Of course this GDPR in Europe thing is pointless noyb.eu/en/years-and-still-no-…

Trying to force people to be good in today's trade-based society, is moronic. You can't "dictate" that these online giants be honest about what data they collect about you, when data is their main trade asset. They will lie, deceive, and have so much money that suing them is futile.

Also, at least if EU understood that data collection means data trade and it is the same as any form of trade. The same way you walk into a supermarket, take some food, and then you have to give them money (trade), the same way you visit Facebook and have to give them your attention (watch ads) + your data. The difference is that these are new trades and no one understands them it seems. Plus, another difference is that Facebook "takes your money" the moment you come into their supermarket, without being very open about that at all. That's how it is: like a supermarket that charges your credit card the moment you come into the store.

Maybe EU should have at least understood that. Probably this "economy" needs a complete down-to-earth definition: it is a trade based society. That's all it is. We trade labor for food or other needs/wants, we trade data for entertainment, we trade our attention for services, and so forth. And we at times use currencies to represent these trades: money, cryptocurrencies, tokens, likes, views, etc.. SIMPLE.

I suggest to the EU to at least understand that, and then name their "GDPR" as W.A.I.T. - What Am I Trading?

This way, you try to force companies to be open about what users have to trade to them, the same way a supermarket has to put up the prices for the items they sell. And if EU did that, at least we may educate people about what is truly happening in these "data mining and collecting" scenarios.

People are obsessed about new and fancy words and theories: privacy-friendly, privacy-oriented, data mining, the attention economy, surveillance capitalism, freemium, freeware, and so forth. All of these are describing TRADE. It is simply trade going online, and different rules, norms and practices forming around them.

In the end is the same folks....the same supermarket charging you for that food you want to grab. And the same way the supermarkets put those .99 prices to confuse you, and deceiving marketing and labeling (natural products, organic, fair trade, etc.), the same exact way happens online with Facebook, Google and the like that are simply supermarkets that sell you services in return for money, other currencies, data, attention and so forth. It is just a different medium, but the same practice sprinkled with different approaches.

Don't get confused!

We explain all about that here tromsite.com/books/#flipbook-d…

And in the upcoming TROM II documentary. #tromlive