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Comment by gonmf | Hacker News Reader

"If you look at what is happening around us, you can see very clear signals that the public has had enough."

No, outside of a few echo chambers, no one cares about privacy or knows what GDPR is. Until GDPR shows everyday on the evening news for weeks it will not be well-known, and there are many things more important to most people than online privacy. Heck, Cambridge Analytica was only a scandal because the "bad guy won".

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While concern about privacy may indeed remain a niche thing, GDPR is intruding into the European public consciousness. In recent weeks I have received a number of e-mails from hotels I once stayed in, associations I am a member of, my old university, etc. to alert me to the fact that they have my personal data and under the GDPR I have rights regarding it.

> Until GDPR shows everyday on the evening news for weeks it will not be well-known

I think we've crossed that point few months ago in Europe. Last year I felt I was probably the only one of my real-life friends who even knew what GDPR was. These days, I see streams of articles about it on social media, aimed at non-technical people. Hell, last week my SO told me she started receiving GDPR-related e-mails at work from companies that are in business with her place.

I feel people do know. Unfortunately, I also fear they only think of it as yet another random EU regulation thing, and not realize the benefits it'll bring.

In which EU? :) Over here (Belgium), there has been a lot of talk in business fore (which are only frequented by a specific minority of companies), but in the general press I can't even recall seeing a single article. Even with those 'in the loop', the attitude is mostly 'wait an see', 'who is going to work on enforcement (the regulators haven't expanded), and 'maybe it will be another cookie-law (meaning a much hyped 'the sky is falling' regulation which turned out to be we'll install a component that handles the implicit 'ok' click and be done) and 'you never get a fine the first time, so why be proactive?'.

I am yet to find one friend or family member who has changed their attitude or behaviour towards Facebook after the Cambridge Analytica.

This is all anecdotes but I've had some (non tech) family members ask about the facebook privacy scandal and they wanted to review their privacy settings.

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