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

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

#161

Post by gutnor »

firic wrote: post #10

Things like this will test how much EU citizens value their privacy. Of course there will be some sites they will not be able to visit but time will show if they are okay with that. These rules are very similar to rules limiting loans. No matter how desperate a person is and how low credit they have, in the US you can't give them a loan for above a certain amount of interest. That could be terrible for a poor person…

> then the result will probably be that a lot of free websites ban EU users and smaller companies take their place with products that either cost money or will be a bit worse.

Availability of quality free content is not a problem, the content will just be available from other source.

The big problem on the ads-monetized web today is ranking high enough, and the site that don't want to apply GDPR will just have to compete with the site that do have the extra push the EU market give them. On the advertizer side, they make direct money from content accessibility so they will upgrade their tracker so it is GDPR compliant for EU-traffic with no work from the content publisher. That is a non issue, this is just day one of a big change.

Let's also not paint a rosy picture of the web either. GEO blocking is a common daily reality for people outside the US. Any valuable and popular content is locked already, despite being monetized quite directly (see Netflix, Amazon Prime, ...)

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

#162

Post by bcoates »

khamoud wrote: post #143
tracker1 wrote: post #116

Honest hypothetical question... my website is in the US, my servers in the US, why would I care about the GDPR?

The US and EU have a good relationship. The EU can (probably will) use international law to hold you accountable and the US is likely to comply. EDIT: you is the hypothetical you. If the EU targets you then they will use international law to do so.

Enforcement in practice is almost certain to be "at the edge" with things like payment processors and ad networks that have direct business operations in the EU and are easy to demand third-party compliance from.

If you literally don't do any business with EU entities, even at arm's length, enforcement is going to be impractical and unlikely.

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

#163

Post by dageshi »

khamoud wrote: post #143
tracker1 wrote: post #116

Honest hypothetical question... my website is in the US, my servers in the US, why would I care about the GDPR?

The US and EU have a good relationship. The EU can (probably will) use international law to hold you accountable and the US is likely to comply. EDIT: you is the hypothetical you. If the EU targets you then they will use international law to do so.

yeah.... that's gonna happen

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

#164

Post by khamoud »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #156
khamoud wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and EU have a good relationship. The EU can (probably will) use international law to hold you accountable and the US is likely to comply. EDIT: you is the hypothetical you. If the EU targets you then they will use international law to do so.

Ha. You’re insane if you think that the US Congress is going to start letting 28 agencies in the EU start fining small businesses that have no EU presence whatsoever. The political ads write themselves.

I guess the question is what does the EU value more, privacy or their relationship with the US?

I don't have an answer but I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

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

#165

Post by ryanwaggoner »

tracker1 wrote: post #116

Honest hypothetical question... my website is in the US, my servers in the US, why would I care about the GDPR?

You should ask an attorney, not take random advice from the internet.

But since you asked, here’s some random advice that HN will hate but can’t refute: you should ignore it. You shouldn’t misuse user data, but that’s always been true. But you shouldn’t worry about the latest laws or regulations from any countries that have no effective jurisdiction over you, even if they claim to. If New Zealand sees a blog post of mine that they dislike and sends me a bill for a $100 fine, it’s going straight in the garbage. There’s nothing they can do. Same with the GDPR.

Don’t misuse user data, ask an attorney, you’ll be fine.

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

#166

Post by dageshi »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #151
danbruc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing business in the EU is only one path that causes the GDPR apply to you, processing personal data of people located within the EU, not necessarily EU citizens, is another one and probably the one relevant here. Article 3(2): This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are…

But what's the worst that could happen? Your site would get dns blocked in the EU?

They are perhaps owned by media organisations that do in some way do business with the EU even if those specific outlets do not.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] »

khamoud wrote: post #143
tracker1 wrote: post #116

Honest hypothetical question... my website is in the US, my servers in the US, why would I care about the GDPR?

The US and EU have a good relationship. The EU can (probably will) use international law to hold you accountable and the US is likely to comply. EDIT: you is the hypothetical you. If the EU targets you then they will use international law to do so.

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by kazz »

flohofwoe wrote: post #48

Alternatively there's this: https://eu.usatoday.com/ No ads, no tracking, no cookies, not even Javascript. Just plain HTML+CSS and JPEG images. The whole front page is around 650 KByte, and by far most of this is in the image files. As a result the page looks very clean and loads very fast. This is what all news web sites should look like, not just for EU readers (although I fear that this is just a temporary solutio…

I just get redirected back to https://usatoday.com :( Perks of living in the US, I guess.

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

#169

Post by ryanwaggoner »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #137
tracker1 wrote: post #116

Honest hypothetical question... my website is in the US, my servers in the US, why would I care about the GDPR?

Does your website serve users from EU region or do you intend to block incoming traffic form EU? If you serve them then you might want to collect some data points about them. It is like being on the internet you are by default given a chance to operate business (website in this case) in whatever country a user access your website from. You are not going to open a franchise in Germany and not abide by their local laws…

This is an insane argument. So now by having a blog, I’m under the jurisdiction of 200 countries and countless other small jurisdictions? What happens when they all contradict each other? Or when I can’t tell what jurisdiction a user belongs to? Or when they pass crazy laws like anti-blasphemy or demand half my revenue, or whatever?

I don’t think you’ve thought this through.

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

#170

Post by ajmurmann »

awat wrote: post #128

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.

As someone else is pointing out, a business needs to have a positive reason to follow this regulation. If the very vast majority of my business is from US readers/customers and practically no money comes in from European readers why would I put any effort in at all to comply rather than just block. The only scenario where this would happen is of compliance was cheaper than blocking.
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