A newly released working paper purports to show that extensive tech privacy laws implemented by the European Union in 2018 have significantly stifled app innovation and potentially deprived consumers of useful products.
The report was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it attempts to calculate the consumer effects of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a far-reaching European Union privacy law that forces online sites, platforms, and phone apps to more carefully get user buy-in for collecting and sharing their data. The regulations have caused massive headaches for media outlets, online providers, app manufacturers, and really anybody attempting to provide any sort of online consumer service.
