[HN Gopher] 3 years of GDPR: The biggest fines so far
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       3 years of GDPR: The biggest fines so far
        
       Author : alexanderdmitri
       Score  : 58 points
       Date   : 2021-05-24 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
        
       | TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
       | If you're surprised there haven't been many big fines against
       | large tech companies yet, that may be because there's a large
       | backlog of cases that are bottlenecked by the budget of Ireland's
       | DPA: https://www.euractiv.com/section/data-
       | protection/news/europe...
        
       | Dah00n wrote:
       | Some will say "I told you so, they still do not get fined harshly
       | enough to make any difference" while others will say "this is
       | just unfair money grabbing governments" and while everyone argues
       | back and forth with the same arguments as the last ten
       | discussions I sit here on the sidelines, a normal internet user,
       | who by the simple mentioning of GDPR have gotten big companies,
       | like Epic, and powerful people, like a CEO of a pretty big
       | company, to actually _do_ something where they before would
       | totally have ignored me. GDPR is not perfect at all but it does
       | do a heck of a difference already.
       | 
       |  _Edit: Downvotes, really? : /_
        
         | jchw wrote:
         | It still basically does not differentiate between Epic Games
         | and me. And I _can't_ handle the fines. The chilling effect
         | this will have on people is being downplayed pretty harshly by
         | people who are basically suggesting you should just pray that
         | you don't get put into massive debt because you made a mistake
         | on a side project.
         | 
         | For that reason, GDPR will always draw some ire from me.
        
           | hkh28 wrote:
           | GDPR fines are set among other things according to the
           | resources of the entity that broke the rules. As a private
           | person making a side project, you won't be liable for
           | millions.
           | 
           | The most recent examples of individuals being fined have been
           | fines around EUR200 [0]
           | 
           | [0] https://gdprhub.eu/index.php?title=ANSPDCP_(Romania)_-_Fi
           | ne_...
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | The maximums however, are absolutely insane. Am I supposed
             | to just hope that in the range of 0 to EUR20 million, it's
             | something I can afford?
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | No, you're supposed to hope that the legal system will
               | apply the law fairly and correctly. The law does NOT say
               | that they can fine you 20 million Euro. The 20 million is
               | an upper limit on a fine, but the law also specifies how
               | that fine is determined, which _by definition_ is
               | "something you can afford", because that's literally one
               | of the factors.
        
               | tephra wrote:
               | Getting a maximum fine not only means that your handling
               | of personal data was especially egregious but that you
               | probably didn't cooperate in any ways with the relevant
               | DPA and refused to rectify the problem.
               | 
               | I.e the maximum fine is highly unlikely for anyone to
               | get, and if you get it you have done some very bad
               | things.
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | Yes, and what the GDPR crowd is telling me is that I
               | should just trust the EU to always act fairly and never
               | engage in any kind of politically motivated subterfuge.
               | 
               | And not only that, my concerns and dissent regarding GDPR
               | piss people off so much, that at this point, every
               | comment I post just gets downvoted immediately. Now I
               | realize it's against HN guidelines to discuss this, but
               | when I post a comment and the delay it takes for me to
               | return from the post page is enough for my comment to
               | already have a downvote, I feel discouraged. It's _very_
               | clear the person who did that had no good faith intent on
               | a discussion nor intent to even minimally read my
               | comment. And I'm supposed to try to argue my points in
               | good faith despite this.
               | 
               | The pro-GDPR crowd may be winning the mindshare but they
               | are inheriting the cancer of something not allowed to be
               | criticized. And if we ever do see an egregious fee driven
               | by political motivations, am I supposed to feel smug for
               | having predicted the possibility or sad that my mere
               | expression that the default maximum fines are so
               | ridiculous that they basically terrorize anyone who is
               | not a multinational corporation turned out to be well-
               | founded?
               | 
               | All I ever asked for was for people to recognize the
               | chilling effects that this regulation can have. The
               | internet used to have so many small websites, forums and
               | wikis, and many of these fall under the umbrella of GDPR.
               | And this is basically the treatment I get for trying to
               | represent this dying breed of website: as some corporate
               | shill worth being buried and not considered.
               | 
               | It's not like I care that much about being with the mob,
               | but it pains me that as the open internet gradually dies,
               | people flat out just don't care. GDPR as it is today is
               | just represents a huge amount of risk for anyone that is
               | not a multinational corporation, and it only gets scarier
               | the further down you are. I'm sorry but just telling
               | people to not worry about how the law is written will not
               | work. Some people will ignore it, some people will try to
               | follow it, and some people will just stop trying
               | altogether deciding the risk simply isn't worth it. And
               | that latter part is most likely to occur for websites
               | that are more objectionable, since they will likely face
               | harsher treatment just due to cognitive biases alone,
               | since we're talking about considerations that humans make
               | rather than the word of law.
        
