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Instapaper is going independent

blog.instapaper.com

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Re: Instapaper is going independent

#111

Post by kjeetgill »

dasil003 wrote: post #88
joering2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of GDPR is confusing to you? They did their research and turned out that in terms of profits the market is unstable if you want to open yourself up to potential GDPR litigations you are riskin more than its worth it. Don’t wait anymore. They probably not coming ever again unless GDPR is voided.

Oh please stop with this FUD already. Risk assessments on GDPR litigation are blown wildly out of proportion. If we approached the risk of all laws in all jurisdictions this way, we'd just wake up and commit seppuku every morning. The only services that actually need to shut down are ones that are monetizing based on personal data. Small SaaS services that aren't doing that can be fully GDPR compliant with a little b…

Of course it's FUD, thats almost the definition of of risk. "Risk assessments on GDPR litigation are blown wildly out of proportion." because there's a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

I just don't think it's particularly unjustified FUD. It is a big law that made a big splash. Can you really blame anyone who wants to wait and see how it goes down?

There IS a ton of guess work for now. To take either stance with so much certainty is a little dishonest IMHO. And I think you agree! You say yourself "... in all likelihood, on the off chance ..." Is "better safe than sorry" really so unreasonable.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#112

Post by xienze »

joshenders wrote: post #94
mstolpm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least, they have burned a lot of trust from once loyal EU users. And the GDPR "shutdown" for EU citizens with no given warning was a topic in every major newspaper here, not only computer/internet focused sites and papers.

Burned a lot of trust? How is this a violation of trust? If a company can’t meet their GDPR obligations under this law, EU citizens have successfully voiced through legislation that they don’t want these businesses operating in the EU. You can’t have your tea and drink it too. This is a consequence.

It's a bit of a mischaracterization to label US companies that punt on GDPR with the "well they're obviously shitty companies that wantonly toss around their users's personal information, so good riddance" brush. As someone very deeply involved with a medium-sized company's move to GDPR compliance, I can confirm that there are about a million different legal opinions about what GDPR means and it's causing a LOT of anxiety at all levels of the company. Whether that's right or wrong, that's an experience been echoed all over the country by companies big and small. And that's not even getting into the seismic shift involved in making sure that a "delete me" request is properly distributed to all downstream consumers of data, assuming that we even know who all those groups in the company are. And is this service my app uses GDPR-compliant? It goes on and on. It's not at all surprising to me that some companies are just punting on it because they're terrified that they will somehow get knocked for millions of dollars over something like that.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#113

Post by kevingadd »

TillE wrote: post #84
bthdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey zulrah, we are working on GDPR and plan to have the service available in the EU as soon as possible. Hope to have you back on Instapaper when we become available in the EU again. Really sorry for the inconvenience.

Isn't that exactly what you said a couple months ago? At this point it's pretty concerning that you still have nothing to say publicly except "we're working on it", no detail, no schedule, no nothing.

Well, considering there are apparently only two people working on Instapaper, it's not hard to come up with reasons why it might take more than two months or why they might not be conducting a detailed PR campaign about it

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#114

Post by thinkingemote »

bthdonohue wrote: post #73
throwawaymath wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at Brian's comment history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=bthdonohue . He's not active on HN, but he jumps in for quick damage control and "clarification" when people have vaguely privacy-related or operational questions about Instapaper. When followup questions are posed, particularly more difficult ones, he never responds. So I find it very unlikely you're going to get an answer here, because this ac…

I read HN regularly, but I'm pretty much a lurker on all social channels. When there's a conversation relevant to me or the products I work on, I like to jump in to represent the relevant company or products. With respect to follow ups, I usually respond and move on to other things. I do my best to be open and transparent in online communities like these. Moving onto your privacy concerns there are two things I'd lik…

"We have never" does not mean "we will never" does it? The legal terms doesn't seem to preclude it from happening. Most companies don't have agreements with data orgs until they have the juicy data. It's easy to say "we probably won't sell it" until the board sees the value of the accrued data in a couple of years. instapaper could make it more explicit that it's not going to happen in the terms rather than social media posts by an employee.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#115

Post by Kiro »

dasil003 wrote: post #88
joering2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of GDPR is confusing to you? They did their research and turned out that in terms of profits the market is unstable if you want to open yourself up to potential GDPR litigations you are riskin more than its worth it. Don’t wait anymore. They probably not coming ever again unless GDPR is voided.

