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Comment by RubyRidgeRandy | Hacker News Reader

It is crazy. If the EU just wants to fully outright ban advertising - then do it - but set a standard and stick to it.

There's no problem with advertising, the issue is with companies misusing people's data. If a company wants to use targetted advertising then they just have to openly ask for consent to do so, but tying it up with the terms and conditions to use the site is hardly asking for consent.

Tracked advertising is not all advertising.

I didn't say it was. However, defining what is tracking and what is not is also an issue.

Let's say facebook runs an ad on its platform to my website with a url of site.com/fbad. Then I can see how many people clicked on the ad on facebook and how many people converted on that webpage. There are people on this site who will tell you, and FULLY believe that that is TOO much tracking and is morally wrong.

Incrementing a counter is not tracking. I don’t know where you’d find someone saying otherwise. However, keeping records associating the fact that something was clicked with personal identifying information, such as an IP address or a unique identifier, is tracking, and you need to ask for consent. What is and is not acceptable use of data related to a person is defined in the regulation.

> If the EU just wants to fully outright ban advertising

Come on, don’t be obtuse. The problem is not advertising, the problem is tracking and using user data without consent. The fact that they do that for advertising is irrelevant. They would have the same issue if they were doing it for any other reason.

> set a standard and stick to it

That’s what they did. It’s called the GDPR. One can argue that enforcement was insufficient, but the standard has not changed.

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