               | Ekaros wrote:
               | Maximum fine is there for large corporations. If it
               | wasn't specified at atleast that range many of them would
               | ignore or knowingly break the legislation. And in general
               | checking for many crimes the upper end of penalty is
               | pretty big. Like DUI here could mean 2 years in prison.
               | Though that is exceedingly rare.
        
             | amichal wrote:
             | This[1] site seems to track actual fines. I found maybe a
             | dozen fines of individuals. Here is the largest fine of a
             | 'private person' I could find:
             | https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ETid-69. If the database
             | is at all accurate and the description of the violation is
             | correct I would say they were well into Criminal territory
             | and not civil fines. [1] https://www.enforcementtracker.com
        
           | t0mas88 wrote:
           | The fines are based on your revenue and the impact. So they
           | do differentiate between Epic Games and you.
           | 
           | And for me as a user, it sucks if your side project leaks my
           | credit card and SSN, because I'll be dealing with the
           | identity theft and fraud. If you're not competent enough to
           | keep them safe, then use a vendor that is or don't process
           | then at all.
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | If it were only SSN or credit card data, this would be
             | understandable. But I assume you're aware GDPR is far
             | broader than this.
             | 
             | And as well, GDPR, again, doesn't guarantee the safety of
             | your data. It just adds fines to some circumstances where
             | your data is misused. But an honest breach doesn't lead to
             | fines as far as I can tell, so you just have to live with
             | that possibility either way.
             | 
             | As best as I can tell, there is no legally binding texts
             | anywhere that limits the fines. The maximums start at EUR20
             | million and go higher if you're huge. In the mindset of
             | "hope is not a strategy," this maximum fine being the only
             | legally binding limit is enough to make you go home. Maybe
             | small companies can hope for preferential treatment, but as
             | an individual even small fees could do serious harm.
        
               | jokethrowaway wrote:
               | Work behind a limited company and let it fail.
               | 
               | Escape to Mexico in the worst scenario.
               | 
               | South America is anyway becoming more and more appealing
               | the more the West progress.
               | 
               | That said, not that it changes much but I stopped taking
               | EU customers (I take businesses and not customers)
               | because of vatmoss and gdpr.
        
           | sealeck wrote:
           | Don't let people enter their data onto your side projects
           | unless you're willing to treat it responsibly?
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | Intent doesn't matter; the fear is the same: life-
             | destroying fines. If that's the choice, I'd just opt out of
             | taking EU customers.
        
               | Hamuko wrote:
               | How many examples of life-destroying fines do you have?
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | So basically, you're in the "No, it's fine -- this will
               | only ever get used against bad guys!" camp. We had 9/11
               | here in America and the BS that followed and I don't
               | humor this line of thinking. (Nor humour.)
        
               | Hamuko wrote:
               | No, I'm in the "prove that the thing you are claiming to
               | happen actually happens" camp.
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | I'm not claiming something happened -- do you understand
               | how chilling effects work? The threat of potentially
               | massive fines with very little legal bounds for not
               | following regulations that individuals basically can't
               | follow means that people who want to follow the rules but
               | aren't big enough don't play anymore.
        
