> in the real world a lot of people/sites rely on ad revenue
I want to start a car rental business, however that requires upfront capital to buy the cars and I don't have that, so I'm gonna break the law and steal the cars to offer them up for rental. Is that what you're advocating for? Being in business is not a right; if your business model isn't sustainable without breaking the law then find a different one.
> ad revenue for the most part, requires tracking built in
Magazines are essentially full of ads and people actually pay for them and yet there's no tracking other than very generalized targeting (a car magazine will have car-related ads in it). Just because web advertising became the wild-west doesn't mean we should now legitimize it.
> and use my website/product for free
The biggest offenders (Google, Facebook, etc) don't even allow you the option to pay for it to decline tracking (and a lot of them track non-users as well; Google Analytics and the social media networks track people regardless of whether you're a user and agreed to their ToS/privacy policy).
> Why can't I say: "accept that my site is ad-supported or don't use my site?"
Because it's the law and the same reason why I can't walk into a store, start shoplifting and when caught say "sorry, should've read my ToS and not let me in if you disagreed with it".
You are welcome to vote and nag your local politicians to amend the law if you believe it's wrong but until then you need to respect it regardless whether you agree with it or not. The advertising and marketing industry has proven it is unable to self-regulate so the law has now stepped in. The industry had many chances to clean up their act (the do-not-track header was one of these chances) and they clearly told us all to fuck off so now the GDPR is a stronger solution.
I want to start a car rental business, however that requires upfront capital to buy the cars and I don't have that, so I'm gonna break the law and steal the cars to offer them up for rental. Is that what you're advocating for? Being in business is not a right; if your business model isn't sustainable without breaking the law then find a different one.
> ad revenue for the most part, requires tracking built in
Magazines are essentially full of ads and people actually pay for them and yet there's no tracking other than very generalized targeting (a car magazine will have car-related ads in it). Just because web advertising became the wild-west doesn't mean we should now legitimize it.
> and use my website/product for free
The biggest offenders (Google, Facebook, etc) don't even allow you the option to pay for it to decline tracking (and a lot of them track non-users as well; Google Analytics and the social media networks track people regardless of whether you're a user and agreed to their ToS/privacy policy).
> Why can't I say: "accept that my site is ad-supported or don't use my site?"
Because it's the law and the same reason why I can't walk into a store, start shoplifting and when caught say "sorry, should've read my ToS and not let me in if you disagreed with it".
You are welcome to vote and nag your local politicians to amend the law if you believe it's wrong but until then you need to respect it regardless whether you agree with it or not. The advertising and marketing industry has proven it is unable to self-regulate so the law has now stepped in. The industry had many chances to clean up their act (the do-not-track header was one of these chances) and they clearly told us all to fuck off so now the GDPR is a stronger solution.