I recently registered a complaint with my local data protection authority. This then got routed to their colleagues in North Rhine-Westphalia that are responsible, as the company in question had their business location there.
What the company did? They showed a consent banner - but already sent my data to all manner of analytics and marketing companies. Before I even denied consent. They also did not mention all of those trackers/companies/cookies in their consent solution nor on their privacy page.
The result from the authorities was a clear: Go f*k yourself e-mail to me (I had screenshots attached in my complaint). Basically stating: We do not see any way you are personally affected and we also have too much to do, so we won't go after a company, just because they tracked you and sent your data to a bunch of marketing companies and tracking firms, even as you denied consent. And we also don't care, that they actually did not mention quite a bunch of those receivers of my data in their data privacy page.
So yeah - when governments actually have no interest in enforcing the rules in place to protect citizens, I am lost for words. Might have been, because the company in question being in violation of the law here was a former state-owned business, that while privatised is still run by politicians (like currently by the Chairman of the FDP Federal Committee for Justice, Home Affairs, Integration, and Consumer Protection to be precise).
What pisses me off about this the most, though is, that companies that actually follow the regulations, treat customers well and respect their data privacy concerns, they are at a disadvantage. It is not that our government and those EU conservative ars**es are for a free market. They want a market in which their buddies and the ones providing the juicy jobs after governmental terms come to an end, to win. As always, conservatives follow Wilhoit's Law.
What the company did? They showed a consent banner - but already sent my data to all manner of analytics and marketing companies. Before I even denied consent. They also did not mention all of those trackers/companies/cookies in their consent solution nor on their privacy page.
The result from the authorities was a clear: Go f*k yourself e-mail to me (I had screenshots attached in my complaint). Basically stating: We do not see any way you are personally affected and we also have too much to do, so we won't go after a company, just because they tracked you and sent your data to a bunch of marketing companies and tracking firms, even as you denied consent. And we also don't care, that they actually did not mention quite a bunch of those receivers of my data in their data privacy page.
So yeah - when governments actually have no interest in enforcing the rules in place to protect citizens, I am lost for words. Might have been, because the company in question being in violation of the law here was a former state-owned business, that while privatised is still run by politicians (like currently by the Chairman of the FDP Federal Committee for Justice, Home Affairs, Integration, and Consumer Protection to be precise).
What pisses me off about this the most, though is, that companies that actually follow the regulations, treat customers well and respect their data privacy concerns, they are at a disadvantage. It is not that our government and those EU conservative ars**es are for a free market. They want a market in which their buddies and the ones providing the juicy jobs after governmental terms come to an end, to win. As always, conservatives follow Wilhoit's Law.