Top all-time · #12567
Viggy Balagopalakrishnan
Personal blog · thisisunpacked.substack.combusinessaieconomics
Viggy Balagopalakrishnan writes Unpacked, a personal blog at thisisunpacked.substack.com about business, ai and economics. Since 2023, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 18 times, most often “EU’s War on Behavioral Advertising”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this Substack for coverage of EU privacy and tech regulation, including GDPR enforcement against behavioural advertising and Google's Chrome tracking changes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Deep dives on current tech topics to your inbox - typically spans across product strategy, AI, tech policy and fascinating companies.
Most-linked posts?
- EU’s War on Behavioral Advertising2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-08-25
- IRS Direct Tax Filing: The End of Intuit's Lobbying2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-20
What Hacker News says?
They only just launched Direct File after years of lobbying to prevent such a system by a consortium of accounting software companies[0]. If it falls apart people will continue to be forced to pay money to these companies just to file their tax. As a comparison, in my country you could submit your own tax return using government supplied desktop software since 1999, and in 2015 that software was replaced with a web…
Comment linking /p/irs-direct-tax-filing-end-of-intuit-lobbying
on “Anyone can push updates to the doge.gov website”Submitted EU’s War on Behavioral Advertising as a story · 23 points
HN discussionThe parent complains that lawmakers don't understand fingerprinting, or that companies like Google are trying to avoid the regulation of fingerprinting by focusing on cookies. Such statements are false. You're moving the discussion towards law enforcement. Well, DPAs in EU are overwhelmed, but lawsuits and rulings are progressing. For instance, Facebook found out that they can't force behavioral advertising via thei…
Comment linking /p/the-eu-war-on-behavioral-advertising
on “Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome”Submitted Epic Games, Google and App Store Monopolies as a story · 6 points
HN discussionMeta/Facebook was told that they don't have a legitimate interest in behavioral advertising. They'll need to ask for consent: https://thisisunpacked.substack.com/p/the-eu-war-on-behavior... Meta also broke the record for the biggest fine this year (1.2 billion). The fines are coming, and if they go after the biggest players first (e.g., Meta, Google), it will send shockwaves through the entire industry. When GDPR ca…
Comment linking /p/the-eu-war-on-behavioral-advertising
on “Car showed pop-up while driving”Submitted DOJ vs. Google: Case outline and arguments analysis as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted 2024 Predictions: AI, Media, Advertising and More [audio] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Instacart IPO: Race against market saturation as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted YouTube, Ad Blockers and the Advertising "Tax" as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted IRS Direct Tax Filing: The End of Intuit's Lobbying as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI-Enabled SaaS vs. Moatless AI as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted FTC's case against Amazon is misunderstood as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Regulating AI: The case for a mechanisms-based approach as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Klarna, Buy Now Pay Later and first mover advantage as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Instagram Threads: The Problem with the “Everything for Everyone” Approach as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Data scraping by language models, implications and rise of content licensing as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Y Combinator W23 batch, AI value chain and startup trends as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Data Scraping:Are Language Models Overstepping by Training on Everyone's Content as a story · 1 points
HN discussion