Michigan 'digital age' bills pulled after privacy concerns raised
38 points
1 hour ago
| 5 comments
| thecentersquare.com
| HN
al_borland
31 minutes ago
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> The right to opt out of its sale, and

Why the right to opt-out, instead of requiring sale of data to be opt-in?

I’m not sure how this stuff happens on the backend, but if I sign up for something and there is an opt-out page buried somewhere, I assume they’ve already sold my data by the time I can get to the opt-out page. I still make a best effort, but once it’s sold, it’s really too late. There needs to be an option to never sell it in the first place.

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jrm4
22 minutes ago
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For the record, I think it's important to highlight this as "hey, the system actually works" sometimes. All the fatalism and whatnot with government.
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2OEH8eoCRo0
40 minutes ago
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Of course. Suddenly we are concerned about privacy and the catch-all strikes again.
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whywhywhywhy
40 minutes ago
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This all feels coordinated towards another goal.
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fooqux
31 minutes ago
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Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard, but after reading the article I can't help but agree. They saw the light way too easily and the sponsors didn't push back at all. That's how it's supposed to work, yeah, but it's a far cry from anything I've experienced in my entire lifetime. Something's up.
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groby_b
57 minutes ago
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HTTP 451

"We recognise you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore cannot grant you access at this time. For any issues, e-mail us at info@franklinnews.org or call us at (847) 497-5230."

This is extremely funny given it's an article about privacy concerns :)

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plandis
33 minutes ago
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A US based non-profit news organization isn’t going to spend money to pay lawyers to ensure they meet a regulatory burden that doesn’t affect their core demographic.
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embedding-shape
21 minutes ago
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Neither are they gonna lose the potential of getting the data of any of their visitors, hence they're in this catch-22.
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embedding-shape
53 minutes ago
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I love seeing this, and love seeing regulations working exactly as wanted! What I see is basically "We're unable to serve this website without compromising your privacy, so instead of pretending or giving you a choice, we give you this message so you can turn around".
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troad
28 minutes ago
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> "We're unable to serve this website without compromising your privacy... "

More accurately, "we do not have the staff or funds to figure out what every single random law around the globe requires of us, and since foreign countries are not a realistic advertising market for a local Michigan newspaper, there's really no reason for us to try."

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charcircuit
58 seconds ago
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>since foreign countries are not a realistic advertising market for a local Michigan newspaper

This may be true for in house ads, but there are ad networks that already are able to personalize ads and have ad inventory for such foreign countries.

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embedding-shape
24 minutes ago
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Well, you don't have to do any of that stuff if you either are upfront about selling user data and ask if it's OK, or if you just don't do that stuff at all.
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master-lincoln
16 minutes ago
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But to know that you would have to study the laws of other countries or in this case EU which costs money and in this case is not an obviously beneficial investment.
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troad
17 minutes ago
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European law imposes a great deal more obligations on a business than that. This claim is simplistic to the point of disingenuousness.
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ataru
23 minutes ago
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It's illegal for us to steal from you, so we won't invite you inside.
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hypeatei
4 minutes ago
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What does GDPR get you that browser settings and an extension don't? I'm genuinely curious how random websites refusing to serve content / spamming cookie banners is a good thing?

The data download and removal side of GDPR seems useful for more "entrenched" use cases where you have an account and a long history on a service but... fly-by website visits should not be this heavily regulated. Blocking cookies and scripts is trivial.

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ciupicri
47 minutes ago
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Right... as if can trust some random American or other non-European website that it really respects the law. What are you gonna do if it breaks the GDPR law? GDPR ruined the Internet.
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master-lincoln
30 minutes ago
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I'd argue greedy capitalists ruined it. They were also the cause of GDPR
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philipallstar
24 minutes ago
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They also built it out.
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