It's important to know that generally this distinction is not relevant when it comes to data subject rights like GDPR's right to erasure: If your company is processing any kind of personal data, including publicly available data, it must comply with data protection regulations.
Eventually, it will catch up. Whether the punishment offsets the abuse is yet to be seen (I'm not holding my breath).
>Internet data is public and the government is incapable of changing this.
Incapable or unwilling (paid for by those who want to grab more data)?
I would claim incapable but it doesn't really matter, outcome is the same.
GDPR won't protect you nor will data privacy laws. Most of the world simply doesn't care enough. I wish it were different.