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Comment by Mirioron | Hacker News Reader

Does it seem reasonable to you? Let me propose a scenario to you. Let's suppose that you commenting on Hacker News would mean that you must adequately respond to certain messages sent to you. If you don't do that then you can be fined. Does this sound like an environment that would encourage you to share your thoughts on Hacker News? Or does it sound more like an environment, where you would just not say anything and perhaps go elsewhere?

It's unreasonable, because it imposes an administrative cost on anyone that tries to do things on the side regardless whether they have good data handling practices or whether they have any intention of abusing the data. I would bet money on the fact, that JUST the fact that they must respond to a letter is enough to make some people go do something else. And who knows, maybe the side project could've been the next google.

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My understanding is that if someone is not a customer, and I hold no data on them, then I can safely ignore any requests. At worst I can automate a response saying "I hold no data on you".

For customers, how many requests would you expect? One in 100? One in 1000? If I store the data securely, and I only use it for the purpose it was intended, I can automate a response that (a) Sends them a copy of their data, (b) points them at the privacy policy saying I don't do anything unexpected with their data, and (c) offer a link to delete their data.

Once set up, these should not place a significant burden on the provider of a service.

I suspect we are arguing about how much work will be required. I'm saying that once set up, the administrative overhead is negligible, you are saying it isn't. Certainly the services I run have seen no increase in administrative load, I'd be interested to know who has seen a significant increase (once already set up) and why.

> Once set up, these should not place a significant burden on the provider of a service

You're counting on an automated response mollifying users and being seen as reasonable by each of the EU's twenty-eight regulators. Perhaps that is true.

If so, a reasonable regulatory regime was produced. If it is not, or it is for a while and then one country decides to go ape shit, this was a bad law. Until we have more data there is regulatory uncertainty. Within that uncertainty is risk. That risk is unreasonable for non- or low-revenue generating projects.

Moreover, there is more precedent for such regulatory regimes becoming more, not less, onerous over time. That leads to incumbency bias, since Facebook and Google no doubt already have lobbyists for each of the national data regulators.

not to mention that, historically and intrinsically, visiting a site or using someones application is a voluntary activity. no one is forcing the user to do anything and the user shouldn't be able to force the developers to do anything.

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