What really bothers me is the law's original design got hamstrung when governments realized it would subvert their own site analytics, and we ended up with the quite-empty-but-mandatory dialog informing users that a site does a thing that is pretty fundamental web technology (not quite as fundamental as "Transmits data using the HTTP protocol", but pretty close)---instead of scrubbing the whole initiative or replacing it with a Europe-wide education initiative ("The EU presents: browsing and you").
Maybe regulation would work better if there weren't such a disconnect between what lawmakers think people want and the way the technology works.
I always thought it was a combination of slow legislative process, legislators not understanding tech, and industry pushback. I somehow doubt underfunded government IT departments had that much pull.
Maybe regulation would work better if there weren't such a disconnect between what lawmakers think people want and the way the technology works.