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Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

express.co.uk

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Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#241

Post by iamnothere »

josephg wrote: post #220
iamnothere wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think it should be terribly surprising that states don't subscribe to this view of sovereignty and jurisdiction. Well they will have to put up with it, as they have done over the past few decades. Or, alternatively, they can engage in aggressive China-style site blocking. Only the US has significant extraterritorial legal reach. IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully alter the content polic…

> IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully alter the content policy of US companies. I don’t see it that way. US companies have an atrocious record wrt user privacy and security. The Europeans don’t want their citizens data being bought and sold by online providers. And that’s a reasonable demand! Either clean up your act or leave Europe & the UK. If US companies don’t want to obey UK laws, they can’t…

> tell the site to clean up its act or it’ll get blocked from the US

Yes, that would be fine, as it would be here.

What I have a problem with is nations saying that a site built and hosted in a totally different country with a different set of laws and norms is “illegal” globally. Yes, I don’t like it when the US goes after people like The Pirate Bay abroad either, but that’s a result of the US being able to bully other countries for whatever reason it wants to. (That also needs to change.)

If Europe or the UK wants to protect its citizens, it should either block websites that it sees as a threat (as most of the EU does with RT) or it should come up with a scheme where ad networks with nexus in the EU must stop doing business with them. Attempting to reach across borders into the US to change US domestic norms is going to get them a well-deserved slap in the face.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#242

Post by celticninja »

deadbabe wrote: post #178
crimsoneer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has moderation, won't track you without telling you, and will delete your content if you ask. That's literally all it takes, it's really not that Orwellian

Will HN really delete all your content if you ask? Like, all your posts just disappear?

No they will not. You can change your username at the most.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#244

Post by Kenji »

andai wrote: post #177

WhatsApp, Telegram and everyone else should pull out of EU in protest of Chat Control. Then EU will be forced to make its own chat app, UX will be terrible, and citizens will finally feel enough pain to contact their representatives ;)

[dead]

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#245

Post by KaiserPro »

ryandrake wrote: post #190
lurk2 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that imgur USED TO provide services in the UK Meaning that the servers were located in the UK, or that the users were, or both?

It's so ambiguous. Let's say I'm a citizen of country A, currently residing in country B. I'm using a VPN headquartered in country C to make my traffic appear to originate from country D. I access a web site with servers physically located in country E, that uses a load balancer / cache hosted in country F. The company that runs the web site is headquartered in country G but has employees in countries H, I, and J. Wh…

> Whose laws need to be followed?

The ones where you reasonably believe your customers are based, and where your employees are based.

Lets be honest, 1% of your customer base using a VPN is not going to cause you issues, unless those people are uploading something that would cause the state to act (ie CSAM, fraud, drugs, terrorism, you know the big four.) Given that this is the ICO, and nor OFCOM, we know its to do with GDPR violations, not moderation.

its not like the ICO just sent an email saying "lol you're being fined, bye". They will have had a series of communications, warnings asking for reasonable changes, time lines for change.

The ICO has discovered that Imgur are breaking GDPR in a fairly big way and in a way that can be easily detected by an understaffed and over worked semi-independent organisation.

moreover breaking GDPR in a way that is obvious enough in a court of law[1], bearing in mind that the UK, just about has a working independent and largely neutral judiciary that isn't easily intimated into doing the governments whipping.

[1] the ICO doesn't tend to be showy.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#246

Post by nadermx »

kimixa wrote: post #237
nadermx wrote: post #144

The UK has been doing this sort of stuff for at least a decade. For example they have the PIPCU which under the guise of copyright threatens 10 years in prison for sites not even in their jurisdiction. https://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-launch-campaign-to-shut-d... And with that, they have at the least gotten registrars not located in their jurisdicrion to transfer domains https://easydns.com/blog/2013/10/08/whatever…

The US has always claimed jurisdiction on foreign-hosted but US-accessible content. Do people forget the owner of Megaupload being extradited? In many ways this is just catching up to the current US state. And there's a lot of confusion here between basic consumer data protection laws and (IMHO massively overreaching) "Online Safety" laws. This isn't Imgur making a stand for free speech, this is Imgur wanting to trac…

Megaupload is a weird one. He hosted in it the USA, giving USA jurisidction. Also it's still going through the courts in New Zeland and USA and hasn't been proven hes guilty. And if I recall he did alledge he followed the DMCA, which if he ever is extradited might save him if it is in fact true.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#247

Post by KaiserPro »

bArray wrote: post #31
nickslaughter02 wrote: post #4

> Mr Capel said: “We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing. Block UK access now just in case.

As somebody from the UK, I think this is a great form of protest against the government.

Wait you're against GDPR?

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#248

Post by KaiserPro »

turblety wrote: post #5
nickslaughter02 wrote: post #4

> Mr Capel said: “We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing. Block UK access now just in case.

It's clear to me, it's a huge risk for any company to allow access to UK visitors at this stage. All companies should be blocking all UK visitors. It's just too much risk for them to take. The fault is obviously an incompetent and authoritarian UK government, but that's what the UK overlords have agreed.

So GDPR, which protects people from companies abusing personal data (which this case is about, not the online safety act) should be repealed?

(no, its not the cookie law either.)

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#249

Post by Jach »

perihelions wrote: post #183
toomuchtodo wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an image storage service masquerading as a business. It will be of no loss if it were to fail entirely.

> "It will be of no loss if it were to fail entirely." That's decades of the public internet that would be permanently erased; billions of dead links pointing nowhere. HN alone would lose ~32,000 images from its archives, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Is it not hubris to call it "no loss" if, say, 3 hours ago, "Design of a LISP-based microprocessor / Page 22 has a map of the processo…

As already pointed out that link is already gone, except for the IA. That's part of why it's "no loss" -- it's not actually lost.

Personally even if the IA didn't have a copy, I'd still say "marginal loss" and "inconvenient". imgur is just another in the line of image hosting sites that have come and gone. Much of what it hosts isn't actually high value, and isn't actually the sole copy.

Not sure what you're pining for with respect to "decentralization" -- we already have it, nothing stops someone from uploading an imgur image elsewhere, either the original uploader or someone downloading and reuploading somewhere. There are other image hosting sites. And yes, the internet is filled with dead URLs, privatized or deleted forums and discords and twitter accounts that host or previously hosted unique discussion or media, etc. etc. and any number of other minor tragedies. imgur totally dying would be among the least of them.

Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine

#250

Post by ToucanLoucan »

joe463369 wrote: post #211
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't respected many borders apart from their own so this really isn't anything new. Zing aside, I'd be thrilled to see whatever prosecutor or litigator or whatever they call them over there bring a case against a US based company for hosting content in the US, geoblocking the UK, a UK resident using a VPN to bypass that block, and making the case that that is somehow t…

> I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't respected many borders apart from their own so this really isn't anything new. Did the US respect the borders of Hawaii?

a) whataboutism isn't an argument

b) if you expect me to defend in the slightest the US and it's own shady history regarding settler colonialism, rest assured, there is no risk of that.

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