Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#871

Post by pyrale » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:45 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #828

I'm not understanding, as an European who's been part of multiple startups how's that supposed to boost growth. There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling). In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans. Sure, there is an attached cost in ha…

> In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans.

This decision is in response to lobbying from these actors (and their new friend in the white house). It is not supposed to benefit you.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#872

Post by samsepi01 » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:51 PM UTC

evrenesat wrote: post #869

Workaccount2 wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest hurdle Europe has to face is the cultural shift away from the post-soviet era of "Don't take work too seriously, enjoy life". There is now a full generation of Europeans who grew up in with this mentality, looking down on Americans for their ridiculous work ethic and comparatively meager benefits. But it's not sustainable, and the strain is already becoming obvious. Young Europeans will have to work longe…

IMHO, the US and China’s hurry to expand into every possible corner is unsustainable. Unless we are actually trying to get ready to face an extraterrestrial threat, our endless effort to maximize our tech and become more and more efficient and profitable is unneeded and puts too much stress on earthlings, which is definitely not sustainable. Do you really believe that when we are able to pass production of almost any…

Maybe so. In the meantime, Europe will continue to fall behind economically.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#873

Post by pyrale » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

meowface wrote: post #860

matthewdgreen wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nations don’t outsource critical national security industries even though economists might say that’s more efficient. The question is whether they should outsource critical tech infrastructure to huge quasi-monopolistic US firms that can turn it off or abuse European data at will. I don’t have the answer to that question, but I have to imagine it’s a worthwhile debate. The data we have cuts both ways: China applied p…

>China applied protectionist policies to its own Internet companies, and it’s hard to argue that this has been economically devastating for them. China has 1.4 billion people in one country while the combined population of Europe is around half of that, so that's one difference. But, yes, both US and Chinese technology companies would likely be better off than they are now without China's protectionism and authoritar…

> But, yes, both US and Chinese technology companies would likely be better off than they are now without China's protectionism and authoritarianism.

I really don't see how Chinese tech companies would have benefited from receiving the diapers.com treatment.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#874

Post by rdm_blackhole » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #828

I'm not understanding, as an European who's been part of multiple startups how's that supposed to boost growth. There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling). In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans. Sure, there is an attached cost in ha…

I agree with you partially.

My hot take is that this is a signal for Trump. We play nice with you, you play nice with us.

Big tech is well connected to the current US administration so if the EU were to make theses changes, then they will appease big tech (a little bit) and therefore by extension Trump.

I (like you) don't think that these regulations are the reason the EU doesn't have home grown hyper-scalers a la AWS or GCP or Azure.

I think the EU just fell asleep at the wheel for too long. It basically outsourced its defense to NATO, its tech needs to the US and its manufacturing to China and for a while it worked perfectly.

However the world is changing and the EU is simply in my opinion not up to the task. It's too slow, bureaucratic and messy to be able to adapt rapidly and it lacks the vision necessary to remedy to its weaknesses.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#875

Post by zeroonetwothree » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #828

I'm not understanding, as an European who's been part of multiple startups how's that supposed to boost growth. There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling). In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans. Sure, there is an attached cost in ha…

Sure but the laws are probably relevant for the startups you _haven’t_ been a part of. The ones that never got started.

It’s funny you mention a lack of entrepreneurial spirit but then dismiss something that’s clearly a factor (not saying it’s the main factor but obviously it has some effect).

I have some side projects that I don’t really care about making money from but some people do use and it’s easier for me to just block all European users than worry about complying with all the random laws and regulations.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#876

Post by jdasdf » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 3:57 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #828

I'm not understanding, as an European who's been part of multiple startups how's that supposed to boost growth. There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling). In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans. Sure, there is an attached cost in ha…

>There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling).

Thats kind of the point...

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#877

Post by giorgioz » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

epolanski wrote: post #828

I'm not understanding, as an European who's been part of multiple startups how's that supposed to boost growth. There's literally 0 startups I've been part of where data protection laws or even the infamous cookie banners have been anywhere near relevant (unless your business was literally profiling). In fact the actors that most opposed those laws have always been non Europeans. Sure, there is an attached cost in ha…

I know a friend who was building his first website, he asked in our startup group how to handle the GDPR cookie banner, it likely wasted 1 day on that, when he had invested maybe a whole othery day on the project. At that moment in time the GDPR cookie banner amounted of 50% of the effort. It killed momentum, it killed willpower with beuracracy. It should have asked himself how to get users, not how to comply with GDPR for a website that in that moment had 0 users.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#878

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 4:06 PM UTC

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #312

The fundamental problem in Europe is the perception that companies are inherently ill-intentioned, requiring micro-management through massive bureaucracy. It is a moralising and irresponsible attitude that older people can afford to adopt, but like so many other things, it hits younger generations mercilessly hard.

[deleted]

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#879

Post by Spivak » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #643

Spivak wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't even the GPDR and it did even less for user privacy.

what was it then? why it did less for user privacy?

It was the 2002 ePrivacy Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPrivacy_Directive

What the law wanted: putting regulatory friction on tracking cookies by requiring collecting consent will make sites do less tracking.

What the law did: endless cookie banners.

What the law wanted: ending the torrent of people's inboxes filling with ads.

What the law did: nothing because they caved to the industry and let people send ads anyway. actual spammers never followed the law anyway and real companies who ship ads weren't at all burdened by an existing customer relationship requirement.

What the law wanted: companies will stop keeping your personal information on their servers forever.

What the law did: nothing because they again caved to the industry and it just got added to the cookie banner consent screen or the company just said they kept the data for "value add" services like personalization.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#880

Post by zelphirkalt » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 4:08 PM UTC

einsteinx2 wrote: post #772

zelphirkalt wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP addresses are PII. This has long been determined.

This is a perfect example of uncertainty causing compliance overhead. You say IP addresses are PII and this has long been determined. Literally a week ago I read this reply on HN to someone mentioning IP addresses being PII: > > logging an IP address.... > Untrue. IP is an category of PII but its not PII in itself unless you're a law enforcement. > Separately, if you log IP addresses you're doing it to prevent abuse…

They are of course, like everything else context-dependent legitimate interest, or even needed to provide a service to the visitor or user, but that doesn't make them non-PII. There is a reason for things like Google captchas and Google Tags manager to have a flag to not even send an IP address to the backend.