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Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

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Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#91
post #58

Is anyone talking about the harmful effects on startup companies that may want to create new social platforms to compete against the incumbent players? All the talk about regulating facebook, twitter, etc are actually great for those companies because they can afford compliance. But it raises the bar of entry so high that new companies wouldn't be able to compete since with limited resources they wouldn't be able to…

I think a few blogs have touched on this: * https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nightmare-letter-subject-acce... * https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-develo... * https://wtfuh.com/2018-04-09/gdpr-has-a-few-problems/ * https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/

Based on the first link, that letter scares me a lot. I have a feeling that this level of regulation will destroy any social startup. You'd need a compliance department larger than engineering just to remain legal. This is clearly a win to Facebook.

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#92
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a few blogs have touched on this: * https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nightmare-letter-subject-acce... * https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-develo... * https://wtfuh.com/2018-04-09/gdpr-has-a-few-problems/ * https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/

thanks, wow responding to a letter like your first link could significantly bog down resources for a young company... you can imagine if you launched and even received moderate user growth early on, but then started receiving such letters, your productivity could go down the tubes.

Honestly, those questions should be pretty easy to answer especially if your company is small. If as a business you can’t answer these basic questions about the data you want to collect from me, I’m going to be hesitant to share it.

People keep sharing that “nightmare letter” link but won’t point out which question gives them nightmares and why.

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#93

I think in the opposit we should urge US companies to fight against GDPR. Local foreign laws shouldn’t dictate how our companies should behave. Why not respecting speech laws in China or in Russia if we follow this precedent?

"our companies"? Facebook isn't only a US company. Facebook Ltd is a UK company and they have many more companies around the world. If you want to operate in UK and generate revenues there then Facebook Ltd must follow UK laws.

GDPR is more overeaching than that. You don’t need physical presence in EU to be subject to it. In theory, just having a webserver storing access logs (default of Apache and Nginx) makes you infringing it as EU IPs are now considered personal data.

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people don’t care about fire safety either (until their house is burning down) which is why we have regulations, building codes, mandatory sprinklers in offices, etc. I am starting to look at privacy like it should be treated as a public safety concern, since it’s invisible to people until it’s not.

can social media kill you though? I mean all this talk of regulating social networks is under the assumption that it's something you need to have. I would argue that safe shelter is a true human need, but posting cat gifs or pictures of drunken escapades or political musings does not seem equally comparable and thus I do not see how regulation does anything other than hamper competition.

> can social media kill you though?

I assume you're aware of this: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/13/un-says-facebook-is-accele...

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#95
post #52
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU residents, not citizens. It's an important distinction. Sorry if this is obvious. I haven't been following the details of this. Does that mean there is no protection for EU citizens while they are outside the EU?

Roughly: def GDPR_applies(company, person): if in_EU(person): return True if in_EU(company): return True return False There are various conditions, limitations, and exceptions that make the above not fully accurate, but its a good first approximation. You can read the actual text of the territorial scope rule here [1]. Edit: slightly less rough, but still quite rough: def GDPR_applies(company, person): if in_EU(compa…

I think this is a bit of an oversimplification. How do Facebook's EU subsidiaries fit into this? Can Facebook US simply divest themselves of responsibility in this case?

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#96

Is anyone talking about the harmful effects on startup companies that may want to create new social platforms to compete against the incumbent players? All the talk about regulating facebook, twitter, etc are actually great for those companies because they can afford compliance. But it raises the bar of entry so high that new companies wouldn't be able to compete since with limited resources they wouldn't be able to…

>> with limited resources they wouldn't be able to focus on the critical period of acquiring users and instead would be forced into building compliance features

If you cannot comply with privacy rules you should not do social media, whatever you growth phase

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#97
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a few blogs have touched on this: * https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nightmare-letter-subject-acce... * https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/gdpr-for-web-develo... * https://wtfuh.com/2018-04-09/gdpr-has-a-few-problems/ * https://pagefair.com/blog/2018/granular-gdpr-consent/

thanks, wow responding to a letter like your first link could significantly bog down resources for a young company... you can imagine if you launched and even received moderate user growth early on, but then started receiving such letters, your productivity could go down the tubes.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#98
post #13
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as absurd as Google/Facebook/et al. adopting US cultural norms as global standard of banning ads, YouTube content, social media content and everything else for the whole world. Meaning: not absurd at all.

While I don't agree with some of Google/Facebook/et al. standards, I think that's not a fair comparison, since they are US based companies following US cultural norms, not EU based companies following US cultural norms.

Google and Facebook both have significant European and Asian businesses (complete with offices stuffed full of engineers, marketing and management), so calling them US companies is wrong: they are _global_ companies which happen to be headquartered in the US.

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#99

Is anyone talking about the harmful effects on startup companies that may want to create new social platforms to compete against the incumbent players? All the talk about regulating facebook, twitter, etc are actually great for those companies because they can afford compliance. But it raises the bar of entry so high that new companies wouldn't be able to compete since with limited resources they wouldn't be able to…

>> with limited resources they wouldn't be able to focus on the critical period of acquiring users and instead would be forced into building compliance features If you cannot comply with privacy rules you should not do social media, whatever you growth phase

[deleted]

Re: Facebook urged to make GDPR its “baseline standard” globally

#100

"[any big US tech companies] Urged to Adopt GDPR Globally as a Standard" As an European living abroad, I still have no idea if I will be protected by the GDPR. I read at least 2 opposite answers on HN on the last days: "yes because you are a EU citizen", "no because it's where you are when the data are collected that matters".

Check out Article 3 of GDPR, "Territorial Scope", for some guidance on that: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/
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