If I'm wrong about GDPR, I'll buy you a burrito

Don Marti
Thu, 25 May 2017 07:38:02 -0700

Europe is getting new privacy regulations that will limit surveillance marketing.

I see their point. Instead of making people navigate the fine print of privacy policies and click through broken opt-out systems. the EU is trying to save everyone some time and risk.

Meanwhile, California, like the rest of the USA, has basically zero privacy. But we do have great burritos here, so we've got that going for us anyway.

Some surveillance marketing proponents say that if Europe rolls out GDPR, then there goes all the creative stuff on the Internet. (which is roughly what the DRM proponents said about DRM, but Hugo-award-winning author Charles Stross already explained that one.)

Personally, I agree with Doc Searls that the role of privacy violation in ad-supported Internet services is way overrated. Most of the value is in ad context (what site the ad is on) and search (which does have some customization based on who you are, but mostly works based on what you search for.) Targeting just provokes blocking and makes ads less valuable. So GDPR won't break the Internet, or even ad-supported sites. I'm confident enough in this that I will back it up with an offer.

If the surveillance marketers are right, then Europeans would be deprived of some neato Internet services that we, here in California, are allowed to have. So, demonstrate for me an Internet service that is...

mentioned in a news story as creative or innovative

not offered in Europe, and the company behind it has stated that they won't offer it in Europe because GDPR.

...and I'll buy you a California burrito and link to the service from here and on Twitter. First five demos get a burrito and link.

If I'm right, then Europeans will get better advertising, a safer Internet, less fraud, stronger brands, and I'll get to eat the burritos myself.