Comment by Fischgericht
2 years ago
At least in the EU it is.
Explained in detail, here.
https://gdpr.eu/gdpr-consent-requirements/
Consent must be specific, informed, freely given and unambiguous. The user must be able to revoke consent at any time, as easy as it was providing the consent before.
Very clearly the Microsoft "consent" info does not tick any single one of those items.
Illegal.
Or, in other words:
There is much to criticize about the EU. But where the US has brought the world "By farting during installation of this software you consent to us stopping by and taking your first born child" kind of EULAs / "choices", EU's GDPR is forcing big tech to treat humans as humans again (instead of just data).
I don't know why political entities are brought into these conversations other than for some sense of high-horsedness or a figurative pissing contest.
GPDR is good. So is CCPA, COPRA, etc. Meanwhile, both the EU and the US have plenty of predatory legislation that allows companies to do all kinds of fucked up things.
Because nuance is valuable? "GDPR is good" doesn't remotely address its strengths and failings, nor the conflicting incentives and motivations that produced it.
I agree that there's no room for home-team mentality here, but we should absolutely assign credit and blame where it's due, especially when those of us who don't live in a jurisdiction with such a law gain some halo-effect benefit.
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