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Comment by TwoHeadedBeast | Hacker News Reader

Data protection laws would be meaningless if you made consent a condition of visiting the site.

But we've built a world where a large fraction of the population has [apparently] willingly traded their privacy for free product. I completely support making this trade transparent, so people can make an explicit choice, but what's the justification in making it one-sided and requiring companies to provide their service for free?

But is there any company that survives solely by collecting and trafficking personal data? Facebook and Google don't count, they make money selling ads.

If there is such a company I'm completely ok with them not being viable anymore.

i guess we'll find out if they really are willing, given a proper choice, and not just forced to click "accept" like in some perverse skinner box.

i don't know where all the misinformation comes from, but companies don't need to provide their services for free. they can still show ads - just untargeted ones. or is ads = tracking nowadays?

They can even show ads that are related to the content on the web page! Are you on a page that is about breeds of dogs you might want to adopt? Why not buy a Halti collar, and a package of dog training sessions, and donate to the RSPCA?

This is what Google's advertising product started out as, basically automated magazine advertising at scale; it turned into this perverse tracking system once everyone was hooked onto free web content and nobody could get away from it.

>forced to click "accept" like in some perverse skinner box.

Or you can just leave the website. It's not like you lose anything by not going to techcrunch, let alone lose your job or anything serious.

Targeted ads make the website a lot more money.

Why? If a company is transparent about what they're collecting and how it's used, I don't see how there is anything wrong with them refusing you service if you refuse to accept their terms. Websites and the businesses that run them aren't public property that you have a right to use. The problem comes when they secretly gather and exploit your information.

Data protection laws would still limit what companies could do with the data after they obtained it, even if they required that data to access the site.

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