> so they implemented what they thought was the intention of the law, to avoid prosecution.
That's not what actually happened. Companies got scared that the law would impact their business model, for which the law was directly design to impact, and asked lawyers to find the minimum change which could be argued as being in compliance.
When you ask lawyers to find a solution to a problem you do not get the intention of the law. If you ask a lawyer to find a solution to tax law you don't get the intention of the tax law, you get tax avoidance, the direct opposite. And if you ask a lawyer about consent, as I have done during conferences, you get straight answers like "People can consent to a 20 page EULA they have not read or have the legal education to translate".
It not that the word is stupid or that the person who designed the law is stupid. It just happens that if you pay a lot of people who have studied and spent a large part of their life to find clever interpretations of words what you get is a clever interpretation that may or may not be what a judge will see.
To make a quick parallel, a bunch of lawyers for companies are arguing that while the company is having millions in profits and giving out a lot of dividends to shareholder, the company is at the same time in "economical crisis" and thus deserve government grant money in order to handle corona. The department in charge of giving out the money asked its lawyers and they agreed, but the politicians are now a bit upset since they disagree. And so now everyone is arguing/blaming each other and discussing if they should change the law to specify what an economic crisis is and isn't and if the change to the law should be retroactive or not.
Trying to make good laws is not easy, and trying to anticipate how companies will react to them is also not easy. Really, n a vacuum, I think I can forgive them for not anticipating that "people will put up so many banners that it will undermine our law and make it look like we wanted more banners rather than people not using tracking cookies".
Yes, that was entirely predictable, was in fact predicted, and was really the whole experience of the cookie banners which have already plagued the web for years before the GDPR.
For the GDPR to be effective, there will need to be several more rounds of “yes, we really need you to change”. It’s a big change in business practices, and businesses don’t like change when it come to their revenue. Lots of laws get passed and then not effectively enforced, and I can’t really blame businesses for not wanting to entirely upend their business model for something the EU might not care about in a few years.
That's not what actually happened. Companies got scared that the law would impact their business model, for which the law was directly design to impact, and asked lawyers to find the minimum change which could be argued as being in compliance.
When you ask lawyers to find a solution to a problem you do not get the intention of the law. If you ask a lawyer to find a solution to tax law you don't get the intention of the tax law, you get tax avoidance, the direct opposite. And if you ask a lawyer about consent, as I have done during conferences, you get straight answers like "People can consent to a 20 page EULA they have not read or have the legal education to translate".
It not that the word is stupid or that the person who designed the law is stupid. It just happens that if you pay a lot of people who have studied and spent a large part of their life to find clever interpretations of words what you get is a clever interpretation that may or may not be what a judge will see.
To make a quick parallel, a bunch of lawyers for companies are arguing that while the company is having millions in profits and giving out a lot of dividends to shareholder, the company is at the same time in "economical crisis" and thus deserve government grant money in order to handle corona. The department in charge of giving out the money asked its lawyers and they agreed, but the politicians are now a bit upset since they disagree. And so now everyone is arguing/blaming each other and discussing if they should change the law to specify what an economic crisis is and isn't and if the change to the law should be retroactive or not.