Oh please stop with this FUD already. Risk assessments on GDPR litigation are blown wildly out of proportion. If we approached the risk of all laws in all jurisdictions this way, we'd just wake up and commit seppuku every morning. The only services that actually need to shut down are ones that are monetizing based on personal data. Small SaaS services that aren't doing that can be fully GDPR compliant with a little b…

What copywriting is necessary? I haven't done anything on my stuff.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#116

Post by bad_user »

Permit wrote: post #102
bad_user wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pocket ( https://getpocket.com ) isn’t blocked and is now owned by Mozilla. I’m an European and a heavy Pocket user and it had no downtime. That Instapaper blocks EU users is fishy to say the least. What it means is that they are probably selling user data and cannot keep doing it without informing users of it. I can’t express how grateful I am for GDPR.

>What it means is that they are probably selling user data and cannot keep doing it without informing users of it. It seems like you'd have to willfully misunderstand the requirements of GDPR to argue that the only reason for non-compliance is that 'they are probably selling user data'. However, if you can instead imagine that two employees might not want to manually manage GDPR requests for a userbase of two million…

If the service can’t delete a couple hundred links, representing private interests I might want to erase, then it’s not a service I’d like to use. Deleting my data is an ability that I want in all the services that I use.

Also I do know what the GDPR requirements are, as I’ve been in charge of GDPR compliance. While we may disagree on how easy or hard it is to implement it, there’s nothing in it that’s not common sense, which shouldn’t need a law for companies to implement.

Tip: if you’re doing backups, encrypt them with the user’s key and on deletion just throw away the key. Not rocket science.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#117

Post by tobylane »

bthdonohue wrote: post #75
zulrah wrote: post #71

Instapaper is still not available to users in EU. It's been to months. I started to use Pocket because of this and now I don't think I'm coming back.

Hey zulrah, we are working on GDPR and plan to have the service available in the EU as soon as possible. Hope to have you back on Instapaper when we become available in the EU again. Really sorry for the inconvenience.

When did you start on the GDPR-related work?

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#118

Post by Kiro »

TillE wrote: post #84
bthdonohue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey zulrah, we are working on GDPR and plan to have the service available in the EU as soon as possible. Hope to have you back on Instapaper when we become available in the EU again. Really sorry for the inconvenience.

Isn't that exactly what you said a couple months ago? At this point it's pretty concerning that you still have nothing to say publicly except "we're working on it", no detail, no schedule, no nothing.

And you have no understanding to the current situation? You know, the very reason this thread is here to begin with.

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#119

Post by duxup »

joering2 wrote: post #83
mszcz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. I could understand some downtime if GPDR was suddenly sprung on them but everyone had time to prepare. I could also understand them not caring about me as a single user (not deluded here), but since I pay for the service I'm sadly all fresh out of understanding. Instapaper has been great but Pocket doesn't seem to be lacking much as far as what I need.

Which part of GDPR is confusing to you? They did their research and turned out that in terms of profits the market is unstable if you want to open yourself up to potential GDPR litigations you are riskin more than its worth it. Don’t wait anymore. They probably not coming ever again unless GDPR is voided.

Plenty of people are still playing in the EU market and not... does Instapaper know something everyone else doesn't?

Re: Instapaper is going independent

#120

Post by mbesto »

ergothus wrote: post #93
mbesto wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M&A guy here - despite what finance people will say, a majority of acquisitions do not end up realizing their planned strategy.

Good to know, but to this specific case, if someone (basically) says "This is not a spinoff to let it die, but to flourish on it's own", it's nice to have them explain why they are credible when they (or previous company rep) previously said "This is not a purchase to let it die, to but to flourish as part of the collective". Just give an actual reason why this time will be different. I already know not to trust M&A…

I can't agree more - I wouldn't trust an organization that can't explain that to you.
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