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Comment by fadsfsafadf123 | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I think GDPR was secretly pushed by Big Tech to make it harder for smaller business's to compete.

It was basically useless.

I wouldn't even be surprised if Google or Facebook helped write the legislation.

Whatever noise EU is making now I have very little hope for.

If the US government was so fearful that a fun video app made in China had the power of compromising National Security, stealing and spying on citizen's data, and even radicalizing people through their mobile Skinner Boxes and algo-driven Ludovico Technique pleasure therapy apps -------- you would think they would be doing WAY more, WAY faster.

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"It was basically useless"

Could you elaborate and perhaps point towards what makes you think this way?

I ask because I have worked in a rather large corporation which had to implement massive changes to ensure they were being more respectful and careful towards user data. In my experience, the GDPR made them take it seriously which was otherwise ignored as it allowed them to profit off being negligent about these things.

Also, it's a bit like food handling and storage related regulations for restaurants. While it might seem like a pain for the guy running the restaurant, it helps reduce the risk the consumers could otherwise face.

GDPR only matters if the EU has jurisdiction. If it's a website run from China then GDPR can't really do anything. A better first step would've been to limit the information that's being sent out in the first place - the browsers and OS. If people had better control over what their computer sends out then the privacy issues would be much less worrying. After that you can talk about limitations on who can do what with the data. Just having the latter means that people are still leaking all of their data, but companies are basically just promising not to use it.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/about-european-commission/contact_...

If you genuinely care and believe you can make a strong case, I suggest talking to them.

I worked for a huge company that dropped 50% of their data because of GDPR (when it launched) because the data was valuable but not THAT valuable.

The GDPR is good in spirit as it forces a certain standard of privacy, but it is extremely vague (which means countries can effectively neuter it, or it could be over-enforced), and there is an extraterritorial component which set the precedent for global take-downs of content.

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