According to recently released survey data, European trust in the Internet is at its lowest in a decade. As Daniel Castro and Eline Chivot write for European Views, these results show that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)—which the EU has touted as the gold standard for data protection rules—has had no impact on consumer trust in the digital economy since it came into force last May. Moreover, these findings suggest that the conventional wisdom among EU policymakers—that more regulation is necessary to spur consumer trust and innovation in the digital economy—is fundamentally flawed and should be abandoned. Going forward, EU policymakers should consider the evidence before blindly continuing down this same tired and fruitless path.
