> OTOH, effectiveness is pretty marginal. There have been some (minor) gains on disclosure. Somewhat better progress on data selling/sharing/security. But, no real gains on consent, which is a big part of the regulatory effort and this specific case.
From experience, a lot of folks were waiting to see what Google/Amazon/FB/etc were doing and using them as examples of what to do. These fines should help apply some downward pressure now that the regulator has explicitly called out this illegal behaviour.
I agree, and it's a good point about the industry using Google/Amazon/FB/etc as a template. I hadn't considered that in this context.
My greater reason for "scoring" progress on consent as "no real gains" is less about "compliance" and more about the goals of this compliance. What does consent mean to a non-lawyer and would do we want legislators/regulators to pursue it in the first place?
The model of consent being litigated here doesn't, imo, lead to noticeably more choice or dominion vis a vis companies. It just leads to technicalities about how popups need to be designed. Form rather than substance.
I think the reason these laws have been more effective on disclosure is that the legible, lawyerly definition of disclosure is the same as the common sense one. Consent... not so much. The actual point is not whether or not a document was correctly initialed on page 6.
From experience, a lot of folks were waiting to see what Google/Amazon/FB/etc were doing and using them as examples of what to do. These fines should help apply some downward pressure now that the regulator has explicitly called out this illegal behaviour.