I like a lot of things the EU is doing, but this spread of surveillance is something I'll always protest against. That's my biggest gripe with the EU, and I hate the Big-Brother-like thinking that gives us the GDPR and also mass surveillance.

It's clear the EU's mindset is "nobody can compromise your privacy except me, but it's OK, I'm benevolent", and I'm not a fan of that exceptions.

That is totally fair. They only way people can keep all these protections and rights is to continually fight for them.

Ok. Now pee in a cup or you're fired.

How is the GDPR big-brother-like-thinking?

The GDPR is the "nobody can compromise your privacy" part and the surveillance is the "except me" part. Big Brother's whole spiel was "we're watching over you for your own good".

To clarify, I like the GDPR, and wish the EU would give us more of that and less of the surveillance.

But because of the privacy laws their surveillance laws get sacked in court.

Same with their attempts to make the data export to the US legal.

Safe Harbor, Privacy Shield, etc. They try and try but fail every time because it's always the same just a different name.

Hopefully that prevails.

That's good, though I suspect it's a bit of a losing battle. I'll keep protesting, at any rate. I look forward to more GDPR, DMA, etc. Those make me glad I live in the EU.

WUT? GDPR gives you controll of your data, which all those "saint" vc-blessed startups from siliconvale hate with passion... (and they can go * themselves :D)

I agree, I should have said "the thinking that gives us the GDPR on one hand (good) and mass surveillance on the other (bad)".

Phrasing makes worlds of difference :)

At any rate - the mass surveillance effort is just an idea pushed by some MEPs/comissioners... it would be nice to be able to dimiss those.

Besides, there was also a complain about "cookie" banners but the UE didn't mandate to make annoying popups - the intent was to force services harvest less data... as it shows - if the law is not explicit enough then private business will try to circumvent it and push users to hate the entity/the law ('buuuu, stupid EU'... no - it's stupid and abusive corporation). At any rate I do hope that there will be push to make the configuration a browser setting akin to "DNT" with various levels ("allow all cookies", "only functional", "no cookies"; maybe more) and make websites follow it...