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Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

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Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#111

Post by Hanschri »

captainmuon wrote: post #67

It is ridiculous that data protection officials focus on CDNs, third party resources and cookies. And at the same time it is totally legal for Google to collect advertizing data from some random websites so they can create a profile that follows you around. All that sites have to do is to put up obnoxious cookie banners that nobody reads. If they were really concerned about my privacy, they would ban creating cross-p…

According to the Danish Data Protection Agency Denmark has outlawed the use of Google Analytics[0]. Austria, France, and Italy have also done so.

[0]: https://www.datatilsynet.dk/english/google-analytics/use-of-...

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#112

Post by TekMol »

If using a CDN that is owned by a US company is illegal in Germany, then how can Germans run international websites?

How would it be possible to hide a host that is behind CloudFront from Germans? I don't think is it possible. Even if you run an extra host like www.yourdomain.de for Germans, they could still type www.yourdomain.com into their browser and this alone would cause tcp packets to flow from their machin to CloudFront. There is no way to avoid this.

What can German indiemakers do now? Register a company outside of the EU?

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#113

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

I'm somewhat concerned about an app I host.

It's on Digitalocean and serves only EU customers. DigitalOcean says they are full GDPR compliant, but given the cloud act this seems impossible.

What alternatives are available in Europe? It will be really frustrating to migrate

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#114

Post by Aachen »

austinthetaco wrote: post #54
ghoward wrote: post #33

Mini Ask HN: How would a small company, say a code forge, that is based in the US ensure that it is operating such that it is legal to have EU customers? All operations will be in the US (interaction only through a website). The forge will be designed to allow all of a user's data to be downloaded by that user (easy access to all data). It will also allow wiping away any reference to a user in commits (right to be fo…

I'm unfortunately able to find it, but I was pretty sure a lot of the restrictions around doing business in the EU require a certain $ amount transacted or web traffic. Citation definitely needed but that would make sense, as it's how a lot of laws are written.

This might be about the digital services act or digital markets act. GDPR doesn't discriminate even between large businesses and individual consumers.

Of course, a data protection authority will look at the circumstances, and the GDPR is 80% common sense, 15% communicating better what you do with people's data, and 5% required boilerplate that makes every privacy policy so redundant and dull and long that nobody reads it - but the point it, it does apply, as do most laws. Only when it's about monopoly positions that might disrupt the market, then exceptions are generally in place to protect newcomers that promote competition (or perhaps if you run a communications network only for friends noncommercially you might not be required to make it tap-able).

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#115

Post by almostnormal »

systemvoltage wrote: post #84
gok wrote: post #51

The EU is try to copying China's playbook of propping up local service providers by imposing impossible-to-follow rules on foreign tech companies. In both cases, the rest of the world should retaliate by limiting access to advanced technology until laws change.

I can’t see EU’s balkanization in positive light either. Seems good ol protectionism instead of actually innovating. Privacy is a trope, they give away data at US’s whim.

The EU isn't "the" EU. The GDPR was created by the elected representatives of the EU citizens. The EU commission consisting of representatives of the EU member state's governments are giving away the data.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#116

Post by tensor »

shafyy wrote: post #7

All EU companies sending any PII to US-owned companies, regardless if the actual data stays in the EU or not, are in danger to be sued similarly to the author of this post. This is, among other laws, because of the US CLOUD act: > The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requ…

Also, since the EU considers an IP address to be PII, anyone in the EU is not even allowed to connect to any website owned by a US company, as the IP address is a necessary piece of data to make the most basic TCP/IP connection work.

Basically, the EU has put up a legal firewall between the US and the EU. Somehow this hasn't been realized fully or openly talked about, the the implication of their law is very clear.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#117

Post by themitigating »

boringg wrote: post #16
radicalbyte wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This affects the entire EU. I try to hammer it into people's heads here in NL. Using US-based cloud services if you touch PII is a huge risk as they're all getting like crazed addicts fighting over their next high PII-high.

It's the way the EU can protect their own tech industry.

Protection through indirect tariffs?

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#118

Post by oytis »

shafyy wrote: post #7

All EU companies sending any PII to US-owned companies, regardless if the actual data stays in the EU or not, are in danger to be sued similarly to the author of this post. This is, among other laws, because of the US CLOUD act: > The CLOUD Act primarily amends the Stored Communications Act (SCA) of 1986 to allow federal law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies via warrant or subpoena to provide requ…

Does it also mean I can't use AWS in Europe?

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#119

Post by capableweb »

TekMol wrote: post #112

If using a CDN that is owned by a US company is illegal in Germany, then how can Germans run international websites? How would it be possible to hide a host that is behind CloudFront from Germans? I don't think is it possible. Even if you run an extra host like www.yourdomain.de for Germans, they could still type www.yourdomain.com into their browser and this alone would cause tcp packets to flow from their machin to…

> If using a CDN that is owned by a US company is illegal in Germany, then how can Germans run international websites?

Just like US companies can run computers outside of the US border, so can other companies. A German CDN can setup their own infrastructure within US borders, then German companies can work with that CDN to speed up connections within the US for users coming from there.

> There is no way to avoid this.

There is. GeoDNS ("Regional Records") is one way, where you reply with different IPs to the instances based on where the DNS query comes from. So US visitors to domain.com gets a different IP than German visitors to domain.com.

> What can German indiemakers do now? Register a company outside of the EU?

Use European infrastructure, make sure you follow GDPR. As a fellow European (mostly) "indiemaker", it's really not that hard.

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