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I'm not a lawyer, but HN is not established (AFAIK) in the EU, and while it has EU users, it likely does not meet the threshold of actively offering goods or services to EU residents. Being accessible from the EU in itself isn't sufficient to trigger the GDPR.
please read: https://blog.axeptio.eu/en/2018/03/20/gdpr-and-united-states...
HN is not selling anything
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please read: https://blog.axeptio.eu/en/2018/03/20/gdpr-and-united-states...
>Does your online activity lead you to sell goods or services in the European Union? HN is not selling anything
Edit: who are they selling to? Would-be founders... you understand how the VC model works, right?
A particularly ugly thing happens if the HN mods for some good or bad reason decide to ban an account: their contributions will be there forever, with no ability to append explanations to previous posts. This will after May 25 be illegal for services offered in the EU, but I kind of think that the same courtesy should apply to non-europeans.
Not to devalue privacy (at all), but if the GDPR is so far reaching that anonymous posts are expected to comply with this, that destroys much discussion. Don't see why that's a reasonable expectation. That's no longer private but public data. If you contribute to public knowledge/discussion, then taking your ball and going home leaves huge gaps in history, the same way you see [deleted] throughout many Reddit threads…
No.
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>Does your online activity lead you to sell goods or services in the European Union? HN is not selling anything
HN is selling HN, their associated startups, job postings, and so on. Edit: who are they selling to? Would-be founders... you understand how the VC model works, right?
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HN certainly processes IP and email addresses of individuals within the EU.
So what? Countries don't get to make laws for other countries. That's the point in having markets of ideas.
For example ”Your worldwide income is subject to U.S. income tax, regardless of where you reside.” (https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/us-c...)
Other example: the “Hague invasion act” which authorizes the US president to invade Europe in order to liberate US citizens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...)
Third example: many countries prosecute their citizens for child pornography, even if the crime happened outside their borders (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...: ”U.S. citizens are subject to the laws of foreign countries. Furthermore, some laws are prosecutable in the United States regardless of local law”)
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>Does your online activity lead you to sell goods or services in the European Union? HN is not selling anything
HN is selling HN, their associated startups, job postings, and so on. Edit: who are they selling to? Would-be founders... you understand how the VC model works, right?
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How would EU law compel a non-EU entity to delete content based on the residency of the user? As an example of the opposite state, where this does definitely apply: Tarsnap complies with Canadian law around collecting names/addresses for users who are located in Canada, because Tarsnap is operated as a Canadian business. But if Tarsnap were located in the US, it would not be responsible for collecting that informatio…
> How would EU law compel a non-EU entity Because US and EU have singed agreements to that effect. It's the price US must pay for EU to allow American internet companies to serve EU customers. It obviously applies to any company with direct business operations in any one of the 28 member states of the EU. But financial transaction is not nessesary for the extended scope of the law to kick in. Collecting personal data…
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The regulation applies if the data controller, an organisation that collects data from EU residents, or processor, an organisation that processes data on behalf of data controller like cloud service providers or the data subject (person) is based in the EU. The regulation also applies to organisations based outside the EU if they collect or process personal data of individuals located inside the EU. According to the…
Right, so the data controller in this case is HN... which is based in the United States. What am I missing?
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How would EU law compel a non-EU entity to delete content based on the residency of the user? As an example of the opposite state, where this does definitely apply: Tarsnap complies with Canadian law around collecting names/addresses for users who are located in Canada, because Tarsnap is operated as a Canadian business. But if Tarsnap were located in the US, it would not be responsible for collecting that informatio…
> But if Tarsnap were located in the US, it would not be responsible for collecting that information from Canadian users. Responsibility is not defined by gut-feelings, but by law. So, with a suited law, Tarsnap could also be bound in Canada's jurisdiction even if it were located in the US.
Do you have an example of precedent for one country's laws being enforced on a company with no business presence in that country, without there being a law or treaty in a country the business does operate in that mandates compliance with the foreign law?
I don't think anyone would dispute that if the US were to make a law requiring US companies to comply with the GDPR for EU users, that law would apply to US companies. My point is that absent some measure by the US government, EU laws are not applicable to companies without business presence in the EU
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> But if Tarsnap were located in the US, it would not be responsible for collecting that information from Canadian users. Responsibility is not defined by gut-feelings, but by law. So, with a suited law, Tarsnap could also be bound in Canada's jurisdiction even if it were located in the US.
I'm not sure where you derived your comment about gut-feelings from. Do you have an example of precedent for one country's laws being enforced on a company with no business presence in that country, without there being a law or treaty in a country the business does operate in that mandates compliance with the foreign law? I don't think anyone would dispute that if the US were to make a law requiring US companies to c…
They are applicable if they say they are applicable. Effective enforceability is optional to applicability.
The case is pretty simple in my eyes.
We have separate, sovereign jurisdictions and governments. They can do about anything they want, if they have the means to do so and aren't bound by some treaty or law. For example, they can take legal or executive measures against anybody in the world, and it is irrelevant if that person agrees or disagrees. In fact, in the first place, it is also irrelevant what position the sovereign of that entity takes.
Now, can each sovereign entity enforce what they have decided? Well, that depends on many factors, but is optional to their decision.
The sovereign we are dealing with here is the EU. They can, within the bounds by their law and international treaties, judge and take measures against entities not residing under their jurisdiction. Who's stopping them?
See for example the sanctions on Russian officials currently imposed by the EU.
The EU has many tools to enforce it's decisions.
I don't see what's the difficulty of understanding this situation, besides not agreeing with it.