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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

#21

Post by amelius »

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #5

> One change that’s likely to please almost everyone is a reduction in Europe’s ubiquitous cookie banners and pop-ups. Under the new proposal, some “non-risk” cookies won’t trigger pop-ups at all, and users would be able to control others from central browser controls that apply to websites broadly. Finally!

Can we get the do-not-track header instead?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track

Because that made more sense than the cookie banner ever did.

Edit: it looks like there is a legal alternative now: Global Privacy Control.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#22

Post by mikece »

How about this as a privacy law: if you collect data about people without their EXPLICIT permission[1] you can be charged with digital stalking. Same principle as stalking; escalating penalties for repeat offenses and for doing so in bulk or en masse.

EDIT: And you cannot share information gained by permitted collection unless EXPLICIT permission to share is granted.

[1] Eg: it's not sufficient to disclose this in equivocal text buried in 25k lines of EULA text.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#23

Post by ljosifov »

jonesjohnson wrote: post #9
m00dy wrote: post #8

I used to live and work in EU, get out of EU before it is too late.

like UK, you mean? boy that did really work out well for them!

So far so good - and I say this as one voting remain. The only gripe I have is that our domestic doomers were even more stupid than the EU ones. Ours were the progenitors of many of EU dumb ideas. So even outside EU, we in the UK not only did not repeal the utterly imbecilic laws we inherited. No - we added even more stupid laws. Consequence being people are put in jail for writing stuff on the Internet. I hope someone puts in jail the lawmakers that voted for these laws. To the cheering of and with public support, it must be said. It was not without consent, it was not only bi-party, but omni-party consent.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#24

Post by yardie »

bpodgursky wrote: post #7

> The EU folds under Big Tech’s pressure. This is a very odd framing, because the actual reason from quotes in the article is that the EU is acutely feeling the pain of having no big tech companies , due in part to burdensome privacy regulations. The pressure isn't really from big tech, it's from feeling poor and setting themselves up as irrelevant consumers of an economy permeated by AI.

> due in part to burdensome privacy regulations.

A large part is due to their approach to startup investing and chronic undercapitalization. GDPR is coming up 10 years now and the worries about it were overblown. What hasn't budged is Europe is very fiscally conservative on technology. Unless it's coming from their big corporations it's very hard to get funding. Everyone wants the same thing, a sure bet.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#26

Post by surgical_fire »

bitpush wrote: post #16

Incredible to see the 180 both from EU and also from the HN sentiment. HN was cheering on as EU went after Big Tech companies, especially Meta. Meta is no perfect company, but the amount of 'please stick it to them' was strong (I reckon that is still a bridge too far for a lot of folks here). Even extreme proponents of big tech villanery in the US (Lina Khan's FTC) is also facing losses (They just lost their monument…

I live in EU. I am totally in support to force Meta down through government's big stick.

While they are at it, I hope they do it to the other big techs too.

Being a "hacker type" (whatever that means) does not equate to being complacent to these companies abusing their economic power.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#27

Post by GardenLetter27 »

About time. Startups and innovative business simply cannot get investment when there's the constant risk of a new AI Act massively increasing compliance and legal costs.

But it's not enough - they need to completely repeal the DSA, AI Act, ePrivacy Directive, and Cybersecurity Act at least. And also focus on unifying the environment throughout the EU - no more exit taxes, no need for notaries and in-person verbal agreements, etc.

There's just so much red tape and bureaucracy it's incredible. You can't hire or pay payroll taxes across the EU (without the hire relocating) - that's a huge disadvantage compared to the USA before you even get into the different language requirements.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#28

Post by __loam »

bitpush wrote: post #16

Incredible to see the 180 both from EU and also from the HN sentiment. HN was cheering on as EU went after Big Tech companies, especially Meta. Meta is no perfect company, but the amount of 'please stick it to them' was strong (I reckon that is still a bridge too far for a lot of folks here). Even extreme proponents of big tech villanery in the US (Lina Khan's FTC) is also facing losses (They just lost their monument…

It's pretty telling that people here think enforcement of anti-trust laws that are already on the books is "extreme". The implicit goal of half of tech startups is basically becoming the platform for whatever and getting a soft monopoly, so I guess it's not surprising that that people who are temporarily embarrassed monopolists have these views.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#29

Post by andrewshadura »

ch4s3 wrote: post #4
josefritzishere wrote: post #3

This is criminal.

To make the popup requirement for non critical cookies in GDPR less onerous? Or the change in data operation recording requirements that will kick in at a company size of 750 employees instead of 250? I assume you mean the AI related stuff?

It was never required to show a pop-up for essential cookies.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#30

Post by GardenLetter27 »

basisword wrote: post #18
aurareturn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they finally admit that it was a mistake. Even EU government websites had annoying giant cookie banners. Yet, some how the vast majority of HN comments defend the cookie banners saying if you don't do anything "bad" then you don't need the banners.

It worked to highlight the insane amount of tracking every fucking website does. Unfortunately it didn’t stop it. A browser setting letting me reject everything by default will be a better implementation. But this implementation only failed because almost every website owner wants to track your every move and share those moves with about 50 different other trackers and doesn’t want to be better.

You can just set your browser not to send whichever cookies you don't want to.

Cookies are a client-side technology.

Why does the government need to be involved?

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