Live data from Hacker News

Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

theverge.com

81–90 of 1001 posts

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted?

The premise is that the intent of the law was good, so everyone should naturally change their behavior to obey the spirit of the law. That isn't how people work. The law was poorly written and even more poorly enforced. Attempts at "compliance" made the web browsing experience worse.

> Attempts at "compliance" made the web browsing experience worse.

Malicious compliance made the web browsing experience worse. That and deliberately not complying by as much as sites thought they could get away with, which is increasing as it becomes more obvious enforcement just isn't there.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#82
post #69
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…

This is a proposal from the EC. Whether the EU accept it is not clear.

Yeah I really hope they don't. It's ridiculous to throw out all the great work they've been doing.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#84

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.

In addition, hackers should know government is inevitable. Even in anarchy, governments spontaneously begin to form.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#85
post #62

> 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!

Related ongoing thread: Europe's cookie nightmare is crumbling. EC wants preference at browser level - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45979527 - Nov 2025 (80 comments)

The cookie thing sounds good at first but then it shows that they rant to reduce cookiewalls by making more things ok without asking :(

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#86
That's a pity, the government fails to capitalize on its own policies because they fail to set up long term investment. First environmental and e-Mobility and now AI.

Sure, there's way too much bureaucracy. But I see there things like taxes, regulations about the cucumber radius etc.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#87
post #75

Companies made cookie banners as obnoxious as possible, because they knew that by making people hate the banners, the population would turn against the GDRP

Is that why most of the EU governmental websites have the same cookie pop up banners?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Of course, let ME decide if I want to keep fdfhfiudva=dsaafndsafndsoai and remove cindijcasndiuv=fwíáqfewjfoi. I know best what those cookies do!

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#89
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…

> HN was cheering on as EU went after Big Tech companies

HN is not a hive mind or a monoculture. Every time the EU goes after some company, some people always cheer, some people always boo, and some people will cheer some and boo others based on the impact/nuance of the particular policy or company.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#90
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a proposal from the EC. Whether the EU accept it is not clear.

Yeah I really hope they don't. It's ridiculous to throw out all the great work they've been doing.

Nothing's been official published though, so this is largely a kite-flying exercise.

You don't need a pop-up to use cookies on your site. You (quite rightly) need to get consent in some form if you're to track my (or your) behavior and sell that to rando third-parties.

Post reply on HN