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Comment by ericdykstra | Hacker News Reader

Is there any evidence of GDPR having the desired effect for which it was put in place? Is citizens' data being protected more than before?

The second-order effects that everyone predicted are already happening (big tech companies change nothing significant, many small companies shutting down).

The long-term and unforseen second-order effects have yet to bear fruit, as far as I know (please let me know if you've seen anything).

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Yes, the amount of tracking cookies is declining.

https://www.techradar.com/news/gdpr-sees-cookies-crumble-on-...

The shutting down of companies is a desired effect, because those are the companies that won't get consent. Data resellers for example that dont provide any advantage tto the user.

We haven't even seen the actual effects yet because google Facebook et al are probably in violation and are waiting to be sued to fight it out in courts

One positive effect you can already see: people think about privacy laws. Most of the GDPR was already law in various EU countries, just largely ignored by everybody. GDPR gave the laws more teeth and publicity.

For real improvements, we will have to wait a few years to find out what and who regulators will persue for violations, and how the courts interpret the GDPR. If regulators never look at small companies, the second order effects on small companies will vanish. If regulators miss to successfully prosecute the obvious violations by tech giants, no meaningful effects will stay at all. It all comes down to what regulators will do, and it's way too early to tell.

The GDPR isn't only about the Internet economy. It affects offline businesses as well. You start to notice things like a plumbing company asking for consent to use your contact data on a paper form. The fact that people think a lot more about data protection and privacy is a good thing in itself.

One nasty side effect is some large organisations are shutting out Europe. I can no longer access severs popular US based sites and instead get messages about the content not being available in your region. (Most recently: latimes.con and fox8.com)

That's also fine - was their content worth your privacy? If they can't be GDPR compliant we don't want them.

> was their content worth your privacy?

What privacy was I losing?

First one that comes to my mind: their advertisers knowing you're on those sites, which page you read, when, for how long, etc. This is mitigated by running an Adblocker and a selective Javascript disabling extension like uMatrix or NoScript, but it would be much better if those sites would let their readers decide if they want to be tracked or not.

Anyway, I'm also blocked on those sites but the same news on LA Times and Fox appear on countless other sites. I'm not losing anything, they're not wasting power and bandwidth for a freeloader. Win/win.

If you agree to pay $10 a month per paper, then you could have it. But majority of people have proven that they will not pay, hence it does not justify to have a paid subscription system without ads.

When more and more people block ads, there will only be a few large sites remaining on the internet because the rest will not be able to survive in the most likely scenario. You could cry all about your freedom then.

It that ever happens I can go back buying newspapers as I did before they moved on the Internet. I bet some of them will always be free, but if only a few of them will be we should be very careful about what we read.

Maybe you don’t but can you speak for everyone? The poster seemed to think that was undesirable.

We, the people of the EU, have democratically decided that we don't want them.

How did that democracy work with articles 11 and 13?

The European Union is the antithesis of democracy. If it wasn't, those directives would never have passed.

Democracy does not mean that every decision is good.

Democracy can also undermine itself. If people "democratically" decide they don't want free speech or private property, it's not a democracy any more. I don't assert it's exactly what articles 11 and 13 are doing, but it's a step in this direction.

And the power to use proxies and non personal emails.

I see a problem with people (even democratically) deciding for me. I'd rather like it to be settled down between myself and the website owner.

That does not work. You have no bargaining power.

He had the power to say yes for himself before, and now he doesn't.

If you didn't think their content was worth it you didn't have to visit. Now no one can.

You can only make that choice if you're informed about the tradeoff. Getting sites to inform users is the main purpose of the GDPR. It's not the EU's fault that the LA Times would rather block people than do that.

Was their content worth my privacy? I will never know as they will not let me see it.

Besides, if they didn’t block me, I can always ensure my privacy to a reasonable degree by using private browsing mode on my browser. That requires very little effort, unlike what I would have to do now — use some VPN provider who quite likely would be monitoring ALL my data not just to that site.

You certainly don't need to use a VPN - much less one that routes all your traffic - to access a site from another place.

I suggest: https://outline.com/

It's just my personal anecdote, but I'm happy to be able to choose which cookies can be used. And when I see the changes the companies I worked with and the comany in which I work had to make, I think it's a good thing. People are more cautious with how they use the data of users now.

One effect I haven't seen mentioned yet is that EU data subjects can permanently delete their Facebook accounts, along with all associated data. (Previously you could only indefinitely 'deactivate'.)

It's led to one company I use supporting (and forcing) HTTPS. They should have been doing it before, but it's still a win. They've also stopped asking for addresses, and are removing existing addresses:

> To reduce the amount of personal data we process for you, we have stopped asking for address, city, state and zip code in our shop (we do not ship physical goods anyway). Also, we are in the process of removing all existing address information from our customer database.

More companies go public when they get hacked

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