How Europe’s new privacy rule is reshaping the internet; The Verge, March 28, 2018

Russell Brandom, The Verge; How Europe’s new privacy rule is reshaping the internet

"The rule could also create a divide between the European Union and the rest of the internet. So far, most companies have aimed toward a single set of privacy rules for all users, which is why so many US users are noticing new privacy features and terms of service. But in many cases, it’s still easier to split off EU data, which could result in European users seeing a meaningfully different internet from the rest of the world.

On the other hand, it would be hard to make data collection more creepy at this point. So much of the internet is based on the free exchange of user data, especially the gnarly hairball that is the targeted advertising industry. That has real political consequences: the NSA can use the same system to track users across the web, and political firms like Cambridge Analytica can use it to quietly single out particular subgroups. We’ve spent the last 15 years thinking of lucrative things to do with that data, on the assumption that it would always be freely shareable. The GDPR is starting to roll it back, but the most profound changes will take years to play out, potentially reshaping the web as we know it."