               | Hamuko wrote:
               | So no one's life has ever been ruined by the GDPR? But
               | you're still sure that this will happen? What is this
               | based on?
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | I can get fined between 0 and EUR20 million at any moment
               | because I am an individual and have no means to fully
               | understand GDPR nor hire a DPO for my stupid personal
               | websites. I make no money in ads or otherwise, but I am
               | still treated like Epic Games if I collect sign up emails
               | or logs. I only still run this stuff now because I've
               | been running it for over a decade. I can tell you right
               | now I am hesitant to run websites anymore.
               | 
               | If you don't understand how "ambiguous threat of a fine"
               | isn't calmed by "it hasn't happened yet," I can't help
               | you. What if my site was politically controversial?
               | Should I trust all EU governments to act responsibly and
               | not take advantage of their power ever?
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | If there is a real danger that EU gouvernments start
               | abusing their power like that, why is it only Americans
               | that are afraid of it? Not EU citizens, who actually are
               | familiar with how their states behave?
        
               | jokethrowaway wrote:
               | I'm a EU citizen in Europe and you can count me scared
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | Clearly, nobody is afraid by it: I am getting buried
               | insanely any time I criticize GDPR in any way. It is a
               | thing you are not allowed to critique on HN.
               | 
               | So I wouldn't say americans are particularly more
               | bothered by it. But why shouldn't we be? I have no
               | representation in EU law.
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | > Clearly, nobody is afraid by it: I am getting buried
               | insanely any time I criticize GDPR in any way. It is a
               | thing you are not allowed to critique on HN.
               | 
               | Not if your criticisms are entirely unfounded and
               | bordering on paranoia, no.
               | 
               | > But why shouldn't we be? I have no representation in EU
               | law.
               | 
               | What? Do you think only EU citizens have rights in the
               | EU?
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | > Not if your criticisms are entirely unfounded and
               | bordering on paranoia, no.
               | 
               | I am not a lawyer and I do not have access to a lawyer. I
               | can't afford it. Therefore, I have to assume that I
               | simply do not have the expertise to understand GDPR
               | fully. And unlike most laws, it is not a matter of "do
               | things right and nothing will happen", and it has very
               | vicious teeth on top of that.
               | 
               | So from my PoV, the risk profile of GDPR is HUGE. If I'm
               | running some pre-existing software stack written in the
               | early 2000s, it simply doesn't have the necessary data
               | provenance tracking that is needed to be GDPR compliant.
               | 
               | For what it's worth, I make no money from things I run,
               | not even on ads. Zilch. However, I've spent at least
               | hours processing GDPR requests, and I have absolutely no
               | idea if they are being done correctly, because I'm not a
               | lawyer, and I do not have access to a lawyer.
               | 
               | > What? Do you think only EU citizens have rights in the
               | EU?
               | 
               | I'm talking about representation in the sense of a
               | democracy. I am part of the system in the U.S. - I can
               | vote. I have no representation when it comes to laws made
               | in the EU. The reverse applies too, but as far as I know
               | there's nothing quite as scary as GDPR from the U.S.
               | side.
        
               | orwin wrote:
               | I don't understand. You can contest your fine if it is
               | really too big, but honestly, at my last job we had one
               | client project that got "caught". The CNIL (GDPR watchdog
               | for France) was really helpfull, gave them 6 month to get
               | into shape and proposed them a plan on what to do with
               | the data to meet their goals. The kind of plan that cost
               | a company 5-10k euros to elaborate (2 man/day of a good
               | architect), and 10k (10 man/day of a junior db dev) to
               | implement. So between a third and half the price to make
               | the business legal again was basically paid by the CNIL.
               | I think that's fair tbh.
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | That's the thing: I'm not a company, I'm a person, who
               | happens to run websites, that make no money. A 10k euro
               | fine would run me off the internet.
        
               | danhor wrote:
               | The point of the comment is that the CNIL handled the
               | part that the "good architect" would have needed to do,
               | thus saving the company 5-10k. The company "only" needed
               | to implement it, the other part was handled for them. The
               | GP didn't mention fines, so I guess none were given out?
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | Can you show me _one_ example where there was a  "life-
               | destroying" fine?
               | 
               | Not "a big company was fined an amount of money that
               | would be life destroying if I had to pay it for a
               | personal project", because revenue/economic means are a
               | key factor in GDPR fine calculation.
        
