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Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

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41–50 of 99 posts

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#41

There seems to be a legal theory that public discourse is not to be removed under the GDPR. Discord, for example, will also not delete your messages. Part of the problem is also that the government agencies tasked with regulating these things are hopelessly slow in pursing matters, especially when non-EU companies are concerned.

Discord was fined 800k euros just today for keeping deleted account's data for too long among other things, which is something at least.

https://www.cnil.fr/en/discord-inc-fined-800-000-euros

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#42

If HN stores IP addresses or does any sort of de-anonymization on their end, then probably yes. They cover this in their privacy policy, at least for California [1], but their terms of use (right to refuse deletion) seem inconsistent with CCPA. Also, if they don't store IP or actively deident, then I'm not sure either reg applies. HN isn't collecting PII. Just because you chose to type some info into a free form text…

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GDPR PII is defined as such:

> ‘Personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

(Article 4)

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#43

If HN stores IP addresses or does any sort of de-anonymization on their end, then probably yes. They cover this in their privacy policy, at least for California [1], but their terms of use (right to refuse deletion) seem inconsistent with CCPA. Also, if they don't store IP or actively deident, then I'm not sure either reg applies. HN isn't collecting PII. Just because you chose to type some info into a free form text…

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> Any free-form field must be treated as PII.

I've definitely never received this advice. I think your DPO/counsel are being excessively risk-averse, but IANA(EU)L.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#44

If HN stores IP addresses or does any sort of de-anonymization on their end, then probably yes. They cover this in their privacy policy, at least for California [1], but their terms of use (right to refuse deletion) seem inconsistent with CCPA. Also, if they don't store IP or actively deident, then I'm not sure either reg applies. HN isn't collecting PII. Just because you chose to type some info into a free form text…

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Nonsense. If you're made aware you're storing PII, fine. That's different. If it's a field designed for something else, and you have no knowledge it's being used to store PII? You're not going to get a penalty for that.

This isn't American law, where everything seems to be decided based on technicalities and the exact wording of the law. These decisions are made by reasonable human beings who review the facts of the situation and come to a judgement.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#45
post #11

HN is a respite from those awful cookie banners, that's something.

Dark pattern banners I call them. One day I clicked the 'more options' button on a foreign website and it was a list of over 1000 different third parties listed each with their own toggle.

That's actually how it's supposed to work. Only the most recent ruling, and it was Google specific, forced them to add "Reject all" button.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#46
post #26
post #6

I can’t wait for the day the EU actually tries to enforce their laws on individuals and companies with no presence there. Will be a fun extradition battle to watch

No EU country would ever try to extradite anyone over a GDPR violation... International companies that choose to process data from EU citizens but blatantly ignore the regulation will be subject to enforcement action from the country's supervisory authority. The supervisory authority has the power to "order the suspension of data flows to a recipient in a third country or to an international organisation" or "to impo…

> As ever, a significant minority of Americans on Hacker News really Just Do Not Grasp the benefit of the EU or its regulations such as GDPR. "All regulation must be bad!!" It's quite tiresome, really.

Now you know how we feel when Europeans pontificate about issues in the US without really knowing anything beyond the headline.

Also, FWIW a lot of HN participants are in California, which has CCPA. Your stats may well be objectively wrong anyway.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#47

If HN stores IP addresses or does any sort of de-anonymization on their end, then probably yes. They cover this in their privacy policy, at least for California [1], but their terms of use (right to refuse deletion) seem inconsistent with CCPA. Also, if they don't store IP or actively deident, then I'm not sure either reg applies. HN isn't collecting PII. Just because you chose to type some info into a free form text…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#48

I'd guess HN isn't big enough for basically any privacy law to apply. Some parts of GDPR at least call out company size explicitly, other parts allow for "cost of implementation" to be considered, which for HN would probably be "prohibitively high" regardless of triviality, considering the team size.

Seems like a risky gambit; AFAIK YC owns HN and would have a hard time arguing that that they're a small business incapable of following GDPR regs.

It's not a general "we can't do this" argument, it's got specific criteria, one being company size for certain regs to apply.

But honestly YC probably doesn't even think about any of this, for good or bad. Most companies are super duper behind the ball on privacy regulations, despite the negative consequences.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#49

CCPA states: The right to know the personal information that businesses have collected from an individual The right to opt-out of the sale of consumer data collection The right to delete personal information collected from them HackerNews doesn't collect personal data. Deleting anything someone wants deleted isn't covered

Pretty sure it requires deleting comments if requested, this at least how my employer treats GDPr.

GDPR and CCPA are different laws from different countries.

Re: Ask HN: Does GDPR and CCPA Apply to Hacker News?

#50

CCPA states: The right to know the personal information that businesses have collected from an individual The right to opt-out of the sale of consumer data collection The right to delete personal information collected from them HackerNews doesn't collect personal data. Deleting anything someone wants deleted isn't covered

> HackerNews doesn't collect personal data.

There's an email field in the settings.

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