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EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

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Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#261
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of the GDPR makes things difficult for your side business? Every discussion I run into has people claiming this sorta thing, but my reading of the text make it fairly clear that for 90% of non-despicable use cases there's really not that much of a problem...

My "despicable" side business is (was) making Android apps with Admob ads. I needed to update my app to allow EU users to opt out of targeted ads. Why Admob doesn't just add this functionality to their widget they place in my app is beyond me. In order to update my apps, I need to target a newer version of Android. It's not that it's very outdated, they were targeting Android 5.0, and get updated every 6 months or so…

I mean, I empathise with your problems, but this very much doesn't sound like "GDPR makes by side business impossible". It sounds like "exploitative user-data abusing ad vendor abuse s their lock-in to exploit people's personal data" kind of problem, so I'd say things are working.

FYI, "allowing EU users to opt-out" is still wrong, they would have to explicitly opt-in to targeted ads. At least, in so far as ads are targeted based on personal data.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'll bite. Is Netflix "prevented" or "not preferred". Let's pick our battle before we fight it. But there is some useful grounding here. I use the term consenting adults, but perhaps we should refer to "legal entities". I think it is fair to start from a place where legal entities are allowed to enter into agreements with one another. You are a legal entity. I am a legal entity. Netflix is a legal entity. Googl…

Apologies if that came out as snarky like the other commenter suggested. It's really a genuine question about that point of view there. >Is Netflix "prevented" or "not preferred". Let's pick our battle before we fight it. See, in my mind these two are, legalese aside, absolutely identical for the consumer. Legalese included I absolutely realize they are the same, why wouldn't they? It's just contracts between legal e…

No worries. It's the internet. I was hardly snark free, either.

So, I have a couple priors.

One of these priors is that it is, in general, a good thing to place as few restrictions on actors in society as possible. Not anarchy. Not mindlessly. Just as a general rule of thumb. Something that doesn't need justification on its own, but rather needs a case to be made to go against.

Another of these is that, in general, laws and regulations have costs. Enforcement carries cost. Also, we forego the things that are regulated against - rarely are these things pure evil. Sure, there are exceptions. Genocide is pure evil (though there is much room for compassion for those coerced into participating). This gets us down a rabbit hole quickly.

So, in general entities should be able to make deals. And adding to legislation that exists is costly (as in "bears cost").

The situation you describe sounds a lot like a monopoly. The nightmare scenario presented in net neutrality is typically "Netflix is blocked because Google paid more to let Youtube through". I think this is categorically different than "Netflix is now more expensive than Youtube is". Especially because the latter sentence is already true. We can disagree here.

The case is one of actual blocking. E.g. Google makes some exclusive deal with Comcast, where Comcast does not allow traffic from other streaming video suppliers. This is clearly anticompetitive, and we already have regulation to address it. Comcast and Google would both be blatantly in violation of anti-trust regulations and could be prosecuted. We don't need net neutrality to prevent this. Indeed, there are cases of wholesale blocking of this sort in the past that were dealt with by the FCC without formal net neutrality legislation in place. E.g. Vonage got blocked by an ISP that offered landlines; ISP got smacked.

So as I see it, we're left with the case of differential pricing.

So it seems to me that net neutrality addresses two primary concerns: true anticompetitive behavior and differential pricing.

In the case where services are priced differentially, but all are available, I honestly see very little difference to cable TV. And there seems no inherent reason that all traffic should carry the same price, as it is not the case that all traffic costs the same to an ISP.

So what might cause differential pricing? Sure, Google could pay Comcast to discount its services, but that's just a transfer. If Google pays Comcast to make it easier to get to us, well we're making that up to Google somehow. They're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Either we're paying with data and ad impressions, or it's baked into the subscription price.

If Google enters a contract with Comcast which has Comcast charge extra for Netflix traffic for no other reason than Netflix competes with Youtube, then we're back in an anticompetitive scenario and don't need net neutrality.

