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Comment by bflesch | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it is about ethics, it is about control. We as European businessmen were and still are unable to generate the same kind of innovation as the US, and now they try to solve the problem by pulling down the US on our level (at least the parts concerning the EU market).

I think this is the wrong approach, EU should try to make it easier for European businesses to compete with US-based ones.

But in the end we have another layer of bureaucracy on top of all the things a US startup has to worry about, and those mostly non-technical/non-innovative people want to be a part of the picture.

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> We as European businessmen were and still are unable to generate the same kind of innovation as the US

Tracking people around the internet. To follow them everywhere they go and save their personal information, their political ideology, etc. It is not innovation, that's just stepping over personal rights.

> I don't think it is about ethics, it is about control.

Yes. About giving back control of citizen privacy to the citizens themselves. It is not the government that decides who can own your data or when to delete it. It is European citizens that decide individually who should have their data and whom can not.

> EU should try to make it easier for European businesses to compete with US-based ones.

If you give away freedom for economic gain, you don't deserve either one.

>If you give away freedom for economic gain, you don't deserve either one.

What gives you the right to deny others the right to trade their personal information as they see fit?

Well they can of course trade it as they see fit, just opt-in to those things and be happy?

What gives you the right to force me to trade in my personal information?

You make it sound as though the majority of Facebook users were making a conscious decision to trade personal information, whereas the usual thought process is "it's free! and everyone's doing it!".

Most people simply don't care. It constantly surprises me how paranoid people in the technology community are about their social interaction and browsing data.

Normal people absolutely care. They however do not have the tools or know how to.

Just look at how many people were behind the facebook lawsuits in Europe to see that those are not developers.

New laws.

What gives you the right to decide that corporations are free to use my personal information for whatever they please?

> unable to generate the same kind of innovation as the US

Well the EU seem to think that not all of this innovation is good innovation and the law specifically targets this.

>We as European businessmen were and still are unable to generate the same kind of innovation as the US

I don't want US innovation. Thanks for the offer.

Does that mean you avoid services like facebook or google? Many of those innovations are based on data collection and using that to make customer segments to sell targeted ads. Without that model you may be asked to pay a few dollars or see additional ads that are more likely to be less interesting.

>Does that mean you avoid services like facebook or google?

No. Can't. I can't do my job without Google and my social life wouldn't survive without Facebook (messenger, groups, events). Using these services is not voluntary at this point.

>Using these services is not voluntary at this point.

Of course it is. You just don't want to because it's not convenient.

Eating food is not mandatory either, but it's very convenient.

If you don't eat, your life ends

If you never get on Facebook again, what? You have to write snail-mail letters or use group MMS?

How has HN become an argument for why eating food is not in fact mandatory?

>Does that mean you avoid services like facebook or google?

Like the fucking plague. You should too.

Does that mean you avoid services like facebook or google?

Plenty of us do.

I'm afraid it's a small "plenty" but as a European data point I'm using an Android phone right now. I'm not logged in any Google service with the exception of Google Play. My mail is not on Gmail. I'm not logged in Facebook too and I don't have their app. However I do have their Pages and Messenger apps because of work. Maybe I could ditch Messenger because almost nobody I know uses it. Everybody is on WhatsApp (another Facebook property) and a few people are on Telegram (developers). Could I do without WhatsApp? Maybe but it would be hard. I'm almost not using Facebook anymore because it's became so boring after 10 years of the same stuff.

I avoid them like I avoid a wildfire. Have done for nearly 5 years after I came to terms with the scale of the data collection they were performing.

So you don't need that new law?

I'm not a child but I'd rather have children protection laws. Fragile as American ego they should say.

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