My first reaction to getting an email from Google like "Here's what we're doing to be compliant with GDPR" is like... amazed incredulity that governments are actually able to regulate corporations?
@jennamagius It was pretty cool to see the reaction at work. "OK, here's what we're gonna do to be GDPR compliant: We're going to take a user-privacy-centric approach to engineering."
It's like employees actually wanted to do it in the first place, but didn't have a business reason to push for it. Now they do!
@varx That's a rather optimistic interpretation that is kinda the exact opposite of my gut reaction. (Not saying you're wrong.)
My first take was like "Wow, that must be a huge investment and take a lot of overhead to comply with, I'm surprised they don't just... refuse."
But that's like a terrible instinct of mine, of course. The state monopoly on violence should 100% be used to make corporations dance for the people.
@jennamagius I think a lot of my coworkers are super cool people, to be clear, including management. This isn't Uber. I expect some other companies will refuse, or fake it up, or barely conform to the letter of the law.
I've tried to implement some privacy initiatives at work and heard people say things like "yeah that would be cool but we have other priorities". Now the priorities have changed!
@varx I don't trust any corporation further than I can throw it. >.> A bunch of nice people working for some billionaires are inevitably going to be subverted by the billionaires to the doom of society unless something stops them.
I don't know that the EU is actually going to protect us from billionaires in any meaningful way, but... I'm glad there's literally anyone that has a lever on them still.