               | anoncake wrote:
               | Maybe it doesn't in America. Here it does.
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | My name, my address, my phone number and my credit card
           | details are the same regardless whether you or Epic Games is
           | storing them in a database.
        
             | jchw wrote:
             | A data breach alone is not a GDPR violation as far as I
             | know. Your data is just as at risk of being exposed no
             | matter what. As far as I can tell the intent of GDPR is to
             | prevent companies from selling or using your data in ways
             | that you did not consent to. However, the bookkeeping
             | requirements quite literally break the internet that
             | existed where one person could run a website. As it turns
             | out, I do not have a Data Protection Officer for my wiki I
             | started in 2008. Does that mean I am not GDPR compliant?
        
               | amichal wrote:
               | And you dont need to have one:
               | 
               | .... hiring an actual Data Protection Officer is only
               | required by the GDPR if you meet one of three criteria:
               | * Public authority -- The processing of personal data is
               | done by a public body or public authorities, with
               | exemptions granted to courts and other independent
               | judicial authorities.       * Large scale, regular
               | monitoring -- The processing of personal data is the core
               | activity of an organization who regularly and
               | systematically observes its "data subjects" (which, under
               | the GDPR, means citizens or residents of the EU) on a
               | large scale.       * Large-scale special data categories
               | -- The processing of specific "special" data categories
               | (as defined by the GDPR) is part of an organization's
               | core activity and is done on a large scale.
               | 
               | https://gdpr.eu/data-protection-officer/
        
               | jchw wrote:
               | This is good to know. But while I will admit my mistake,
               | the problem points to a bigger issue, which is, as a
               | layperson and not an expert on European law, I simply do
               | not have the expertise necessary to understand the law
               | and its implications. This is of course true of any
               | website under any jurisdiction, but most laws don't come
               | with such absurdly vicious teeth, and therefore the risk
               | profile is a lot different. So perhaps my example was
               | misinformed. But that's kind of the problem: _you need to
               | have a lawyer to really be sure of these things_. I don't
               | have a lawyer.
        
               | amichal wrote:
               | I think the fines/penalty headlines are a big
               | misunderstanding/distraction (which got me too until I
               | had to spend the time on reading the actual law for an
               | actual EU client). They are what happens if you
               | continually, willfully disobey the principal of the laws
               | AND are also proportional to you income (see
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine which are common
               | in some EU countries)
               | 
               | If you are a small operator who messes up AND you are in
               | the EU and you ignore strongly worded letters of warning
               | with instructions on what you need to do to comply then
               | you MIGHT be fined/penalized.
               | 
               | If you are not making money in the EU than you are
               | seriously unlikely to even be noticed messing up.
               | 
               | If you miss-configured the logs on your blog or small
               | non-EU business and kept user ids and IP addresses AND
               | are outside the EU no one will bother you.
               | 
               | If a privacy conscious EU citizen contacts you to close
               | an account they made with you or delete your data you
               | have many weeks (90 days i think ultimately) to respond,
               | negotiate and do your best to get it done (and provide
               | them whatever data you may have collected on them)
               | 
               | If you have any of a dozen legitimate reasons to have
               | personal data and you clearly explained this to the EU
               | citizens you collected data from you are not going to
               | hear from anyone. e.g. a EU company I work with has
               | extensive logs of their employees changes and updates to
               | data (imagine git commit messages). These are required
               | logs for the business, an ex-employee cannot ask you
               | delete that history under GDPR. Same for their b2b
               | customers. The existence of these logs are made clear up
               | front. It's a regulated requirement that they exist etc.
               | 
               | If you decided to sell the log data to a third party as
               | part of some profile of the citizen and you didnt say you
               | intended to do that then you ABSOLUTELY would hear from
               | someone. But I would think you very much should and this
               | is the point.
               | 
               | Same principles apply for California Consumer Privacy Act
               | (CCPA) in the US.
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | > As it turns out, I do not have a Data Protection
               | Officer for my wiki I started in 2008. Does that mean I
               | am not GDPR compliant?
               | 
               | Do you have more than 250 employees? Are you a public
               | authority or body? Are you performing activities that
               | "require regular and systematic monitoring of data
               | subjects on a large scale"? Is your core activity
               | processing on a large scale of special categories of data
               | pursuant to Article 9 or personal data relating to
               | criminal convictions and offences?
               | 
               | No? Then no need to have a data protection officer or
               | data protection impact assessment.
               | 
               | You still need to implement appropriate safety measures
               | and efforts to follow GDPR, where "appropriate" takes the
               | scope of your processing into account. https://gdpr-
               | info.eu/art-24-gdpr/, need a legitimate reason for using
               | the data, etc., but all of this is very doable, and
               | you're probably already in compliance if you care the
               | smallest bit about your user's privacy and follow normal
               | best practices like rotating your logs.
               | 
               | IIUC (there are two directives and I'm less familiar with
               | the other one) you don't even need a cookie dialog as
               | long as you aren't setting any unnecessary cookies.
        
