Comment by n4r9

I find it pretty difficult to be sure what point pg is making, because he uses an ambiguous phrase "good at regulation". What does he mean by "good at regulation"? According to the UK's Institute of Chartered Accountants [0] good regulation satisfies five criteria:

* Transparency

* Accountability

* Proportionality

* Consistency

* Targeting

I'm not certain that the GDPR laws fail any of these. I'm guessing pg is getting at something more nebulous to do with how annoying the UX is as a result of the regulation, and whether it encourages civil engagement. But if he'd simply said "EU regulation has made UX annoying" then he wouldn't have such a snappy tweet.

[0] https://www.icaew.com/technical/trust-and-ethics/better-regu...

EDIT I googled some more and found a brochure from the National Audit Office titled "Principles of Effective Regulation": https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Principles...

It does have a statement in there:

> Good regulation maximises the benefits while minimising compliance costs and unintended consequences. The benefits of regulation can be both to wider society (such as improved environmental or safety standards) and to regulated (for example, through increased consumer confidence), but not all of the benefits are necessarily easy to quantify.

Put that way, I can get on board with what pg's saying.