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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

#561

Post by lenkite »

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…

That cookie banner needs to be standardized and offered by the browser. It should be like a certificate popup. Why is every website forced into doing a shoddy job ?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#562

Post by KPGv2 »

Kostchei wrote: post #533
gessha wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major difference with regulations is there’s no guaranteed executor of those metaphorical lines of code. If the law gets enforced, then yes, but if nobody enforces it, it loses meaning.

The problem with laws that both the enforcer and the subject (enforcee?) agree are bad, is that enforcement is variable. And that leads to corruption. Every damn time.

The fix for corruption is vote the bums out of office. It is not to go whole hog into blind application of the law.

Think about how hard it is to write code that has no bugs. Now imagine you're using English and working with a system with so many parameters and side effects that you can't possibly anticipate all eventualities.

And now you want to rigidly apply your operators to this parameter space?

Selective enforcement is necessary for justice, because no law is perfectly just, and selective enforcement helps move toward justice.

It unfortunately also means there is the eventuality of corruption. So you just have to keep vigilant. Because a rigid system with no selective enforcement has no fix for injustice other than "live with it."

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#563

Post by KPGv2 »

mr_toad wrote: post #473
estimator7292 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the law is code, then law enforcement is a JITter (joke)

A jitter is like a lawyer on retainer. Law enforcement is more like the OS that segfaults you when you fail to follow the lawyers advice.

Law enforcement is more like a toddler holding a glass of water over your CPU and saying "stop transistoring!"

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#564

Post by adrr »

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…

Are cookies really tracking you? 3rd party cookies don’t work in any browser. Ads are passing session data on the URLs instead. You can alow easily change some settings to stop persistent cookies. You can install privacy extensions like ghostery to block beacons. You can use features like ICloud private relay to prevent IP tracking. Solutions are all there and they aren’t because of any law.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#565

Post by thfuran »

Myrmornis wrote: post #520
thfuran wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banner isn't required. They could just not do the things the banner would ask consent for.

People don't know whether they are or are not doing things that require consent under the law. That's because, if you haven't noticed, the people concerned are computer programmers, UI designers, and PMs. Notably missing from that list is "lawyers who can be bothered to research the question". People put the banners up because they see other people doing it and it seems safest. That all of this would be so should hav…

Any company that can hire teams of software developers can afford to hire a lawyer to tell them whether they need to irritate all their customers. And frankly, they'd be dumb not to hire a lawyer if they think they need some legal cover to determine whether that cover is sufficient.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#566

Post by bjourne »

jychang wrote: post #454
energy123 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stopped thinking of regulations as a single dial, where more regulations is bad or less regulations is bad. It entirely depends on what is being regulated and how. Some areas need more regulations, some areas need less. Some areas need altered regulation. Some areas have just the right regulations. Most regulations can be improved, some more than others.

I strongly agree with this position. This is basically the foundation of Control Theory! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory This is like arguing if "heater on" or "AC on" is better, which is a pointless argument. That entirely depends on what the temperature is!

It is the perfect and correct antidote to any slippery slope argument. If the consequences of the law turns out to be as bad as you say they will be then we adjust the law.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#567

Post by int_19h »

rebolek wrote: post #101
jonesjohnson wrote: post #12

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…

A cookie is something that is sent to the server, by design - that's their whole point! So if the only part of your code that needs them lives on the client, cookies are the wrong mechanism for that - use localStorage instead.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#568

Post by alex1138 »

pessimizer wrote: post #164
kmeisthax wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I really want to see is Meta getting irrelevant ON MERIT. That happened a decade ago. Users dropped from Facebook like flies and moved to Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg's response was to buy Instagram. The Obama DOJ waved through what was obviously a blatantly illegal merger. Likewise, Google's only ever made two successful products: Search and e-mail. Everything else was an acquisition. In fact, Google controlled…

> The Obama DOJ waved through what was obviously a blatantly illegal merger. Speaking of buying Instagram[1], it's plain to see that the horrible judges that Obama appointed simply don't believe that antitrust should exist. Exactly what you would expect from the guy who let Citigroup appoint his cabinet[2]. The powers that be at the Democratic party thought that Hillary Clinton was too independent for corporate elite…

I like what Kagi does which is just using the nuclear option of "Look - if you fill your website with crap we're not going to index you"

That said, Google stripped away +must +include +terms from their searches so I do blame them some and not just SEO

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#569

Post by int_19h »

malfist wrote: post #551
int_19h wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst possibility is selective enforcement.

There's a reason we call them judges. Selective enforcement is there for a reason. Lawmakers can't anticipated everything. Just look at how bad of an idea zero tolerance policies in schools have been with thinks like getting expelled for biting a sandwich into the shape of a gun. The world isn't black and white. Flexibility, including selective enforcement, is necessary in a just system.

Any instance of selective enforcement being necessary is ipso facto evidence of a bad law. This is completely orthogonal to the matter of the world not being black and white - you're right, it's not, but a good law recognizes that fact, and laws can also be amended as needed.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#570

Post by ywain »

Myrmornis wrote: post #520
thfuran wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banner isn't required. They could just not do the things the banner would ask consent for.

People don't know whether they are or are not doing things that require consent under the law. That's because, if you haven't noticed, the people concerned are computer programmers, UI designers, and PMs. Notably missing from that list is "lawyers who can be bothered to research the question". People put the banners up because they see other people doing it and it seems safest. That all of this would be so should hav…

Is that what really happens though? EU countries usually don't immediately punish violations unless they're particularly egregious. You're more likely to get a warning and a grace period to meet the requirements. So the rational approach would be to not bother with consent banners, GDPR and whatnot until you attract the attention of the regulators, at which point you should definitely hire a legal team that can tell you what exactly you need to do to comply.
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