         | Hamuko wrote:
         | I actually made a GDPR request to my insurance company. Turns
         | out that not only did they have documents about me before I had
         | ever signed a contract with them, they had documents about me
         | before I was even born.
        
           | donatj wrote:
           | > They had documents about me before I was even born
           | 
           | Can you elaborate?
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | Turns out that my parents took on some kind of a life
             | insurance policy in an insurance company that no longer
             | exists in the strict sense but the documents have carried
             | on through fusions and when a couple of decades later I got
             | car insurance, a bunch of old medical records and contracts
             | were linked with my account.
        
           | 77pt77 wrote:
           | > they had documents about me before I was even born.
           | 
           | This needs some explanation.
           | 
           | Also, what's stopping them from just lying?
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | > _Also, what 's stopping them from just lying?_
             | 
             | Well, hopefully the prospect of fines if they're caught.
             | I'm hoping that the local data authorities won't be lenient
             | if a company is caught outright lying.
        
       | temporalparts wrote:
       | I'd be curious of a detailed analysis of the cost of GDPR to EU
       | consumers. There are websites that shut down or no longer
       | servicing European customers because of the concerns around GDPR.
        
         | moooo99 wrote:
         | I know that's only anecdotal and no evidence at all, but the
         | only time I encountered a website that is not serving European
         | users anymore was a link here on HN.
         | 
         | I think most users didn't even notice and for the people who do
         | and are really bothered, there are workarounds such as VPNs
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | I've only anecdotally ran across half a dozen local US news
           | sites that claim how their EU visitors are very important
           | (clearly they're not) and also a Japanese lyrics site.
        
             | anoncake wrote:
             | A local US news site that doesn't care about its few EU
             | visitors obviously doesn't fall under GDPR. I wonder if one
             | that targets them by putting up a non-compliant popup does?
        
       | ydnaclementine wrote:
       | I use this addon to hide the opt-ins: https://www.i-dont-care-
       | about-cookies.eu/
       | 
       | >In most cases, it just blocks or hides cookie related pop-ups.
       | When it's needed for the website to work properly, it will
       | automatically accept the cookie policy for you (sometimes it will
       | accept all and sometimes only necessary cookie categories,
       | depending on what's easier to do). It doesn't delete cookies.
        
       | makomk wrote:
       | It remains somewhat, ah, interesting that the biggest GDPR fine
       | is for not being able to withstand a targeted attack by a
       | motivated attacker. The British Airways compromise seems to have
       | involved someone getting access to their systems (which basically
       | just requires one employee screwing up, once) and hiding
       | malicious code in their website so custom-tailored to them that
       | an uninvolved outside expert in the malware family involved had
       | trouble ientifying where it was _after_ he knew it was there due
       | to the news coverage. That 's the kind of "gross negligence" that
       | leads to a record fine and I don't think IT security as it
       | currently stands is even remotely capable of preventing it.
        
       | vmception wrote:
       | 1) Subscribe via email!
       | 
       | 2) Accept our cookies and let us track you! (with a delay for
       | choosing anything that's not accept all)
       | 
       | 3) Surprise! There might be a paywall whether subscribed via
       | email or not! Schrodinger's paywall
       | 
       | 4) Oh hey! I saw you paused scrolling or moved your mouse in the
       | general direction of the back button, check out this other thing!
       | 
       | 5) Okay lol, here's the article. Maybe. Depending on the deal we
       | cut with the creators of your specific browser and geographic
       | location and how many other articles you've read this month.
       | 
       | and thats _with_ adblock
       | 
       | Europe and California, we are counting on you to fix the
       | internet!
        
