New privacy rules could spell the end of legalese — or create a lot more fine print; The Washington Post, May 24, 2018

Elizabeth Dwoskin, The Washington Post; New privacy rules could spell the end of legalese — or create a lot more fine print

"“The companies are realizing that it is not enough to get people to just click through,” said Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s former chief technologist. “That they need to communicate so that people are not surprised when they find out what they consented to.”

That has become more apparent in the past two months since revelations that a Trump-connected consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, made off with the Facebook profiles of up to 87 million Americans. Cranor said that consumer outrage over Cambridge was directly related to concerns that companies were engaging in opaque practices behind the scenes, and that consumers had unknowingly allowed it to happen by signing away their rights.

Irrespective of simpler explanations, the impact and success of the GDPR will hinge upon whether companies will try to force users to consent to their tracking or targeting as condition for access to their services, said Alessandro Acquisti, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor and privacy researcher. "This will tell us a lot regarding whether the recent flurry of privacy policy modifications demonstrates a sincere change in the privacy stance of those companies or is more about paying lip service to the new regulation. The early signs are not auspicious.""