else is it other than abuse of power? The very fact that you choose not to call this out makes me question your motives and judgement.

We have laws for a fucking reason. Not to print them out and hang them on the walls like ornaments but so there is discipline in the exercise of power entrusted in people with the power of Government. We can't have personal vendettas run through governmental office.

> I will point to Proposition 7 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and I won’t indulge you further on this.

Fancy. Should i be impressed? Does that disqualify all the abuse of power in your eyes?

Post reply on HN