But it is reasonable that different traffic costs differently. If Comcast is offering its own streaming service, they can serve that entirely on their own network - no need to use any peering agreements or pay for bandwidth beyond their own infrastructure. If Youtube or Netflix comes from outside of Comcast's network (not always the case - Netflix subsidizes its traffic by offering streaming appliances to ISPs), then that traffic IS more expensive than Comcast's own content. This seems entirely reasonable to price differentially.

Ultimately, I would like net neutrality, and would personally benefit from it. Or rather, I would personally have my current state prevented from being negatively impacted, since net neutrality is largely the status quo. I do not fail to see this. But it is an argument that doesn't hold water with me (I am not saying this is your argument, simply that it is a common one).

So, I think we may be at a bit of an ideological impasse. If I interpret your response correctly, one of your priors is roughly "if we see an area where we think we can improve things through legislation/regulation, we should". My priors lead me to look askance at new regulation/legislation. I don't see why we need net neutrality, only why we might want it. For me, "need" is the threshold for legislation, not "want".

Let me know if I'm off on what I suggested as the two primary issues addressed, or if you have questions on where I'm coming from, or if I seem to be off on interpreting your stance.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the issue here is that a plain English reading of the GDPR implies such appalling totalitarian overreach that most people find it hard to believe that it can really be what's meant. I mean, you've just agreed with my reading that the GDPR gives me the power to reach into your personal inbox and censor your records of communications with me. That sort of power for bad actors to carry out historical rev…

>I mean, you've just agreed with my reading that the GDPR gives me the power to reach into your personal inbox and censor your records of communications with me. That's quite literally the opposite of what recital 18 explicitly says?

recital 18 clearified absolutly nothing for me. My plain reading of recital 18 is that it has to do with personal records stored on paper or my own computers. it in no way covered emails I received from you via Gmail and whether or not you can demand Google delete emails you sent to me from my Gmail account.

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#264
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me how the deletion policies work? If you ask for your data to be deleted does that include your address in my contacts? Does it include your messages to me? Does it include your posts that appeared on my feed? In the physical world all of those would be mine. Addresses: It would be my paper address book with your address written in it. Email: would paper letters you sent to me that I keep in my fi…

> Can you explain to me how the deletion policies work? Disclaimer: The GDPR hasn't been the law of the land for a year, so there is little precedent. It is fairly simple, the GDPR requires that companies that control identifying information about you (or somehow delegate this), have acceptable reasons for doing so (user consent/other law/etc). When some entity controls your information the GDPR gives you certain rig…

this doesn't help clarify things at all.

you send me an email. I use Gmail. you request Google delete all your data. does google have to delete the email from you that's in my inbox?

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kia ora! The "issue" here is that most sites which want to cater to worldwide audiences pretty much try to comply with influential legislation to stay on the good side. And GDPR/EU regs wield a big enough stick and come from a large enough region that you can't ignore them unless you want to block your site out completely to traffic coming from the EU. So they try and just do a worldwide rollout, irrespective of wher…

The "EU" as a market is only important to the largest players or as an after thought once you have a solid footing in e.g. the US for one simple reason. The EU has too many languages so you can't just target the entire population in one shot like you can in single language even larger economy in America. Even if you wanted to target the entire EU, in my personal experience I can tell you that some web services work w…

As a European who has never been to an English-speaking country yet has always preferred English versions of everything (and all my friends are bi- or tri- (or more) lingual, reading something in English or in our mother tongues is a near-zero difference for us) I wonder what is the actual proportion of Europeans who can not be targeted by a service in English... I've heard learning English is not particularly popular among e.g. Italians but in Scandinavia and in France almost every "millennial" is more or less fluent in English and comfortable with it.

PS: I didn't downvote, I never do - I'm a downvote-hater :-)

Re: EU Copyright: Block Everything, Never Make Mistakes, but Don't Use Upload Filter

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the unspoken rule to just ignore GDPR until you're big enough and EU starts bitching at you, at which point you just pay them off and spend some resources on compliance?

How is GDPR a problem at all? Is it so hard to avoid personalized tracking of unregistered users, ask users for their consent at sign-up time and implement a button for them to export and delete their data?

I don't disagree. My comment was mostly tongue in cheek, but I guess a /s was needed. I'm glad it spurred some discussion, though.
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