Comment by Fischgericht
2 years ago
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.
Sure, but that's the point. It's assigning credit/blame to the legislation in question.
Not some arbitrary lines on the ground that also have terrible anti-legislation.
My comment wasn't meant as a pissing contest. It's not me who has created GDPR, I did not have a choice of getting born in the EU, it just happened :)
But I am pretty impressed that in these days where most regulations for pretty much everything are defined by lobbyists, GDPR actually did happen, ended up to be a very reasonable set of rules, and actually gets enforced. It was written well, and unlike with other regulations it's not full of loop holes.
Laws and regulations created to the sole benefit of your general population is just something you can't take for granted these days anymore. Therefore, for me GDPR is kind of magic.