Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

monal.im

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 957 posts

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#421

Post by anonymouz »

kybernetikos wrote: post #114
anonymouz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: > BetonSports plc is a British online gambling company founded by Gary Kaplan in 1995. The company was one of the biggest players in the United States online gaming market, drawing in several billion US dollars in wagers in the early 2000s.[1] In June 2006 US authorities indicted the company and a number of its executives on RICO, mail fraud, and tax evasion charges arising from its supplying online b…

While I agree that violating the GDPR is much less likely to result in being pulled off a plane than running a company that allows people to gasp gamble on the internet, your characterisation of the problem as 'federal crimes' seems to suggest that there was something much more nefarious going on than simply allowing people in another jurisdiction to do something over the internet that is completely legal in the juri…

Maybe we just misunderstood each other a bit: My point about the 'federal crime' is not to judge gambling as more nefarious, but to simply point out that the violated law in this case is a completely different type of law (criminal).

As you correctly note, the GDPR is an EU regulation that will be enforced by national regulatory bodies through warning letters and fines. Unlike for criminal offenses, there simply is no way for it to be enforced by a police force or through arrests.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#422

Post by jacquesm »

product50 wrote: post #415
jacquesm wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For small businesses it’s practically impossible to be in compliance for all laws. I've been in continuous operation with my businesses since 1986 and I guarantee you that I've been compliant with the laws as much as I'm aware of them. The major transgressions involving business assets were parking tickets, speeding tickets ( Running a small business in a way that is compliant with the law is stupidly easy: know th…

That is the OPs exact point. Did you read the article? He mentioned that "The days of someone making something, putting it on the internet and offering it to the world seem to be over". And here you are talking about knowing the laws while the OP sits in a different country trying to run his business. You might be from Europe and to you it may just seem sensible but 1-5 person companies often have to make tradeoffs l…

> And here you are talking about knowing the laws while the OP sits in a different country trying to run his business.

I also have to be compliant with US laws if I deal with US citizens. What's the difference?

> You might be from Europe and to you it may just seem sensible but 1-5 person companies often have to make tradeoffs like this.

Not the ones that want to stay in business.

> It is not right to say just comply with the law - it is so easy!

But it is easy, he's just making it seem as though it isn't. There is so much factually wrong in that blog post that if that's the level of thinking that goes into the decision making then there most likely are other issues.

> The company, here, has decided that the cost is too high and that they are out.

Probably good riddance. But for all the wrong reasons.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#423

Post by optimalKEK »

tathougies wrote: post #400
jacquesm wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hobbies cost money and time. In this case it will only cost him a little bit of time.

Perhaps this isn't obvious to everyone, but other people are actually not obligated to spend their time doing things you want them to.

That's the law in the EU, I think it's natural to have a hobby that doesn't break any laws.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#424

Post by fcbrooklyn »

jacquesm wrote: post #273

This is a ridiculous over-reaction based on an extremely shallow interpretation of the GDPR. If you are running a small business and you feel that you won't be able to operate your business because of the GDPR consider all those other laws that you have to be in compliance with as well. If that's your attitude towards legal compliance then you should probably shut your business down completely rather than to hope tha…

It is impossible to sell raw-milk cheese in the United States. Are French cheese makers overreacting by simply choosing not to do business here rather than change their centuries-old production techniques? It is illegal to sell kinder eggs in the US, because of some law that involves children accidentally swallowing toys. Is Kinder overreacting by refusing to sell those candies here? You cannot buy Bovril in the US, because of a panic about mad cow disease from 20 years ago. Are the manufacturers of bovril overreacting by refusing to create a separate production facility that uses only beef sourced from outside the UK? Compliance with laws outside your primary market has a cost, and potentially a benefit. Every business, large or small, is going to do that cost-benefit analysis, and make their own decisions. As an american I can hardly blame the Kinder people for failing to provide me with convenient access to chocolate eggs containing plastic toys. It's my government, and the laws they've put in place that have had that effect.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#425

Post by themacguffinman »

lossolo wrote: post #71
slackoverflower wrote: post #12

I'm convinced this is the start where EU citizens become second class Internet users. Many businesses just don't want to go through the troubles of GDPR regulatory hoops. For most businesses, there's enough customers to sustain their business in the US, Canada, rest of the world that they can ignore all EU customers.

> I'm convinced this is the start where EU citizens become second class Internet users. This is free market with 550 mil potential users/citizens, void will be filled pretty quickly by other companies/developers that actually spent some time reading about what GDPR is.

