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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

#291

Post by filoleg »

seydor wrote: post #267

Too late , and it's not just because of the regulations but the whole mentality. This will probably lead to a series of committees about how to scale back the laws which will create new rules which will be put in place, and then the career eurocrats will move on to their next job, without anyone ever being held accountable for the mistakes of the past. Without such accountability every regulation will be excessive, e…

> This will probably lead to a series of committees about how to scale back the laws [...]

> [...] which will create new rules which will be put in place [...]

> [...] and then the career eurocrats will move on to their next job, without anyone ever being held accountable for the mistakes of the past

As intended by design.

I don't think there is some grand conspiracy or anything like that in the EU government around this, but it is clear where their priorities are. With those priorities being:

1. Perpetual rule of bureaucracy that exists for the sake of bureaucracy, with the best outcome of it being creation of even more bureaucracy. Anything of actual usefulness being done is just a side effect, not the goal. Bonus: this principle ensures perpetual job security for those career bureaucrats as well (and it helps with creating even more of them), as you can never have one too many committees or processes.

2. Hyperfocus on things that actually need to get done to consolidate power needed to ensure staying power for those bureaucrats and that the previous priority is not encroached upon. Case in point: an HN post[0] from yesterday about the EU pushing forward another new Chat Control proposal, shortly after their previous one failed earlier this year. For the EU governing bodies being stereotyped as ineffectual and too bogged down by their own bureaucracy, they surely are really efficient when it comes to repeatedly pushing publicly unpopular (but seemingly popular among the EU government bureaucrats) measures like Chat Control so quickly after their previous attempt had failed.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45970663

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#292

Post by tsoukase »

rckt wrote: post #270

I get that too many regulations is a bad thing. But when we talk privacy and personal data there should be no gray zone. It has to be black and white. When I see a stupid cookie banner I search for "Reject all". There's no some data that companies can collect and process without my consent, they just shouldn't be able to collect anything without me actively opting in. Business never respects anything, but profits. Se…

Using an Ad blocker I feel regret for stealing the site's revenue. So I allow them to collect my personal data. Anyways, I think most of them will not respect my rejection.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#293

Post by debazel »

Neikius wrote: post #278
cm2012 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number one use case is sending anonymized and hashed data back to the ad platform to trigger conversion events. Essentially all modern advertising is done algorithmically. The platform takes conversion events (a typical event is "someone fills out a form"), that signal is sent to the platforms, and the platforms use it to serve your ad to other people who may be interested. GDPR as it is means you need opt-in to do t…

Biggest issue with this is the modern web ads don't even work. You get ads for fridge AFTER you bought one since they now know you browsed them. What works is content based advertising - so advertise a power drill on a woodworking hobbyist site. No tracking required there. Conversion can be obtained when user clicks a link via redirect. Like in the good ol times. But this modern approach that massively invades privac…

> What works is content based advertising - so advertise a power drill on a woodworking hobbyist site. No tracking required there. Conversion can be obtained when user clicks a link via redirect. Like in the good ol times.

This still requires tracking to follow the user through the whole flow, which is required unless you want to be defrauded with fake users at the very least, but also very important to track the actual performance of each ad source.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#294

Post by gcbirzan »

legitster wrote: post #124

Let me steelman the new proposal a little bit: You run a merch store. You want to share with your suppliers order data so that you can get the right number of sizes/colors/etc. Is this PII under GDPR rules? Technically, yes! Not only is there information on gender, but also people's height and weight and maybe even family makeup. Does it make sense to call this data sub-processing? Eh? Maybe? (To my knowledge, I don'…

> You run a merch store. You want to share with your suppliers order data so that you can get the right number of sizes/colors/etc. Is this PII under GDPR rules? Technically, yes!

Not at all. Your shirt size is not PII. Given this information, you couldn't be identified.

> Under the new proposal, sharing this data is okay, so long as you use pseudo-anonymous identifiers (customer-1234, customer-1235).

This was okay even before. Given this information (and your shirt size), you couldn't be identified.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#295

Post by saubeidl »

cm2012 wrote: post #232
hdgvhicv wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What were they doing with user data?

