A law needs a justification and needs to apply equally to everyone. Writing that about fingerprinting would not be trivial. Some site operators can make a believable argument that they use it in ways that are good for society.
My bank phoned me last summer. I'd authenticated with my usual two factors but a new browser fingerprint, then transferred a large sum to a new recipient. The bank blocked the transfers I did thay day, then phoned me to check whether I'd been phished, suffered a keylogger attack or something.
Even if this were the case - which I don’t actually believe, but… - it would be straightforward for that law to also constrain these purposes and prevent data sharing with non-worthy operations. At present it’s basically a free for all.
That is literally what GDPR is. Somehow it got reduced to cookie banners in HN psyche, but the whole idea of GDPR is to make sure that the data can be collected and used for well defined purposes that are either necessary to provide a service (preventing CC fraud would qualify), or are explicitly consented to.
The problem with the consent part is that you basically can’t take part in the modern world if you don’t. The theoretical possibility of opting out is undermined bu deliberately bad ux
Not really, there are plenty of plugins that dismiss the popups automatically without consenting to marketing. But generally we should press our legislators to require a universal interface that then can be automated, not try to win a cat-and-mouse game against multibillion conglomerates whose income depends on winning it.
I think the misunderstandings about the GDPR (even many smart people don't get it) prove that designing and writing such a law is difficult and the result has to be complex.
IMO the GDPR is good. But… it is poorly understood by many affected people . IMO if a law is poorly understood by the people it affects, then one should assume the law to be at fault, not the people. IMO it's good but I'm not happy.
> IMO the GDPR is good. But… it is poorly understood by many affected people . IMO if a law is poorly understood by the people it affects, then one should assume the law to be at fault, not the people.
You are assuming that it has to be either of them who is at fault. In reality there are third-parties who have been spewing FUD in order to confuse people about the law.