Yes, the void will be filled by megacorps like Google who were practically GDPR compliant 5 years ago because they have armies of developers and lawyers dedicated to data management and legal compliance.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#426

Post by always_good »

jacquesm wrote: post #394
zitterbewegung wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses hate regulation and uncertainty because it just adds to their costs. Large companies just eat the cost. For small businesses it’s practically impossible to be in compliance for all laws. But if the risk of not being compliant is too high and the reward is too low then they will choose this.

> For small businesses it’s practically impossible to be in compliance for all laws. I've been in continuous operation with my businesses since 1986 and I guarantee you that I've been compliant with the laws as much as I'm aware of them. The major transgressions involving business assets were parking tickets, speeding tickets ( Running a small business in a way that is compliant with the law is stupidly easy: know th…

> [Complying] with the law is stupidly easy: know the law.

You're out of touch.

Compliance just isn't as simple as you think it is no matter how much you double down in these comments. Laws aren't black and white. Do you not use an accountant, either?

Frankly, your advice is terrible.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#427

Post by zerostar07 »

optimalKEK wrote: post #419
jacquesm wrote: post #273

This is a ridiculous over-reaction based on an extremely shallow interpretation of the GDPR. If you are running a small business and you feel that you won't be able to operate your business because of the GDPR consider all those other laws that you have to be in compliance with as well. If that's your attitude towards legal compliance then you should probably shut your business down completely rather than to hope tha…

Thanks for clearing that up - I can't stand people who think they are above the law. Here in France and Germany, this law is creating a lot of jobs too. I hope more laws like that in the future so that even more jobs can be created. I love the EU :-)

For jobs to be created (presumably in startups) , there must be startups first. Startups won't be started if you need to hire 1 full time accountant (for the VAT mess), 1 privacy person and 1 lawyer before you even lay down your idea. I get it that GDPR is creating some nice jobs these months, but it won't last long. I wonder if this guy would even make the app if he was in the EU today.

I am all for fair taxation and privacy, but the EU should start creating the mechanisms that make it easy and automatic for startups to comply with stringent requirements instead of leaving the burden upon them.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#428

Post by s73v3r_ »

jimmaswell wrote: post #133
elephant0xffff wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people named Jane are more likely to eat ice cream, you can't target ice cream ads at them and help keep your site free, without asking them. Apart from the fact that people named Jane aren't more likely to eat ice cream, you seem to criticize that it gets harder to target ads? Oh no, that's a real pity. Oh no, poor webmasters.

>Oh no, that's a real pity. Oh no, poor webmasters. Why are the rights of people who own websites less important to you than the rights of other people? Regardless, you might not still be saying this once half the websites smaller than Google become subscription-based in the EU or just block the EU altogether.

Why do you feel entitled to invasive tracking of users?

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#429

Post by jimmaswell »

lovich wrote: post #379
jimmaswell wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for most legislation being a long term benefit to society? If forcing low-earning EU citizens off the internet because every website requires a subscription is a social good to you, then sure, it's a long term benefit.

Is the internet even a net benefit with this current trend towards turning everything into clickbait or some other psychological experiment to get traffic and harvest data off of it? How useful is the average website now compared to what the internet was like in the 2000's? Even if it would all be a net benefit, why is it ok for all of these companies to be so misleading about it. No one out a simple EULA, for what i…

The rate of high-quality content being added to the internet has surely been on the increase as the adoption of the web increased, even if the likes of clickbait and spam grew faster, shifting the "average" quality down.

Re: GDPR: Removing Monal from the EU

#430

Post by yesco »

jimnotgym wrote: post #131
drcode wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the FAQ, the only way to really safely ignore the DPO provision would be to hire a law firm with GDPR expertise to parse the vague language in the law and to give written guidance as to whether the law applies to each specific web site, which you can then present to EU authorities in the future to show you performed due diligence to try to meet the requirements of the law.

I can only think you are not familiar with European principle based law vs US rule based law. Where you see 'vague', I see 'flexible' and 'able to move with the times'

Have you considered that a law being "flexible" and "able to move with the times" is exactly why someone wouldn't like it being vague? A law that is "flexible" means that it's a law that can be arbitrarily applied. A law that can "move with the times" means that what might be fine now won't be fine later and just maybe you will be the first to find out.

It doesn't matter if European law has a history of being "principle based", if it can fuck you then someday it just might. Europeans might be fine with this, but I think most Americans would not be. If I was in OP's position I would do the same thing, by simply blocking an IP range all possibility of being made an example of by some people from another continent is flushed down the drain. I'm absolutely baffled why people think this is absurd, if you're not even making any income off of it, why would you ever open yourself up to such expensive potential liability?

Post reply on HN