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It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

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Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#22
What I don't understand is, why are these local US news sites required to comply with GDPR? I wouldn't think they'd have any obligation to follow it (or any possible recourse for not doing so) unless they have business operations in the EU. Are these local news sites in fact all owned by multinationals that do have operations in the EU?

Edit: I'm getting downvoted -- just in case it helps to clarify, I'm not trying to say anything anti-GDPR here... I'm just genuinely surprised these ostensibly US-only companies feel obligated to follow it and genuinely asking why? Is there an actual legal risk to non-compliance for them? Given the already low level of effort just to detect an EU-based IP address and show the patronizing error message, it seems like they must have had some motivation to even do that much and I'm just wondering what that was.

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#23

Maybe the cost of GDPR compliance just isn't worth the small amount of revenue that they might make from European visitors? US visitors are probably much more 'valuable' in terms of advertisement revenue, and also much more likely to be a subscriber. And I say this as a European myself. It sucks that I have to jump through hoops to access some sites but I can't really blame them.

I'm not really offended that I can't see all content from Europe, but the idiotic newspeak like "Our European visitors are important to us." is almost offensive. I don't see why they aren't just honest.

Toxic positivity. It's a pervasive feature of American culture.

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#24

Maybe the cost of GDPR compliance just isn't worth the small amount of revenue that they might make from European visitors? US visitors are probably much more 'valuable' in terms of advertisement revenue, and also much more likely to be a subscriber. And I say this as a European myself. It sucks that I have to jump through hoops to access some sites but I can't really blame them.

I'd love to know how much an American user's data is worth and what percentage of clicks belong to European domains.

I know the pervasiveness of the phrase no such thing as a free lunch, but is there really so much revenue lost by not harvesting data? (And yes, it doesn't take an MBA to notice any revenue loss should be avoided, so I understand the reluctance to publish to any market for free.)

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#25

Maybe the cost of GDPR compliance just isn't worth the small amount of revenue that they might make from European visitors? US visitors are probably much more 'valuable' in terms of advertisement revenue, and also much more likely to be a subscriber. And I say this as a European myself. It sucks that I have to jump through hoops to access some sites but I can't really blame them.

I'm not really offended that I can't see all content from Europe, but the idiotic newspeak like "Our European visitors are important to us." is almost offensive. I don't see why they aren't just honest.

“Your call is important to us. Thank you for waiting. You are 8382nd in the call queue because our overworked and understaffed call centre team are all handling other customers. By the way, did you know we understaff this team because customers are super important to us?”

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#26
Before GDPR passed I heard nothing but "I don't want to patronize a site that doesn't want to respect my privacy" and "we don't need sites that won't follow basic rules like this". Well you got your wish. Your internet is no longer polluted with these reprehensible site owners. Yet people continue to bitch and moan.

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#28
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a very safe assumption to make that anything you see or hear in media means the exact opposite.

Including your comment, I suppose? ;)

Coincidentally, the more I think about publishing to HN, the more nervous I get about my own data trail.

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a very safe assumption to make that anything you see or hear in media means the exact opposite.

Including your comment, I suppose? ;)

Not mine.*

*With apologies to The Life of Brian

Re: It's been three years. Stop saying your European visitors are important to you

#30

Maybe the cost of GDPR compliance just isn't worth the small amount of revenue that they might make from European visitors? US visitors are probably much more 'valuable' in terms of advertisement revenue, and also much more likely to be a subscriber. And I say this as a European myself. It sucks that I have to jump through hoops to access some sites but I can't really blame them.

Obviously. But let them be honest about it.
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