       | midasuni wrote:
       | 1) don't track visitors
       | 
       | Then there you go, no popups, no consent to ask for, job done.
        
       | zibzab wrote:
       | Well, who do you folks think should be fined next?
       | 
       | Also, can't we just agree that "Legitimate interest" is
       | noncompliance and fine BBC too while at it?
        
         | t0mas88 wrote:
         | Facebook, they're refusing the right to access your data:
         | https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/
         | 
         | And Google for the whole Doubleclick Ad Exchange, they're
         | sharing lots of user details with hundreds of bidders on every
         | pageview that has ads. As well as storing all of that
         | information in Google Cloud as part of their Ads Data Hub
         | product. All without permission.
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | 1. Every single web site that uses dark patterns that make not
         | saying yes impractical. Start with the ones that required more
         | than 3 clicks, then clarify that "the request must be clear,
         | concise and not unnecessarily disruptive" means "equally sized,
         | equally highlighted buttons for 'accept all' and 'reject all'".
         | 
         | 2. Every single company that knowingly processed data based on
         | such invalid consent.
         | 
         | 3. Every single website and company that processed data for
         | advertising based on "legitimate interest"
        
         | alkonaut wrote:
         | The largest site (by revenue) that currently uses a a two
         | button consent dialog with "accept and continue" vs "manage
         | options".
         | 
         | That's not making opt-out the default choice.
         | 
         | If multimillion fines were given to just a few hundred of these
         | sites things would change pretty quickly.
        
       | tomcooks wrote:
       | Now if only they forced websites to have a single, standardized,
       | accessible, unobtrusive popup~
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | I'm surprised there is no standard for this yet. Just build it
         | into the browser like all other privacy-related requests
         | (location, webcam etc.) are handled. If sites don't implement
         | it, don't accept their cookies. That way I can also manage a
         | blanket yes/no list without getting an obtrusive popup every
         | time.
        
           | Hamuko wrote:
           | Expecting another smash success like the Do Not Track header.
        
             | paxys wrote:
             | Do Not Track didn't work because (1) it was not enforced at
             | the browser level, (2) it had no legal backing and (3) it
             | was not granular enough to be useful. With GDPR, CCPA etc.
             | in place the online privacy landscape is very different,
             | and a new standard is very much possible today. Why did
             | every site in the world implement all the consent popups in
             | the first place when they could have continued to do
             | nothing?
        
             | atoav wrote:
             | If you could sue people for real money when they violate
             | said header it might be taken more seriously pretty
             | quickly.
        
               | Hamuko wrote:
               | I don't believe that you can sue under the GDPR. I've
               | always understood it to be something that you can lodge a
               | complaint against someone with your local authorities. No
               | idea about the CCPA but I wouldn't be surprised if you
               | could considering how lawsuit-happy Americans are.
        
             | cm2187 wrote:
             | Do not track is a gentleman's agreement in a world of
             | thugs. But you could block cookies at the browser level if
             | the user clicks No.
        
           | djxfade wrote:
           | The problem is that I can't possible imagine Google
           | implementing this, as it would hurt their data hoarding
        
             | lostcolony wrote:
             | Why? The browser has access to it at all times, and you can
             | still ask for it anywhere. So Google (via Chrome) isn't
             | losing anything.
             | 
             | In fact, everyone else (including Google via analytics) is
             | probably get more data; make it so that in the same way the
             | browser form fills address and phone number and things
             | automatically based on past fills, have a standard API in
             | the browser to handle that. Now users just have to click
             | "okay" to share all that data, rather than enter it in.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | Well seeing as a lot of sites use dark patterns to
               | confuse users into accepting more liberal tracking, I'm
               | not sure I would agree that this would lead to more data
               | collected
        
             | zibzab wrote:
             | It may surprise you, but Google was not the villain here:
             | 
             | https://www.cnet.com/news/apache-web-software-overrides-
             | ie10...
        
