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Comment by creepydata | Hacker News Reader

Woah. Why don't you calm down and read the comment you are replying to. The comment you were replying to wasn't taking a position on the issue, and certainly not a strong one, merely asking questions.

>The mere thought of compiling such information here would lead to some hefty jail time these days.

No, not in the United States it wouldn't. Not only is it not illegal, it's standard practice by marking companies, data brokers, and others.

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"Here" in GP's comment is stated as being The Netherlands. Europe does in general have stricter data protection laws than the US, though I don't know them well enough to know which bits of this leak would be illegal here. Allowing the leak itself would be, at least under UK law.

So? The GP said "these days," not "in my country these days" stating it like it was some sort of universal truth. We aren't talking about compiling data on UK citizens or Dutch citizens, this is American companies compiling information about American citizens.

> here [...] these days.

Not exactly "my country", but it's implied.

I think processing any data like that (ethnicity, political viewpoints, union memberships) is completely illegal in the Netherlands (and I assume in the EU) [1] (dutch).

I would personally be very disturbed and angry if data like that about me would exist, let alone leak to the internet. No matter who has it, that data should not exist. Do people in the US really not feel that way?

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/dem/watify/selli...

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