The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was supposed to be Europe's big move to protect consumer privacy and reassert its technological relevance.
Maybe this is a chicken and the egg thing. Because the startup ecosystem is less mature in Europe, there is no interest group to push back against the laws. Meta and google have bigger lobbying operations and large employment. Yhr best way to drive change is to get European peoples themselves to push for change. Notice how despite pushback Ireland keeps it's friendly tax structure. The peoples of Europe need to find technology as valuable and then they will fight for it. Yet another Brussels driven initiative is unlikely to change these dynamics. One possibility is for European pension funds to organize as a group as they spend considerable sums in the American tech ecosystem and would probably prefer European ones.
Something raised my eyebrows so I emailed my daughter the following question -
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I read this in the linked paper (which I didn't read in its entirety) and wondered if you had an opinion/experience in the $1.3 million range?
"Higher process costs: GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] increases the cost of processing transactions — this is the direct cost for firms of complying. Survey evidence suggests costs ranging from $1.3 million for small companies to $70 million for larger ones. Structural estimates suggest that GDPR made data storage 20% more costly for EU firms. "
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Her reply was -
That’s absolutely ridiculous and we send millions and millions and millions of communications every year. I think it probably cost about 100 K to set up and implement?
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She is a co-founder of a UK company/app valued at about £50,000,000 in the last round of financing, annual revenues in the low single digit million £s, OLIO if you want to look it up.
I suspect companies exaggerate their costs of doing things they don't want to do. That said I'm against government mandates of this kind, period, as there is absolutely nothing GDPR can do for me that I can't do for myself, for free, if I wish to. It's called 'don't like it don't use it'. Works perfectly, every time.
Maybe this is a chicken and the egg thing. Because the startup ecosystem is less mature in Europe, there is no interest group to push back against the laws. Meta and google have bigger lobbying operations and large employment. Yhr best way to drive change is to get European peoples themselves to push for change. Notice how despite pushback Ireland keeps it's friendly tax structure. The peoples of Europe need to find technology as valuable and then they will fight for it. Yet another Brussels driven initiative is unlikely to change these dynamics. One possibility is for European pension funds to organize as a group as they spend considerable sums in the American tech ecosystem and would probably prefer European ones.
Something raised my eyebrows so I emailed my daughter the following question -
---------------------------
I read this in the linked paper (which I didn't read in its entirety) and wondered if you had an opinion/experience in the $1.3 million range?
"Higher process costs: GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] increases the cost of processing transactions — this is the direct cost for firms of complying. Survey evidence suggests costs ranging from $1.3 million for small companies to $70 million for larger ones. Structural estimates suggest that GDPR made data storage 20% more costly for EU firms. "
-----------------------------------
Her reply was -
That’s absolutely ridiculous and we send millions and millions and millions of communications every year. I think it probably cost about 100 K to set up and implement?
---------------------------------------
She is a co-founder of a UK company/app valued at about £50,000,000 in the last round of financing, annual revenues in the low single digit million £s, OLIO if you want to look it up.
I suspect companies exaggerate their costs of doing things they don't want to do. That said I'm against government mandates of this kind, period, as there is absolutely nothing GDPR can do for me that I can't do for myself, for free, if I wish to. It's called 'don't like it don't use it'. Works perfectly, every time.