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Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

baekdal.com

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Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#431
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to art. 27 GDPR, affected data processors outside the EU have to establish a data privacy representative in the EU. In addition, authorities could for example seize local servers in the case of non-compliance. In many EU countries including Germany, data privacy violations can also be prosecuted as criminal offenses.

But this doesn't answer my question: I'm running a little side project here in Australia but with customers who happen to be in the EU. I have nothing in the EU - no sales office or support in Ireland, no hosting anywhere in the EU. How is the EU supposed to mandate that I do anything ?

As long as you don't go on holiday to Rome, you'll be fine.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tie such visit to a real person. For example, if this is a Facebook user, and your site includes resources from facebook.com, Facebook will know exactly which real person visited your site, and the user did not give you consent to share such info with Facebook.

Isn't that in Facebook's court though? They acquired your name, birthdate, address, etc. And they didn't aquire it through your website. Calling IP address or screen size "person" identifying information seems a stretch to me.

If you embed a Facebook like button and Facebook loads their scripts into YOUR site then it is YOUR responsibility to make sure Facebook is compliant with the law.

The same goes for ad networks. YOU are responsible for making sure the ad network is compliant. If you include a non-GDPR complaint ad network script on your site and somebody complaints, then you are in for it because you were ultimately responsible for that network being able to track the user on YOUR webpage.

If Facebook is GDPR compliant and has consent from the user then you are in the clear. If Facebook is not GDPR compliant and tracking people who aren't users then a EU or local court will set up a campfire under their asses (German courts already have).

IP addresses are definitely personal data (PII and Personal Data are different, the GDPR defines and cares only about the later, PII is mostly an US term used interchangeably with PD on the internet) German and EU courts have ruled that since an IP can be traced back to a person, it's personal data. Unless you have a good reason to log it (hint: firewall and webserver logs) then you need consent for it.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#433
post #294
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting GDPR: "Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s agreement [...]" [1] "Consent is presumed not to be freely given [...] if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance." [2] [1] https://gdpr-i…

> the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance. but to play the devil's advocate, if it costs money to provide a service, but that money is currently supplied by selling personal data to third-parties, then isn't it true that the service cannot be provided without the data?

Well then you'll have to hinge the performance of your service on actually asking the user for money.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#434

GDPR articles seem to be getting some traction on HN as everyone is trying to figure out: "Do I need to do something for this? Is so, what?" For a recent project I read (and translated to plain english) [1] every single article in the GDPR legislation and for our purposes it can be summed up as: "Treat user data like names and emails as if they were credit card numbers" AKA: be paranoid about keeping them, encrypt th…

That's a fair analogy! I do think having a service like stripe for pii would make things easier. Why would we need first name and email address? As programmer I only need user ID!

[deleted]

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#435
post #184
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> News outlets existed before the web, so they're not going to be threatened by breaking the ad-supported website model. If anything, the traditional newspapers will be saved by this, because if free online news disappears, people will start buying newspaper subscriptions again. We're also seeing very concerning trends in the readerships and profitability of print media (because of the Web, many think). So I don't th…

I do not think it is bad, I think that is evolution. Ads only content is total crap. We have to teach people to pay for content. Second part is we have to teach publishers not to be greedy. Just like iTunes with music, easy small payments, not subscribtions no one wants. Maybe they could make actually some use of crypto currencies but there would have to be strong player like apple to press for consensus. Otherwise e…

> Maybe they could make actually some use of crypto currencies but there would have to be strong player like apple to press for consensus.

I doubt it. Cryptocurrencies seem to be terrible for micropayments.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Print news media was dying for decades before online media came online, and was almost entirely paid for by ads (many local publications were and are free of charge, and many of the paid ones charged primarily to have paid circulation numbers and shape the socioeconomic demographics of their audience, both of which were and are mechanisms to boost advertising revenue.)

> Print news media was dying for decades before online media came online Any sources for this? I don't think this was the case at all at least in my part of Europe.

It may not have been the case in Europe; the decline in circulation in the print media in the US was widely discussed as long trend in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and attributed to a number of factors, most notably (but not exclusively) the wave of mergers and associated cuts in local newsrooms and non-wire-service content in the preceding couple of decades.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#437
There's some major problems with this:

"You cannot use any personal identifying data from any visitor who is a one-time visitor."

If an IP address is "personal identifying data" (as the author subsequently states), then every visitor is a one-time visitor. You can try tracking unique visitors by something else, like some user agent data, but it's less accurate. Ignoring IP means optimizing a site for click-to-sales becomes a lot more vague.

If a site converts each unique IP to a hash, then that's one way to get a unique visitor, but then which hash method do you use? MD5 is hackable to anyone having a list of hashes to IP addresses, and anything else can be more complicated and less standardized, so therefore more prone to bugs and bad coding, and therefore more costly to the business.

"You cannot load any 3rd party service, because by doing that you would be sending personally identifying data to those services (like people's IP address)."

If you can't even load 3rd-party software because they can see IP addresses, then you can't have any tracking, including aggregate, unless you build your own, which can be highly costly and is inherently inefficient with many pre-built solutions already existing and refined, even if they're open-source.

This restriction seems just as unreasonable as the first, also based on IP, and I'm not sure the politicians who made this restriction understand the web.

"You cannot even do personally identifying internal analytics."

If this is true, then you're cutting out a lot of site optimization and sales navigation because you're not always going to be right about what people want or how they will click things on the site. Without IP tracking, you can't follow where someone is going or tie that user to a bug, just get an aggregate of many, which can be vague.

"The reason is that a first time visitor hasn't done anything that could be considered consent, so you have nothing to work with."

This is incorrect, the user has given consent to make available any info the browser provides, which has to include IP address so the server knows where to send the response. If a politician doesn't understand this, then someone hasn't explained it to them.

It is a natural right of a website and publisher to use IP addresses, because they are required for web communication and identifying abusers. How they use it beyond that is what should be regulated, not just the visibility or collection of it.

"I don't think publishers realize just what this means."

I don't think the politicians understand just what this means either.

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#438
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe? Those are three publications that have sent shockwaves around the world with their privately-funded investigative journalism.

Absolutely, and they would benefit from the end of ad supported, low quality but free online news. All three are subscription funded.

40% of NYT's revenue comes from ads.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-c...

Re: Publishers Haven't Realized How Big a Deal GDPR Is

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Having insight into website traffic is hugely valuable to webmasters.

The website should still work without analytics.

The company would not (one can argue). Business analytics are critical.
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