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

apility.io

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

#101

Post by foobarchu »

jakub_jo wrote: post #29

Since there are IP addresses collected and sent to third parties without consent, it violates the GDPR.

An IP address is not regular PII, its 'linked PII'. It must be collected in conjunction with information that can identify a user to fall under GDPR, an ip on its own is worthless. If an IP address allows you to link information from HTTP logs with a user database that does have PII, then the ip address is part of the PII. If you aren't collecting any actual identifying information, then an ip is fine.

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

#102

Post by notananthem »

Psilidae wrote: post #95
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.

If I were running my own company right now, this is probably the approach I would take. I'm a big privacy advocate, but I'm also anti-authoritarian and don't like being forced into things by overbearing laws. Blocking Europeans sounds a lot more reasonable than having to hire a lawyer and spend double the time and effort just to be compliant while writing a new JavaScript MVC Todo List app.

[flagged]

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

#104

Post by notananthem »

matte_black wrote: post #28
logronoide wrote: post #21

I'm the author of the post. My most stupid post is in HN! crazy! I just wanted to be sarcastic and make some laughs about people blocking all traffic from Europe, which is crazy! It's a Friday afternoon blog post to show how cool my product is with Cloudflare Workers and having fun at the same time!

It's no laughing matter for some companies. EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. There are businesses who don't make much money from the EU to justify compliance with the regulations.

Hey, rest of the world, sorry some of our idiots are calling people pests for defending privacy.

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

#105

Post by eckesicle »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #18
sp332 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the third person to ask this and I'd like to ask you: is this idea coming from a specific source? The law, like any other EU law, obviously does not apply outside the EU. It applies to companies that do business in the EU (even if they are based outside), but it can't apply to companies that don't do business there. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...

It actually isn't clear that it doesn't, as best I can tell. I don't have the text in question in front of me, but one of the questions I've asked and haven't gotten a solid answer on is - who is covered by GDPR? Is it only EU citizens residing in the EU, or EU citizens generally? If it's the latter, then someone with both US and German citizenship could be covered even if they've never been to the EU.

Anyone who is in the EU (citizens and not) at the time of using the service. EU citizens living abroad are not covered (unless they are visiting Europe, of course).

Geoblocking is not enough. A user in Europe that bypasses an EU block with a VPN is still covered (this has been explicitly stated).

https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/ Art 3 (2b)

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

#106

Post by cavisne »

Panoramix wrote: post #83
newman8r wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see why you'd be disappointed - if popular websites started blocking US customers I'd be pretty bummed out as well (even if it was easy to circumvent). As a dev though, I also understand the frustration. Creating startups is already time-intensive and stressful. A lot of us are on shoestring budgets. Most startups will fail. To a solo developer in the US, the idea of spending time understanding and complying wi…

If a company does not understand GDPR it's fair to say I don't want them handling my personal data. And it's not like this is new, there was a 2 year period to prepare for this. "Most startups will fail": I do not see that happening. You will first receive a warning. The EU won't really care if you are a tiny startup. Unless you are running a shady business, there's not much to worry about.

The challenge is absolutely not technical, so 2 years makes no difference. The challenge is that GDPR is essentially impossible to comply 100% with, and absolutely impossible to comply without incurring extra costs.

GDPR is the PCI of the privacy world, 99% of companies will be non compliant if audited, but 99% of companies wont be audited. The difference is unlike PCI anyone can launch claims against companies, including for malicious reasons like taking out a competitor, and political reasons like a eurocrat taking a disliking to a particular company.

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

#107

Post by notananthem »

matte_black wrote: post #79
mephitix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. Are they really pests for demanding privacy? In today's environment?

You are a pest when you use a service and give nothing back in return, stealing resources that are better allocated to users that actually contribute to revenue.

Right if you don't follow the law, you're now conducting illegal business. I think you get that, but you just don't want to fess up to it.

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

#108

Post by Tharkun »

I know plenty of people who block all of China, simply to be rid of its many botnes which run rampant and are hosted by network administrators who don't respond to abuse requests. I guess Europeans can now experience how it feels to have parts of the internet made unavailable by whimsical sysadmins.

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

#109

Post by tener »

gnode wrote: post #59
tener wrote: post #55

I think GDPR applies to EU citizens no matter where they are? So while this will work for most cases, it doesn't really give you immunity?

No; it applies to EU residents, and they don't have to be citizens. From Article 3 (2): "This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union"

Does "in the Union" has to mean geographical presence? As far as I can tell it may mean legal membership?

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

#110

Post by jilnji »

matte_black wrote: post #79
mephitix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. Are they really pests for demanding privacy? In today's environment?

You are a pest when you use a service and give nothing back in return, stealing resources that are better allocated to users that actually contribute to revenue.

Nobody's stealing anything. You're giving the product away for free. Sure, the user is still "paying" with their data. But they didn't sign up for that. (And if they did, congrats, you're a step closer to GDPR compliance!)

If you're sick of people using your product and not giving anything in return, Charge. A. Fee.

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