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Sorry, I want to choose when when I allow to abuse my private data and when not. I don't need any thirdparty that doesn't even know who I am to do it for me.

I think your view of the world is harmful for freedom I value very much.



The GDPR is precisely trying to give you that choice. It was the website in question that has chosen to block you, not the EU.


They blocked him to cover their ass from legal issues. Given that this is a response that many will take who don't wish to bear the burden of potential legal scrutiny, the GDPR is in part impacting his freedom as a citizen in the EU to access outside content.


GDPR gives me this choice -- either you will:

a) read articles of companies that spend $100.000 for law consulting companies so the company is sure they follow GDPR rules, b) not read any articles at all.

It's a shitty choice, IF it's a choice at all, because it promotes rich companies and punishes small ones. It promotes monopoly.

GDPR doesn't say to the companies: "you need to give the user a choice". It says: "you have additional 100 regulations to obey from today or we'll fine your ass so much you'll have to close your company". Some companies don't want to waste time/money to analyze those regulations because they're small, or because they want to actually focus on the business logic instead of interpreting the law that won't help them gain profits. Granted, there are also situations that some companies don't want to resign from their poor/questionable management of data. But they won't do me any harm because I know how to defend from them. And I dislike that someone forces on me their inferior method of defence, when I can do better.


Following the GDPR is easy though, if you have any kind of decent data policies it's usually almost done already.


> a) read articles of companies that spend $100.000 for law consulting companies so the company is sure they follow GDPR rules, b) not read any articles at all.

Which company do you know that spent that much money to make a simple news website GDPR-proof?

Yes, it was a lot of annoyance to deal with a year ago, because we had zero precedent, badly worded laws, idiotic domestic laws, and predatory lawyers creating urban legends. Yes, I hated it too. My guess is that about 30% of sites in Europe are compliant. Nothing happens to the other 70%. How bad was the transition? For your average website, it cost you about 50 Euros and a few hours of work to understand the basics. Once you've worked on one, the time required drops massively, and the money drops to zero.




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