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

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#901

Post by wave84 » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:16 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…

Here's my take, as a Romanian developer (since 2004ish).

One day I got a letter from the national authority regarding personal data where I was asked to reply to 15 questions regarding a personal project of mine, invoking the GDPR. The sanctions for not complying within 5 days was an incremental fine of 600 euros PER DAY, until I complied. This letter was directed to me as a natural person (not even my company).

Another story: I had a publishing website with some ads on it. The moment full GDPR went into effect, some years ago, revenue instantly dropped by 30% because the cookie banner I was using wasn't part of the approved european framework for cookie banners (they created an entire organization for this, called IAB). Most of the "approved" cookie banners are insanely overengineered nonsense and almost all of them cost a lot of money. And they kill your performance metrics. And when I finally gave in and implemented one of those, revenues dropped even more because I was losing readers who just quit without consenting at all.

Third and final anecdote: at one point I was contracted by a Romanian DTH television company who mostly operated with prepaid customers. According to GDPR, they were supposed to anonymize data they no longer needed, but because their clients were seasonal or less predictable, that turned out to be ridiculously hard. Their legal department, together with external contractors such as us ended up spending months to adjust their systems to conform to GDPR, and the result was their losing business and time, while being unable to properly serve older customers because they could no longer identify them.

So in my opinion, despite originally being well intended, GDPR opened a huge can of worms, created a lot of issues and made everyone's life harder on the internet, for no real benefit. On the contrary, the large companies could afford the legal counseling that they needed, but the smaller ones were hit hardest.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#902

Post by TylerE » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #626

TylerE wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The road to hell is paved with “good enough”.

It's a funny thing to say because the popular saying you're modifying says the exact opposite.

In practice, “good enough” is rarely actually good enough.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#903

Post by itake » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

moooo99 wrote: post #895

itake wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your data agrees with OP, you're just misunderstanding it. Yes, richer countries work few hours and richer countries also see modest GDP growth. Cambodia's GDP growth is over +5% YoY, whereas Switzerland (and the rest of Europe) has more modest GDP growth. There is some "Work smart, not hard." facet to this, which requires an educated population. The other fascet is developing countries exist in climates heav…

> richer countries also see modest GDP growth. This is a natural consequence of being an industrially advanced country though. A lot of GDP growth can come from establishing basic services like a functioning healthcare system, insurance apparatus and financial system. Of course, we can't building out infrastructure like roads, power, etc. Especially construction can lead to substantial GDP growth, but once you have a…

> This is a natural consequence of being an industrially advanced country though.

Ok, but then compare the GDP of the USA vs Europe as millennials enter the workforce. Entering the 2008 crisis, USA and Europe were neck in neck. Now, the USA has left Europe in the dust.

Declaring the US an outlier seems like an odd choice... What country should you compare Europe to?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#904

Post by epolanski » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #889

epolanski wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few things. 1. We really have no realistic threat on our borders. Russia can't even cope with Ukraine alone in conventional warfare. Who do we have to defend from? And there are way bigger militaries than Ukraine in EU alone, let alone as a coalition, such as Poland. 2. Would like to remind you that article 5 has only been invoked by US and we lost many lives on something that wasn't even relevant to us, let alone th…

Are you sure you meant to respond to me? I agreed with you on most of what you said regarding the regulations but just in case let me respond to your points: > We really have no realistic threat on our borders. Russia can't even cope with Ukraine alone in conventional warfare. Who do we have to defend from? And there are way bigger militaries than Ukraine in EU alone, let alone as a coalition, such as Poland. Is that…

> That is never going to be the case because all EU countries want different things and for very good reasons. They have different needs and different economies.

That's quite of a weak argument, every state or county in the US has conflicting interests too. But there has to be defined boundaries in what is the business of EU and what is the business of single states.

I would say that matters like digital data privacy should have one common policy, not 20+ agencies.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#905

Post by jonkoops » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:30 PM UTC

4ndrewl wrote: post #69

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…

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

It is good to stress this, most people don't know how the EU works, Europeans included.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#906

Post by lo_zamoyski » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #530

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is that everyone else is pursuing tech unhindered by such regulations at breakneck speed, and Europeans realize that Europe - once the center of science and technology - is increasingly sliding into a backwater in this space and an open air museum. Now, some will agree with you and say that privacy should never be violated, but nonetheless accept a certain measure of tolerance toward that kind of violatio…

I don't think GDPR is the problem that makes science and technology succeed more elsewhere or fail more in the EU. There are far, far bigger problems, that are at play here. For starters we have a war still ongoing in the east. Economic power houses have had utterly corrupt governments for decades. Standardization of many things is difficult with so many separate nations. Education systems are questionable. All of th…

Indeed, and I'm not blaming GDPR for all of the EU's problems, or even blaming it for anything specifically. I was entertaining a plausible rationale for a particular case and using this as an occasion to pose a more general question about the EU's effectiveness in balancing various concerns when regulating.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#907

Post by heavenlyhash » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #854

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…

> an European European starts with a vowel in spelling, but actually phonerically begins with a consonant, /j/, so it doesn't trigger the "an" thing. Similarly some spellings start with a consonant but have vowels (like acronyms, "an SSRI", the name of the letter S, "ess", begins with a vowel) More to the point I agree with what you're saying. This seems like lazy attribution of cause that is so common in American bu…

Really depends on where you're from.

OP already mentioned in his area it's phonetically mostly "ew".

I'd say a lot of germanic areas also do something I'd describe as "oi". That'd also make one inclined to use an "an" when speaking.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#908

Post by ekjhgkejhgk » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:40 PM UTC

jebronie wrote: post #721

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder that cookie banners are not a regulation problem, they're a privacy problem. If you don't spy on your users you don't have to have cookie banners.

no. even including a font from a different host is not allowed under the gdpr because you are leaking the users IP to that host. you are poorly informed on this topic.

But the different host IS tracking because that's how they make money from serving "free" fonts. So if what you're saying is true, that's exactly how it should be. When I go to a website I don't want others involved.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#909

Post by x0x0 » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:41 PM UTC

super256 wrote: post #885

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

Can you share the projects? In most cases it is very, very easy to comply with the *"random laws" (not that GDPR is much different from California's CPRA. Are you blocking Californian users too?)

Sorry, that's nonsense. cpra has a carveout for small businesses. gdpr has your one person company obey the same rules as meta.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#910

Post by x0x0 » Thu, Nov 20, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #665

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…

The problems are in the details: why are news organizations exempt from this rule in Europe? You can’t read news websites unless you accept all cookies or pay to read. Who decides these things? How is such a rule in favor of privacy? Why is my site where I regularly post news not eligible? Who decides which sites are eligible? It’s these kind of moral double standards and cognitive dissonances that people have to end…

> why are news organizations exempt from this rule in Europe?

In the main, because the GDPR is an attack on advertising-supported services. You cannot build a business on context-free ads given they pay somewhere between 1/100 and 1/10000 as much as ads that profile.

Thus news orgs basically told regulators that the options were no free news (or realistically, the mess America is in, where real news orgs charge and the free ones are propaganda arms) or being allowed to do consent or pay. Because a paywall complies with all laws but has negative societal effects.