           | eli wrote:
           | Everyone's talking about DNT, but P3P from Microsoft circa
           | 2002 is probably more instructive:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P3P
           | 
           | Privacy is nuanced. It's' really hard to encode all ways you
           | may or may not want your data used into a few boolean
           | questions.
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | One of my favourite Stack Overflow answers still is making
             | your privacy policy a potato.
             | 
             | https://stackoverflow.com/a/16475093
        
           | seoaeu wrote:
           | The problem is that sites will just pretend that any such
           | standard doesn't actually exist. All of these sites could
           | suppress cookie popups for clients that send a do-not-track
           | header, but choose not to.
        
           | kmeisthax wrote:
           | They did. It was called Do-Not-Track and Microsoft had the
           | bright idea to pull an iOS 14 and turn it on by default in
           | IE. At that point the few ad companies that had supported it
           | basically told the browser vendors to pound sand and it
           | became entirely useless for anything but fingerprinting.
        
         | zibzab wrote:
         | The point of that is to make you click and maybe by mistake
         | give them their consent.
         | 
         | We already had do-not-track in the browser, why do you think
         | companies refuse to honour it?
        
           | Quarrelsome wrote:
           | because they're not getting fined 200m for it?
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | Even better, force them to respect something like
         | https://globalprivacycontrol.org/
         | 
         | and _prohibit_ showing an obtrusive popup.
        
         | sharken wrote:
         | So much this, I'd actually rather opt-in if that meant the
         | cookie popup would go away once and for all.
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | Or force websites to obey the Do-Not-Track HTTP header.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track
        
           | cm2187 wrote:
           | that's a lot of trust in the fly-by-night ad industry
        
         | vmception wrote:
         | They should fine organizations for providing a worse experience
         | while people choose what settings to accept
         | 
         | Basically I see a quick experience for accepting everything,
         | and a degraded experience for not clicking that but getting a
         | list of what to accept or denying all
        
         | belorn wrote:
         | What about having a law that makes it clear that an popup does
         | not create informed consent, and then have companies decide to
         | ignore that part of the law because it would be super
         | inconvenient if they had to actually get informed consent.
         | 
         | Maybe EU should write a new law by copying the GDPR text that
         | defines consent and make it bold, all in caps, and underlined.
        
         | cm2187 wrote:
         | The worst is that it punishes the most privacy conscious of us,
         | who clear cookies on every session, and are forced to click and
         | reclick again on the same popups. I think the law should have
         | been enforced at the browser level, mandate browser makers to
         | prompt for authorization and once it has been refused, to never
         | ask again.
        
           | comboy wrote:
           | In other words you want to delete a cookie and still have a
           | cookie.
        
           | TheCoelacanth wrote:
           | They should have mandated treating the Do Not Track header as
           | opting out of all tracking.
        
         | dmayle wrote:
         | In France, we're starting to see sites where they give you two
         | options:
         | 
         | 1) accept advertising/tracking cookies
         | 
         | 2) pay a monthly subscription
         | 
         | I've seen this on AlloCine (French IMDB), and "aufeminen" which
         | is a random forum that a Google search led me to.
        
           | kybernetikos wrote:
           | I believe that this is likely not GDPR compliant, although
           | this view doesn't seem to be shared by many. My basis for
           | saying it's not is https://www.privacy-
           | regulation.eu/en/recital-43-GDPR.htm
           | 
           | > Consent is presumed not to be freely given if it does not
           | allow separate consent to be given to different personal data
           | processing operations despite it being appropriate in the
           | individual case, or if the performance of a contract,
           | including the provision of a service, is dependent on the
           | consent despite such consent not being necessary for such
           | performance.
           | 
           | I take this to mean that you cannot rely on consent that a
           | user has given you to process their personally identifiable
           | information if they did it in order to access a service you
           | wouldn't let them have access to otherwise.
        
             | toffi-fee wrote:
             | But the provision of the service is not made dependent on
             | the consent if you can alternatively pay the monthly
             | subscription. So I would assume, "accept all cookies or
             | enter paid subscription" is Gdpr compliant.
        
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