Comment by rixed
18 days ago
This article stayed on the front page of HN for a couple of days: https://timsh.org/tracking-myself-down-through-in-app-ads/
The author was in Europe.
Aparently, all the rules protecting the privacy of european citizens make no difference in practice.
I wonder why, but I believe the EU will look into this soon, since it would be so unconfortable if the king were bad.
Or it just takes time to enforce the regulations. As an EU citizen, the recent regulations have already helped me a lot - a lot of companies provide data takeout now, it has become easier to remove accounts, many more websites ask specific consent, etc. Or even small things, our daughter's school has to ask specific consent if they can make photos and where they can post them (of group activities, etc.). Does everyone play according the rules? Not yet, but we will get there.
> our daughter's school has to ask specific consent if they can make photos and where they can post them
The result of this is we don't see anything out daughter does in school because school decides to comply with draconian regulation by saying "fuck it". The same applies to having parents present daily: we don't touch the grounds of the school unless we make a formal request, we don't see the teacher everyday, we don't hear how the day went from professionals who actually spent time with them. This is all 100% the opposite of our experience outside of Europe before moving and I'm comparing public school system in a third world country to an European one. It's just an anecdote but it hasn't been more clear to me how much in a death spiral the EU is than the experience we currently are having
Maybe it's because I'm not a parent, but what you describe seems to me less "privacy gone wild" and more "Europe vs Non-Europe".
The German parents I know wouldn't consider going to the school without reason (kids go either alone or as a group), nor would they expect their teachers to give daily reports. Not because of privacy rules, but rather because you're expected to grow up independent. There are of course regular reports, but talking to the kid's teacher every day would, I believe, get you classified as "oh, that parent". And then there's also the problem of vindictive divorcing parents who take their children away before the other parent shows up.
> we don't see anything our daughter does in school
If you're talking about photos of the children then I can't imagine a cost-effective way to ensure that photos of your children end up on the Internet while photos of my (hypothetical) children hugging yours do not. But perhaps you have a more precise example in mind.
You guys expect to see the teacher every single day?
The result of this is we don't see anything out daughter does in school because school
This makes very little sense. Our daughter's school just has three checkboxes: private school website, social media, local newspapers. We checked 'private school website' and we get pictures of school activities, but they don't post them on Facebook, etc.
we don't hear how the day went from professionals who actually spent time with them
Uhm, so? I don't feel the need to micro-manage our daughter's school life? She'll tell us what she did after school if she so pleases. If there is something important, the teacher will send a message. Not everything needs to a 24/7 live social media feed. Kids go to and from school by themselves and arrange their own playdates after a certain age, that's how they learn to be independent.
When I was a kid I also went from/to school by myself starting when I was maybe 7 or 8?
Enforcement of the GDPR has been _grindingly_ slow; the first really significant fines weren't issued until 2022, when the Irish regulator finally pulled the finger out.
Presumably based on this experience, more recent internet-y laws (DMA, DSA, AI Act) are _not_ dependent on national regulators, and enforcement is getting off the ground more or less immediately. I'd expect that when the GDPR's successor shows up it'll follow suit.