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You can comply with the GPDR without user hostile popups.

The popus are only hostile because adtech is user hostile.

GitHub is a good example of that actually [0].

[0]: https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/

>It always seemed to be that Europe came up with GDPR because (1) they felt envious of other geographical regions that were more successful at developing web services, and (2) they passed a law to guarantee they'd never produce a Google or a Facebook.

As a European citizen, I'd like my privacy to be somewhat respected. As of today, I have little options in terms of smartphones – mostly Android and iOS. If I choose Android (because I want choices), I must log into a Google account in order to access the Play Store. Almost all app editors only distribute their apps through that Play Store. And when I log into the Play Store, Google forces me to have all my local contacts to be uploaded to their server. There's no workaround this. Why should Google believe they're entitled to all my friends and family data only because they have a monopoly on Android apps distribution? This is crazy and I'm hopeful that GDPR will probably prevent that: thanks to GDPR, any data protection authority in EU can now sentence Google harshly enough for Google to stop sucking data they have no rights over.

I'm also a business developer at at a European mobile app editor (with millions of active users) and, believe me, things have changed for the best for the end users. We now only collect data we know we actively need to improve the apps (and we anonymize it and delete it after 16 months), we apply GDPR rights globally (not just EU users), we stop doing ads in our apps (freemium model only), etc. GDPR is great.

Before that, I worked as marketing manager for an independent app store. The CEO forced us to collect data massively for no legitimate reasons. It was crazy. We got millions of people (early 2010's) to log into our website with Facebook and we collected everything (people's friends list, birthdays, gender, etc). Things really have changed for the best.

My experience is pretty much the opposite. GDPR was a response to user hostile behavior and some sites responded with fixibg that while others doubled down on user hostility.

As a programmer I blame my fellow programmers who created the problems and not the eurocrats who tried to fix it.

I don't think that's true, before GDPR, websites and apps were just hoovering up user data and not telling anyone about it, knowingly or not, by implementing their own user hoovering, or just putting ads on pages.

Whatever person was responsible for the voice of the user, would be overruled by the people responsible for the making of the money

No one had any idea where that data was, who had access to it, if it was secure, would it be deleted if requested

I am not sure if I can follow your arguments. Why would GDPR result in Europe never producing a Google or Facebook? I can imagine arguments that a product that has to abide to the EU rules could be less competitive outside EU, but the same issues apply for Google and Facebook if they want to continue operating within the EU.

Since both Google and Facebook are slow to comply to GDPR and are perhaps in the dubious position of having to comply to competing USA/EU regulations, presumably EU based companies would have an edge within the EU.

If you mean GDPR results in less companies being able to grow to the current scale of Facebook and Google, because the global market gets splintered I can see your point. That would imply an impact for Facebook and Google as well though. Personally, I would not object to that.

> every web site had somebody involved who officially or not served as a "voice of the user"

Not really, no. Before GDPR lots of websites also had popups for example asking you to subscribe.

The cookie law introduced lots of annoying popups that were of no use, I agree with that. GDPR at least made it so that you can be sure you have the option to disagree to tracking that way.

Personally, I don't know anyone that would blame developers for 'not having empathy for users' or something similar. The consensus seems to be that the fault lies with the people in charge of a) the website making use of monetization through user tracking and b) the services that allow websites to monetize user tracking.

I REALLY don't understand your reasoning.

Most privacy advocates claim GDPR didn't go far enough.

Maybe I've been doing this longer than some of you.

The way I saw it was that there was always pressure to harass users (privacy is not just an lack of dossier building, it's also a "right to be let alone") and I was successful at pushing back against this at least somewhat in many places I worked.

When GDPR came out it was like the dam broke or like when Phillip Zimbardo smashed the window on the car... All of a sudden nobody wanted to listen when you said they should slow down on the harassment. The EU set this example that harassment was "good" or "required", so it made other forms of web harassment more acceptable.

In the US we also had the HIPPA law which showed the moral bankrupcy of "privacy policies". That is, if you get the simplest health care services in the US you have to sign a 50 page document that enumerates such a long list of people who are entitled to your health care data any reasonable person would ask "Why don't they just leave all my health records on the curb and save so much money on paperwork they could cut my health insurance premiums in half."

The harassment, paperwork, costs, and lost innovation is all real. Dossier builders are going to go ahead and build dossiers anyway. The EU gets to prove it is a player by doing a stupendous act of vandalism against a public resource.

(e.g. if you want to improve privacy don't ask for "consent"... that's as problematic as consent for sex... just don't let the data get collected to begin with)

Quick question, why just don't collect data that is not essential for your product? Is it because you are jealous that some bastard still collects it and you don't want to be the sucker that respects the laws?

or this non-essential data is making you enough money? Be honest, some people here appreciate capitalists with no morals, blame the game not the player kind of people