• scarabic@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I’ve had to implement wave after wave of compliance with European laws in the last several years. We tend to just comply with something like GDPR everywhere because that’s simpler and it’s a best practice. But without the teeth of legislation we’d never bother. There’s always too much to do. I would have a hard time doing something that’s better for consumers but takes a lot of effort or might even undermine our ability to monetize as aggressively as we choose to. Not without those teeth. Not a chance. Even with teeth, tech companies often find some shitty way to meet the minimum bar but really do nothing. We must offer an API? Okay. It has almost nothing in it, but enough to say we did something. We’d never stand up an API that competitors or scammers could benefit from.

    • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Oof, well, point taken and sorry for your loss lol. I hear where you’re coming from. And I’m sure we’d get a worst of both worlds situation here in the US where we spent a ton of time and money developing whatever standards and definitions, and then we make it an optional guideline like you’re saying and it never goes anywhere.

      Dunno. The fundamental problem is tech is always able to move faster and smarter than legislation.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        If I’m saying anything, it’s that legislation is the one thing tech can’t get around. Europe has put out a lot of legislation that tech hates, some good, some bad. But tech complies. The government contracts thing won’t hurt - it could possibly help legislation come about in one way: if government contracts force a handful of companies to do something, at least that shows the thing can be done. That’s kind of important because tech loves to complain that what this legislation calls for will be impossible!

        • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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          30 days ago

          I think we’re on the same page :)

          I’m mostly describing an idea where the contracts approach takes care of the necessary iteration to get a given tech policy sorted, and then legislation comes in to require it.

          My country can’t even get some basic stuff done, though, so realistically I may as well be writing fan-fic, lol

          • scarabic@lemmy.world
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            29 days ago

            contracts approach takes care of the necessary iteration to get a given tech policy sorted

            Yeah that could be of use.