EU strikes deal on data protection rules | Hacker News Reader

EU strikes deal on data protection rules

politico.eu

40 pointswalterbell12 comments

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>"Companies that don’t abide by the rules will face fines up to 4 percent of global sales."

Ouch!

It's necessary, for too many of these global corporations, a small local fine is too insignificant to bother heeding.

And, for the case of subsidaries, etc, "one company" is equal to "the entity that has access to the users data".

Want to share userdata with some subsidary? Then you also share responsibility with them.

If the United States passed a "data protection" law like this at the federal level, how would state governments react? What rights do states have to enact their own regulations on data protection?

I expect we will see pushback from state governments against federal regulators over the next few years in regards to "cyberspace" legislation. States will enact different laws to attract businesses to their own jurisdictions.

Perhaps we will see the emergence of some "preferred states" for datacenter development and incorporation, just like we already see with, e.g. Delaware C-Corp regulations.

> Perhaps we will see the emergence of some "preferred states" for datacenter development and incorporation, just like we already see with, e.g. Delaware C-Corp regulations.

Seems quite likely. Unless Europe wants to create its own version of the Great Firewall of China, it'll get the same Internet as everyone else, with all the same services available for people to choose from. Companies that actually have offices in Europe might have to deal with these restrictions, but companies that don't can continue to ignore them the same way they ignore what any random country's Ministry of Misinformation might want censored.

If this escalates too much, it's possible that shipments of physical goods might be impacted, but anything deliverable electronically can safely ignore this.

Said while a Brazilian judge is about to have telcos nuke WhatsApp's access to the country for 48 hours.

>"This directive, the regulation and the recently agreed passenger name records directive were effectively bundled together as a package of laws."

With one hand they give, with the other they take.

To be fair, I'm happy that outsourcers will feel a bit of heat - their practices are mostly terrible. On the other hand, it's more red tape for an IT sector recently saddled with VATMOSS and cookie law.

And of course, securinazis always get what they want, because terrorism.

On the other hand, it's more red tape for an IT sector recently saddled with VATMOSS and cookie law.

It's not just red tape. It is proper consumer protection:

Consumers will have the right to stop a firm using data when they close an account, for example, or they can stop marketing companies from building a data profile of them.

This sounds terrific to me and is long overdue. It's terrible that companies can just track individuals across the Internet and build up profiles without their consent. Or as bad, companies that don't allow you to close an account or that keep your data after closing an account.

“Ensuring that individuals don’t receive direct marketing messages any more can only be done if the marketer can retain data in a suppression file,” said Sébastien Houzé, secretary general of the Federation of European Directive and Interactive Marketing.

Isn't that a pretty little md5(lie)?

If only ads were an opt-in kinda deal (which with a blocker they of course are). I'd be happy to give you a short list of things I might be interested in if you'd stop tracking me.

I find it kind of ironic that this announcement comes the same week that EU leaders have been discussing better mechanisms to track suspects between EU countries.

The rules will likely not affect governments.

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