Post

You can tell there is a new law in The Netherlands that companies are not allowed to call you out of nowhere, because suddenly every Dutch service I have ever had an account on is asking me via email if I could pretty please turn on the 'Yes, you may call me' button in my account settings. Nope!

I love laws that actually just do something. I so often hear people say that situations are 'complex', but 99% of the time it's actually super simple: Make a law forbidding it, and you can stop it. Just like these spam calls! It's that easy! It genuinely really is that simple.

It's similar to when the EU enacted free roaming around the EU. Companies were all like "That's too expensive! We'll all go bankrupt! We have to charge at least 10 euros per MB if someone is 1 kilometer over the border!"

wait, the UK doesn't have free EU roaming? I still have it when I go to the UK

Afaik, only some providers do it. They're not required to do it.

While I agree, there is also the other side of that coin which is making legislation that's actually harmful. People say "You can't have us surveil 450 million people's private conversations!" and the EU says "Watch me" and drafts ChatControl.

So the next time you are annoyed about robocalls, or hidden costs, just consider: Your vote is the easiest way to change those things. It’s that simple.