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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

AIUI the "allow being tracked to gain access" is unlawful.

Apparently "allow being tracked to gain more access" somehow isn't. As far as I can tell that's what every major newspaper in Belgium is doing. I suspect they've got folks in their employ who speak legalese.

But then newspapers in Belgium are pretty horrible in general. They're exempt from paying VAT, even for content they sell online. Online-only news sites don't get this exemption and have to charge 21% VAT, so the entrenched newspapers have something of an unfair advantage there. But anyway, that's a different rant entirely. Just an illustration of their general scumminess.

Is it ok to say "you get a discount if you allow being tracked"? As a practical matter, these places need to earn money to exist, so either you get served ads or you pay directly. It's highly unreasonable to expect free service.

And the GDPR says "good riddance to you if you can only make money by tracking people without the tracking itself being part of your value to them".

Not all business models deserve to succeed.

IOW the EU is picking winners and losers in the market. If your business model is based on building models of user behavior and monetizing that, you will not be allowed to succeed. If your business model is based on holding a monopoly on the reproduction or display of entertainment, you will be allowed to succeed, at the expense of tech companies whose technologies might have otherwise made your business model obsolete.

The most likely outcome will be a distorted market in Europe and European tech companies becoming even less relevant and even less able to compete in other regions of the world.

Yes, it's codifying ethical standards into law. I take it you think the US banning slavery was overreach because it made certain business models illegal? You may disagree, but the basis of the GDPR is that privacy and control over your own personal data is a human right, so violating that right is no legitimate business model.

What? You can make money by charging people for it. Don't want to pay for newspapers for example? Without ads you can either pay up directly or not enjoy the publication.

I don't understand where this entitlement for free stuff comes from.

I don't know why you think I was advocating for free stuff. I was not. I'm happy to pay for content I want. It's what time companies should be doing instead of not charging, tracking invasively, and selling user data. If you can convince people to pay for your content then the market is telling you you don't have a viable business.

I think the issue with GDPR is that you can't deny service if they don't want to pay and don't want to be tracked. Iow, you can't ask them to pay if they don't want to be tracked. That's where the complaint about demanding a free service comes from.

I'm not sure I follow. How does the GDPR preclude paid access to content?

If you want to offer a free product to those who are willing to be tracked and don't care about ad personalization (such as myself) - you can't do so without also offering to free to everyone else. You aren't allowed to ask the second group to pay if they want to use your product - thereby forcing them to offer it for free in a way.

You can serve ads without unsolicited harvesting of PII.

This paper says it is lawful.

https://www.iabeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/20171128...

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