GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules • Hacker News Board

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#121

Post by kazagistar » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:32 PM UTC

paganel wrote: post #87

qz3 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how can be a business sustainable in this way? By not building their entire business around ads and tracking.

People have tried lots of other stuff in the last 10-15 years, it was not sustainable (micro-transactions never took off, subscription-based newspapers are the exception rather than the norm etc). I'm personally fine with newspapers like the LA Times collecting and selling my personal data as long as I can read articles for "free" on their website, I think it's a pretty fair deal.

Part of the reason for the failure of those other models is their need to compete with an exploitative ad driven model. When you remove the lowest common denominator, you make it is easier for the market to accomplish something better.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#122

Post by admax88q » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:36 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #43

simion314 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a webpage with text and iamges, no user accounts and subscriptions then why you prefer to block the users then load the page without tracking, and show some static ads,better then nothing. Showing a popup with things like -we have Google analytics that track you in this way -we have FB scripts that do this -we have ad company X script that tracks this -we have Y product that tracks your focus .... would a…

No, it's not better than nothing. In fact, it's worse than nothing. Which is why they're not doing that. It's extremely difficult for classic news media to make money in the internet-world. They're not tracking you because they hate privacy, they're tracking you because they need to show you ads to earn a few cents to pay for their newsroom.

> They're not tracking you because they hate privacy

They're tracking you because they're indifferent to your privacy, and they can make money by violating it.

The writing has been on the walls for a while ever since ad blockers took off.

Media companies that are still trying to make money by selling their users are deprecated.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#123

Post by whyever » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

miabiel wrote: post #81

What about EU citizens residing outside the EU? Banning visits from EU aren't avoiding the GDPR problem.

I don't think they are protected outside the EU.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#124

Post by pluma » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

miabiel wrote: post #81

What about EU citizens residing outside the EU? Banning visits from EU aren't avoiding the GDPR problem.

The GDPR is about EU residents, not citizens. You don't need to be a EU citizen but you do need to be in the EU at the time.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#125

Post by yeeeeeeeeee » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

Regardless of GDPR, this is good in the short term. Organizations can comply with regulations (and ostensibly reduce market failures) or not comply and lose market share. If all regulations fell into the former camp we haven't tried enough strict regulations.

More generally I think a big problem with compliance is

1) Current business model practices. We don't know how all the ways to make money on the Internet because it hasn't been around that long so we just sell data/ads.

2) Technical limitations. The Internet is organized around centralized systems but this doesn't have to be the case. It's just hard to build a comparable decentralized system easily with the current tools.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#126

Post by kinsomo » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #115

yulaow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those businesses are heavy shadow tracking/ads companies which don't even know which user data are they collecting, to who are they sending them and for which final use, man, I am so damn happy.

This reads to me like a warmonger justifying innocent casualties. Surely you don't believe this only takes out the bad do you?

> This reads to me like a warmonger justifying innocent casualties. Surely you don't believe this only takes out the bad do you?

How would it take out GDPR compliant websites? It they're not complaint, they're not exactly "innocent."

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#127

Post by kinsomo » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #31

imdutch wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still run a free website and be compliant with the GDPR. The EU/EEA is the largest market in the world, closing yourself for an market that size will hurt more than changing a few thing to be compliant.

>closing yourself for an market that size will hurt more than changing a few thing to be compliant Only if I make significant money from that market. If most of my revenue/profit comes from the US and it's problematic to "do business" in the EU or China, why wouldn't I want to just cut access off rather than dealing with potential hassles? The fact that it's potentially a large market is irrelevant to me. In this cas…

> Only if I make significant money from that market. If most of my revenue/profit comes from the US and it's problematic to "do business" in the EU or China, why wouldn't I want to just cut access off rather than dealing with potential hassles?

Because you would rather grow your market?

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#128

Post by awat » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

On one hand I can understand why some orgs are having trouble with GDPR.

On the other hand it’s pretty clear the actions of more than a few have gotten GDPR to where it is.

My takeaway at the moment is something along the lines of this is why we can’t have nice things.

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#129

Post by nostalgeek » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #100

zerostar07 wrote: post #89

Well we still have HN, even if non-compliant.

Why is HN non-compliant? They use Cloudflare which has gone out of their way to be compliant (to the point of offering US citizens and the rest of the world the same protections as EU citizens), and nothing else is included on the page that could track you (check it if you don't believe me). You can anonymize your profile, you can edit it and you can use one of several services to get your data out. On the whole it i…

AFAIK you can't delete all your messages on HN, nor even delete your profile. They also do fingerprinting, or else how can they detect people with multiple accounts?

Re: GDPR: US news sites unavailable to EU users over data protection rules

#130

Post by fredley » Fri, May 25, 2018, 2:51 PM UTC

yeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #125

Regardless of GDPR, this is good in the short term. Organizations can comply with regulations (and ostensibly reduce market failures) or not comply and lose market share. If all regulations fell into the former camp we haven't tried enough strict regulations. More generally I think a big problem with compliance is 1) Current business model practices. We don't know how all the ways to make money on the Internet becaus…

I agree with this, and hope that it will cause innovation on both points. I know there are a lot of regulation-phobes on here, but good regulation is a driver of (good) innovation, as opposed to further innovation in fields like spying on customers and exfiltrating as much data on them as possible.

Innovation will always be made, and I feel that currently, many great minds are being utilised to make people click on ads. Hopefully this is a step towards changing that.