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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

#981

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But far more than 1% are harmed by it. Sometimes the harm is severe. Vast oceans of poorly handled personal data collected in exquisite and unnecessary detail by dark patterns, copied around to everyone who might be interested with low regard for security, kept forever, analysed by the best algorithms and sold to whomever will buy it, raise the risks and consequences of identity theft and fraud for everyone. Those ar…

Most people don't care about these things. Who are you to say that the harm is severe to people who don't care?

> Most people don't care about these things. Who are you to say that the harm is severe to people who don't care?

I'm not the one deciding.

I said some of the harms are severe. Not everything. It refers to things like people losing their online accounts, having their bank account drained, their credit rating ruined, private photos shared, passwords changed or published, losing files to ransomware, all as an indirect result of poorly handled data collection resulting in identity theft and similar.

I'm pretty sure most people affected by those things do consider them severe, and that many people upon learning about those things also consider them quite severe, even if they didn't care before they learned.

If most of those people consider those things severe, that's enough to call them severe.

You don't need my opinion for that.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#983
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start?

I stand corrected. :D You are quite right! They have never stopped. And I am ashamed on their behalf. We have amazing tech talent in the EU but we are beholden to old and ultra-risk-averse rich aristocracy. What a damned shame.

Bloody peasants!

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#984

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 AW…

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…

>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.

Reality of the situation is that in 2025 Ukraine IS the most combat ready army in Europe, and by far.

Russian army of 2025 is not the same as it was in 2022 too. It takes over a month to transfer military equipment across Europe /even without war going on/, we are SEVERELY unprepared.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#985
post #944

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll admit I may have fallen for "private" browser marketing. Is this representative to current methods? https://coveryourtracks.eff.org I assume a subset of these bits could be used, meaning the "unique" or not claim of this test probably doesn't reflect if you can be tracked. I also assume that a VPN would help tremendously. For that test, as is, I get "unique" every refresh when using Brave Browser. With Safari an…

> https://coveryourtracks.eff.org Platform Linux x86_64 One in x browsers have this value: 5.73 What? They just claim Linux has a marketshare of ~20%?

For all of these values, I think they're going purely by bits rather than occurrences observed or market share.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it hard to compete with, for example, China. What exactly is europe competing against china on? Isn't europe's competition the US?

Cars

Aren't most of the foreign cars in europe american? Or maybe japanese?

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#988

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest issue with this is the modern web ads don't even work. You get ads for fridge AFTER you bought one since they now know you browsed them. What works is content based advertising - so advertise a power drill on a woodworking hobbyist site. No tracking required there. Conversion can be obtained when user clicks a link via redirect. Like in the good ol times. But this modern approach that massively invades privac…

> What works is content based advertising - so advertise a power drill on a woodworking hobbyist site. No tracking required there. Conversion can be obtained when user clicks a link via redirect. Like in the good ol times. This still requires tracking to follow the user through the whole flow, which is required unless you want to be defrauded with fake users at the very least, but also very important to track the act…

I guess you have a point there.

I am trying to imagine a scenario where you just track the actual conversions (sales) and the only datapoint is where your customer originated from, something akin to podcasts/youtube giving affiliate links. That could work right? Or maybe I am missing something. If I am not it feels like the current model only benefits the middle man and is detrimental to everybody else.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#989
post #901

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). Anot…

> 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)

There's your mistake. It's not approved. The EU literally sued them for coming up the bullshit banner: https://www.euractiv.com/news/top-eu-court-finds-widely-empl...

It's in the name: IAB stands for Interactive Advertising Bureau. They couldn't give two shits about your site. All they care is about testing the limits of the law to get their hands on any and all user data.

Their banners originally were explicitly illegal: https://noyb.eu/en/where-did-all-reject-buttons-come (this describes mostly OneTrust banners, but IAB's banners were the same) and https://noyb.eu/en/say-no-cookies-yet-see-your-privacy-crumb... (IAB's banner turned your "no to tracking" into "yes to tracking")

> 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.

Translation: shitty businesses made life of everyone harder on the internet and blamed regulations for their own behaviour. From IAB (and OneTrust and Admiral and other scummy greedy leeches') banners to idiots at companies who assume that data on their customers is no longer needed to ... provide services to those same customers.

Yes, it exposed a can of worms. Worms decided its their god-given right to stay.

Re: Europe is scaling back GDPR and relaxing AI laws

#990

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars

Aren't most of the foreign cars in europe american? Or maybe japanese?

I believe "most" is true today. However, my point is about change. Ten years ago, there were probably less than (finger in the air!) 10,000 Chinese cars in all of Europe. Now there are millions. This is the change -- fewer American, Korean, and Japanese cars.
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