Number one use case is sending anonymized and hashed data back to the ad platform to trigger conversion events. Essentially all modern advertising is done algorithmically. The platform takes conversion events (a typical event is "someone fills out a form"), that signal is sent to the platforms, and the platforms use it to serve your ad to other people who may be interested. GDPR as it is means you need opt-in to do t…

Essentially all modern advertising is evil.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#296

Post by pembrook »

MangoToupe wrote: post #241
graemep wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always felt applying the same rules to everyone was a big problem with GDPR. Not just small business, but even non-profits that just keep a list of people involved with them are subject to the same rules, even if they only use the information internally and do not buy or sell any personal information. Its not just cookies and websites, its any personal information stored electronically.

I just don't see the issue. The GDPR isn't exactly difficult to comply with, nor does it hamper any of the clear successes of the last 25 years outside of the ad industry. What's the benefit of backing out on it? Is this just an effort to make a homegrown surveillance network?

Ughhh here we go again.

Every time GDPR is brought up on HN, the same "it's super simple to comply, just read it yourself!" religious incantation gets repeated ad-nauseam.

I think it's because people love the idea of what they think GDPR actually represents (the fuzzy abstract idea of "privacy"), without ever diving into any of the implementation details.

Almost nobody on this forum has ever talked to a lawyer about this, and even less people have followed the actual court rulings that have determined what GDPR actually means in practice.

My favorite example, under GDPR over the last 5 years, regardless of whether you follow the spirit of GDPR to the letter...due to the various schrems rulings, back-and-forth on SCCs, data-transfers, and EU-US political spats...there's been multi-year periods where if you're using any service touching data in any part of your business even remotely connected to the US or any non-EU country (so, almost everything), it's been a violation that exposed you to massive fines should any EU resident have filed a complaint against you. This was recently resolved again, but will continue to go back and forth if GDPR remains as-is.

And this is just one of many weird situations the law has created for anyone running a business more complex than "a personal blog."

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#297

Post by btreesOfSpring »

danishSuri1994 wrote: post #110

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.

A shorter and consistent iteration cycle by meaningful working groups on the legislation until a long term workable legal framework is enacted from the lessons gathered. Something like, every four months, X working group will present updates to legal recommendations and they will be voted on at that time. Allow for public input throughout the process. Mistakes will be made but can be short lived with the correction cycle. They are trying to tightrope walk complex legislation for tech. Might as well take on a tech release cycle to get out of beta and into release version 1.0 of these laws.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#298

Post by zelphirkalt »

rckt wrote: post #270

I get that too many regulations is a bad thing. But when we talk privacy and personal data there should be no gray zone. It has to be black and white. When I see a stupid cookie banner I search for "Reject all". There's no some data that companies can collect and process without my consent, they just shouldn't be able to collect anything without me actively opting in. Business never respects anything, but profits. Se…

Yep, it is exactly what the EU shouldn't do. This will actually further disadvantage EU companies, when US companies are left to run rampant. It also will take away any "made in EU" advantage that EU-local companies had over US competition. GDPR was exactly the right step. In fact it was not enforced strictly enough and should have been enforced much stricter, punishing all the shady businesses which employed dark pattern to extract personal data from citizen.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#299

Post by MiddleEndian »

The GDPR somehow had the power to make (almost) everyone comply with it, even outside of the EU. If only they had specified that instead of banners, companies had to actually respect the Do Not Track header, even if set by default on a browser, and everything that could be rejected would be rejected if that were sent.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#300

Post by impulser_ »

rckt wrote: post #270

I get that too many regulations is a bad thing. But when we talk privacy and personal data there should be no gray zone. It has to be black and white. When I see a stupid cookie banner I search for "Reject all". There's no some data that companies can collect and process without my consent, they just shouldn't be able to collect anything without me actively opting in. Business never respects anything, but profits. Se…

Yeah, but a lot of the rules around privacy and personal data make it hard to accept business from Europeans. If you are a small business or startup you might not even accept business from Europeans because navigating these rules are almost impossible.
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