About GDPR thing

“All power to the Soviets. Peace to the People. Land to the peasants. Factories to the workers.”

…and private data to the Users!

There was an idea about a better world and a lot of people actively followed that idea. Blood was spilled. After a hundred years we have almost the same situation, but not with peasants and workers — with internet users.

History goes spirally. Now we have EU making regulations of totalitarian scale, and as an internet user, I don’t like it.

I don’t understand why such thing as GDPR compliance is obligatory, not optional? We have websites with SSL and without, and those who care can check green lock-sign in the address bar. Those who don’t… well, they don’t care.

If you didn’t know that Instagram and Facebook know your precise position when you posted a photo with a location mark, then you don’t care about this part of “personal data.” Someone who (for any reason) needs to have location hidden from third parties already manages GPS/cellular position tracking. The same principle applies to browsing history, search requests, points of interests, personal data that one enter to questionnaires all over the internet.

The GDPR-like solution that is trying to help a user in the Wild West Internet seems for me very similar to the Soviet system which deprived each one of responsibility. Making decisions for someone who doesn’t understand what’s happening is terrible in the long term. It’s taking freedom away giving short-term comfort and time to think less. It’s not a solution. It’s just a patch that has been put on terrible ulceration, while the reason not on the surface and cannot be cured from outside.

I’m saying that compliance to GDPR(-like) thing should be optional. If service is compliant with it — it can put on a beautiful badge. Users can make a decision then if they want to use it or not.

Users should be educated enough to understand what “private data” is, what a cookie is and how to disable it (so no more “ACCEPT OUR COOKIE POLICY” pop-ups!). It’s great to know how that whole Internet thing works (like they know what kind of petrol they should put in their cars and that it’s not right to drive when the red light is on)

Originally published at tabakerov.name on May 26, 2018.