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GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

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Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#231

Post by ravar »

djhworld wrote: post #163
briandear wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loudest GDPR advocates don’t care about you. 90 years ago they would have been the ones helping collectivize the farms, unintended consequences be damned. And this law’s effects are all about the unintended consequences. Anyone thinking government regulators are reasonable and benevolent has never dealt with said regulators beyond any trivial level. To make it more fun each member country handles enforcement, so…

> 90 years ago they would have been the ones helping collectivize the farms This is possibly the strangest comment I've seen about this whole ordeal.

That part is spot on, he's showing how history rhymes. It's an example of humans historically making the same mistake of not reasoning about unanticipated consequences.

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#232

Post by Matticus_Rex »

djhworld wrote: post #134
ThJ wrote: post #53

I keep seeing these posts on how to block European users to avoid the GDPR. As a citizen of Europe, seeing these posts consistently making it to the front page is disappointing. It would seem that Silicon Valley perceives the GDPR as more of a hindrance than an opportunity to offer users better privacy. Nothing has been learned.

I really enjoyed this quote from [1] > I would be very wary of a company who claims this legislation is onerous. It is potentially life threatening to companies who do very shady things without your consent. That much is true. That is the entire point. I somewhat suspect those companies hiding behind the 'oh lets just block Europe' excuse just don't want to admit the extent of what they are doing with the data. US ci…

If you don't think this legislation is onerous, you're not doing the work of implementing it. Now, in my company's case, a big enough chunk of our customers are in the EU that it was the right choice.

Thing is? We changed almost nothing about the way we processed data. Data subjects are no better off because we've spent tens of thousands of dollars complying. Whether people comply or not, the fact of the matter is that this regulation is onerous. It's onerous even if you love the intent of it, and it's onerous even if you think it's worth it.

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#233

Post by speakeron »

davesque wrote: post #209
jacquesm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the EU going to target American banks of American businesses and try to extract fines? You mean like America? That time when the USA decided to enforce their embargo against Cuba by intercepting a payment from one of the Nordics for a bunch of Cuban cigars? No, that's unlikely. > Is the EU going to extradite owners of these businesses? Extremely unlikely, besides that would require the cooperation of the other c…

> You mean like America? Ahh yes, one of my favorite logical fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Tu quoque is not a logical fallacy. There's no logical step that's violated. It's an informal fallacy.

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#234

Post by mrtksn »

zenovision wrote: post #205

I plan to completely ignore GDPR laws and will not modify neither my privacy policy not my SaaS product, even if I have a lot of customers from the EU.

You should also ignore DMCA and host copyrighted movies, it will help with the visitor numbers.

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#235

Post by 13years »

ThJ wrote: post #53

I keep seeing these posts on how to block European users to avoid the GDPR. As a citizen of Europe, seeing these posts consistently making it to the front page is disappointing. It would seem that Silicon Valley perceives the GDPR as more of a hindrance than an opportunity to offer users better privacy. Nothing has been learned.

> Nothing has been learned

I would say this is also applicable in reference to the unintended consequences of regulations

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#236

Post by toweringgoat »

zerostar07 wrote: post #12
DanBlake wrote: post #7

Considered this before, but it doesnt work. IIRC, the law applies to euro citizens both living in country and abroad. As such, geoip blocking is not a working strategy. (a french citizen who lives in japan still had GDPR rights) A better one would likely be a clickwrap agreement for all users stating "European citizens are not allowed on this service" which they have to click a "I am not european" tickbox to.

nah the law doesn't mention citizenship. it applies for "every user In the Union" and for all companies in the union.

So much this. So many people conflate citizenship and residency, and it leads to no end of confusion. GDPR applies to EU residents, accessing services from the EU, and some more edge cases. But not to EU citizens.

(There are countries with up to 30% non-citizens, and there are plenty of multi citizens. The distinction is entirely relevant.)

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#237

Post by orwin »

davesque wrote: post #209
jacquesm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the EU going to target American banks of American businesses and try to extract fines? You mean like America? That time when the USA decided to enforce their embargo against Cuba by intercepting a payment from one of the Nordics for a bunch of Cuban cigars? No, that's unlikely. > Is the EU going to extradite owners of these businesses? Extremely unlikely, besides that would require the cooperation of the other c…

> You mean like America? Ahh yes, one of my favorite logical fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

But since the answer is no, is this still a fallacy?

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#238

Post by turbinerneiter »

vmarsy wrote: post #192
ams6110 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer I can understand this point of view, but as a consumer I say it's time to grow up. Internet startups have taken a "move fast and break things" approach that is analogous to early industrial revolution approaches to worker safety, product efficacy and safety, and environmental protection. You're working in the real world, with real consequences if you end up exposing people's personal data. The party is…

I feel that you're ignoring the situation of small startups with just a few founders. At this stage, it can really kill your business to spend a lot of your resources on making sure you're complying with GDPR. Usually the 'consumer' of those startups are OK to take some risk, heck a lot might even sign up with dummy emails. The Poland proposal [1] to limit GDPR compliance to only large businesses was trying to addres…

It's like a small car maker saying that it can't be expected of them to comply with basic road safety regulations.

"We are a startup on a shoestring budget, we can't put safety belts in our cars!!!"

The cost of being in the car business is to build safe cars. The cost of being in the webservice business is to protect userdata.

If you can't, you are not good enough to be allowed on the market.

If you disagree, should the US also stop prosecuting VW for the diesel cheating?

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#239

Post by Jeema101 »

shiado wrote: post #113

I simply don't understand how or why a law that has scope in the EU is causing trouble for companies which conduct no business in the EU beyond responding to HTTP requests on a global decentralized telecommunications network. Why would an American internet business which conducts no operations in Europe and has no servers in Europe be subject to regulation that affects the EU? What is going to happen? Is the EU going…

It's because:

A) The law seems to extend beyond the borders of the EU.

B) It's extremely long and vague, doesn't really offer a lot of actionable advice, and nobody outside of privacy lawyers seems to really understand it fully.

C) The penalties are harsh.

Further muddying the waters, the EU and US already have some existing bilateral agreements with respect to data privacy [1], but does the GDPR supersede or unilaterally invalidate these...? Who knows?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield

Re: GDPR for lazy people: Block all European users with Cloudflare Workers

#240

Post by johannes1234321 »

downandout wrote: post #211
johannes1234321 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A point with many sites is that they use ad networks and those ad networks send localized ads to Europeans, thus the site targets (or "envisages") Europeans. Even if the actual content is about quite local things.

In my personal opinion, that would be both a stretch of this recital and an abusive use of the GDPR. You don’t control what ads are shown to anyone because they are served by a third party, and you have a good faith belief that you are not subject to GDPR under Recital 23. My guess is that if you used an ad network that specialized in EU ads, you’d be subject to it. But using code from a US ad network that may have s…

You control to whom you give the space on your site. You contract somebody to do this under the terms you negotiate with them. "This is somebody else, they are just paying me" won't work. (And well, if the ad network is GDPR compliant it is relatively little work for you to add the note, if they are not GDPR compliant they may not target Europeans)
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