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Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

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Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you comply with the current requirements without cookie banners? Why would EU governments use cookie banners if they are just nonsense meant to degrade approval of GDPR?

By not putting a billion trackers on your site and also by not using dark patterns. The idea was a simple yes or no. It became: "yes or click through these 1000 trackers" or "yes or pay". The problem is that it became normal to just collect and hoard data about everyone.

Again, then why does the EU do this? Clearly its not simply about erroding confidence in GDPR if the EU is literally doing it themselves.

Besides, you seem to be confusing something.

GDPR requires explicit explanation of each cookie, including these 1000s of trackers. It in no way bans these. This is just GDPR working as intended - some people want to have 1000s of trackers and GDPR makes them explain each one with a permission.

Maybe it would be nice to not have so many trackers. Maybe the EU should ban trackers. Maybe consumers should care about granular cookie permissions and stop using websites that have 1000s of them because its annoying as fuck. But some companies do prefer to have these trackers and it is required by GDPR to confront the user with the details and a control.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#192
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> clearer safe harbors for small actors Different rules for different people huh? Just because you like the group you're benefiting and dislike the group you're harming doesn't mean that is good policy.

Not different rules for different people. You would be subject to one rule for your small company and another rule as it grows. This is everywhere in society, from expectation difference between babies, kids, teenagers, adults and seniors and to tax bracket structures.

This is different for different people said differently. Why would small companies have access to things not allowed to big companies?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the issue was never the law. the issue were the 100s of tracking cookies and that websites would use dark patterns or simply not offer a "no to all" button at all (which is against the law, btw.) Most websites do. not. need. cookies. It's all about tracking and surveillance to show you different prices on airbnb and booking.com to maximise their profits. https://noyb.eu/en/project/cookie-banners (edit: link)

I think that most websites need cookies. I have a website with short stories. It lets you set font size and dark/bright theme, nothing special. Do I want to store your settings on server? No, why should I waste my resources? Just store it in your browser! Cookies are perfect for that. Do I know your settings? No, I don't, I don't care. I set a cookie, JS reads it and changes something on client. No tracking at all. C…

Unfortunately, because these types of preferences (font size, dark/light mode theme) are "non-essential", you are required to inform users about them using a cookie banner, per EU ePrivacy directive (the one that predates the GDPR). So if you don't use a cookie banner in this case, you are not in compliance.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#195
post #185
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost every developed country the rules are exactly the same. No hairnet, no licence? Lemonade Stand Ltd can and will be shut down. The main difference is lenience in punishment which tends to tail off and disappear at the lemonade stand scale, and be stricter for large multinationals. I wish you were right though.

Seen house building regulations recently? Most countries will let the home owner do things they'd never let a contractor do without a permit. There's a lot of different laws for home or very small scale selling of various goods, brewing, canning, single person doing business as companies, etc.

> home owner

But in this analogy, we aren’t talking about a person doing coding at home only for their own use, are we? Isn’t this about small companies - I.e. whether there should be different applicable laws if you hire a small construction company vs a large one to rewire your kitchen, etc?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#196
post #180

In comparison with healthcare information systems the GDPR is really not that hard to follow. You can get guides for business owners which can be read and understood in under an hour. If you design your system according to the guidelines you usually end up with a product where it's easier to service your customer (eg. with full account exports). Deleting inactive accounts is great because it means less migration head…

Can you point to any of these guides?

In our case we were working on a Dutch project so we used this; AVG is the GDPR implementation for the Netherlands:

https://ictrecht.shop/en/products/handboek-avg-compliance-in...

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers should know the government is never on your side.

> Hackers should know the government is never on your side Never is naive. Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems. Those systems can be influenced and sometimes controlled by various means. And those levers are generally available to anyone with a modicum of intelligence and motivation.

"Hackers should understand governments are complex, dynamic and occasionally chaotic systems"

No. Hackers should understand that government is force. This is the definition of government.

And force is the antithesis of the hacker ethos.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#198

It's crazy how many adults think regulation is free, especially here. All consuming vague regulations like GDPR increase the cost of a startup by 500%. Europe should have just banned startups entirely. It would have the same effect. Imagine being a college student with 240 hours and $1,000 to release an MVP over the summer. How long would it take to read GDPR yourself, 100 hours? How much would it cost to hire a lawy…

> All consuming vague regulations like GDPR increase the cost of a startup by 500%.

Source?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#199

I sympathize with the startup argument: heavy compliance costs can stifle early innovation. But the solution shouldn’t be “weaker rules.” It should be smarter rules, clearer safe harbors for small actors, browser-level consent primitives for users, and stronger enforcement against dark-pattern CMPs. That keeps privacy meaningful without killing small businesses.

This would require politicians and policy-makers that think long-term, know what they're regulating, and maybe have been in the field. I don't think Law school Eurocrats can do any of the 3 items above, at least not well enough. This is either a way to chop at the (poorly designed and already watered down) GDPR or true, unapologetic lack of care.

I'm hoping to go for my 3rd startup and ‘compliance costs’ have never been stifling; it's just more expensive to run a business here and there's far, far less funding available. That's really it.

Belgium's tax haven will make some people willing to give you 10k in post-seed. Wow. We hunted VCs for 1.5 years to negotiate one million-ish euros after showing market traction. We just aren't on the same level as the US, and that's kinda okay. Grants might work, but I mostly see grants for things that won't compete well in the current market.

AI nonsense won't make us more competitive — but hey, we'll arrive late to the bubble. We need to be building the kind of core, dependable infrastructure that would honour privacy, make us more independent. Backing off on privacy protections won't yield a mobile OS, an independent browser, better cloud options, etc.

It's just… lazy. “Slap AI on it”-level policy. Ugh.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not different rules for different people. You would be subject to one rule for your small company and another rule as it grows. This is everywhere in society, from expectation difference between babies, kids, teenagers, adults and seniors and to tax bracket structures.

This is different for different people said differently. Why would small companies have access to things not allowed to big companies?

Because quantity is a quality of its own.
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