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Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

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Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#281

Post by [deleted] »

nolok wrote: post #268
nickpp wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've actually never been asked. Some unelected bureaucrats decided "for our own good".

They're elected representative. You were asked in the most official way possible, with elections. Both in your national election which then decided the government which chose your country EU representative for the council and commission, which then created the law and decided to put it to a vote and where your government had a direct veto right, and in the European election where you elected the parliament that voted…

[deleted]

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#282

Post by BlueTemplar »

tensor wrote: post #116
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.

This reminds me of people saying that downloading YouTube videos is illegal... even though they need to make them freely available and you need to download them to your hard drive and make copies into RAM and/or VRAM to watch them in the first place.

(Note also that YouTube does not actually use a streaming protocol, but replicates some features of streaming protocols like bitrate adaptation by downloading by chunks over HTTP(S).)

----

Also maybe how VLC is illegal to use as is in countries enforcing the DMCA or MPEG licenses :

https://wiki.videolan.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions/#What_a...

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#283

Post by dmitriid »

JoshuaRogers wrote: post #198
JoshuaRogers wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't sell user data left and right, and boom! Your poor small business is in the clear. It’s possible that I just misunderstand the landscape, I suppose. For my particular case though I work at a small business in the US that uses AWS cloud services for deployment of our application. One of the dependencies of our tech stack is an industry standard application (it’s ubiquitous in our space and has no accepted alte…

One more thing I would like to add: I generally think that some form of regulation limiting the abuse of personal data was long overdue and I must respect your zeal and vigor. I simply note the cost as I think it is important that we realize that this law (nor any law) is not without undesirable side-effect that should still be considered.

Between "no, we don't want either US companies or US government to have full unlimited access to any data they want" and "EU requires you to be extremely careful with user data, not siphon it willy-nilly and not transfer it to other jurisdictions just because" I chose option two.

The "undesirable side-effects" are being sold as undesirable first and foremost by US companies (and US government!) who assume that everything and everyone belongs to them.

Does it suck to be stuck between a rock (GDPR) and a hard place (the US' continuing desire to not care about user privacy)? Yes. What amazes me though is that the only side that gets blamed is GDPR.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#284

Post by dmitriid »

tpxl wrote: post #244
dmitriid wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're just incorrect here. I was expecting you to show where I'm incorrect. And yet, it's the same emotionally-charged "omg moat, large companies, impossible to run a business". Which doesn't disprove what I say, but further supports my case: the bullshit narrative around GDPR persists even if it has literally no basis in reality. > A small online shop using a CDN is who is actually hurt with GDPR. Most CDNs have…

> Most CDNs have GDPR-compliant services in the EU. How can a US company have a GDPR compliant service in the EU? The US government can force them to give up any data they own, which isn't compliant.

When there's a will, there's a way.

Also, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33566243

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#285

Post by dmitriid »

scarface74 wrote: post #197
dmitriid wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a law that deals with privacy of data both online and offline. As a result it's only 11 chapters written in a surprisingly simple language. As laws go, it's fine.

Yet the author of the submission had a hard time deciphering how to follow it…

The author of the submission? Or the person claiming it's ugly?

"Human activity is a complex thing and no law can describe it with 100% accuracy, news at 11".

I doubt anyone arguing against GDPR read it. Or read recitals. Or read even high-level descriptions of the law, say, at gdpr.eu. Or read any laws in general, to compare.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#286

Post by dmitriid »

jansan wrote: post #261
dmitriid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you make common practice illegal, you invite corruption into your system because selective enforcement of the rules becomes the new normal. Child labor. Drugs and radioactive substances in medicine. Water pollution. The list of practices that used to be common is extremely long. And yet here we are. > GDPR goes even further that would be reasonable for any small business that handles email addresses. Of course…

>. Don't sell user data left and right, and boom! Your poor small business is in the clear. And the article shows that this is not true.

That's not what the article shows.

The article shows the use of third-party solutions none of which are GDPR compliant: not the cookie banners, not the data storage, not CDNs. And every step of the way the authorities explained all the issues and waited for solutions (quote, google translate, "There was neither a court judgment nor a fine actually imposed.")

As a business you are responsible for user data. You can't use some third-party business, point at them and say "it's them who are responsible, not me". The responsibility of properly handling user data is yours.

GDPR was adopted in 2016, 6 years ago. You'd think this was enough time to learn it by heart by now, or at least not make mistakes about the simple core things of the law. It's not as big, or as hard, or as ambiguous as people who have never even read it make it out to be.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#287

Post by lmkg »

jansan wrote: post #175
lmkg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ruling is about the US CLOUD Act moreso than GDPR. The CLOUD Act says US law enforcement can get anyone's data from a US company, with no safeguards. GDPR is just calling a spade a spade.

What ruling? There was not court ruling in the case described in the article.

All of these movements by both regulators and personal lawsuits over the use of US-based cloud providers stem from the Schrems II case. This is what established as a practical fact the fundamental conflict between GDPR and the CLOUD Act.

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#288

Post by scarface74 »

dmitriid wrote: post #285
scarface74 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the author of the submission had a hard time deciphering how to follow it…

The author of the submission? Or the person claiming it's ugly? "Human activity is a complex thing and no law can describe it with 100% accuracy, news at 11". I doubt anyone arguing against GDPR read it. Or read recitals. Or read even high-level descriptions of the law, say, at gdpr.eu. Or read any laws in general, to compare.

We can all see the results of it. It made the web experience worse for everyone and it’s so complicated it solidified the power of the few companies that either can comply with it or afford to ignore it and deal with the slap on the wrist.

Thought experiment: why didn’t any major ad tech company announce any harmful affects of the 99 section GDPR. But they did announce billions in revenues shortfall (ie Meta) when Apple made tracking opt in by one three line dialog box?

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#289

Post by iso1631 »

JoshuaRogers wrote: post #170
dmitriid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you make common practice illegal, you invite corruption into your system because selective enforcement of the rules becomes the new normal. Child labor. Drugs and radioactive substances in medicine. Water pollution. The list of practices that used to be common is extremely long. And yet here we are. > GDPR goes even further that would be reasonable for any small business that handles email addresses. Of course…

> Don't sell user data left and right, and boom! Your poor small business is in the clear. It’s possible that I just misunderstand the landscape, I suppose. For my particular case though I work at a small business in the US that uses AWS cloud services for deployment of our application. One of the dependencies of our tech stack is an industry standard application (it’s ubiquitous in our space and has no accepted alte…

> If it turns out that I misunderstand some aspect of compliance here, I’m happy as that is good news for me.

There is a vested interest amongst people that profit from users data to attack the GDPR and similar laws and spread FUD whenever possible.

It could be helpful to switch "user data" with "child labour" and see if your perspective changes.

The problem you likely have is while you don't exploit child labour, you are responsible for ensuring your supply chain doesn't either, and your supply chain may use the profits from that child labour to subsidise their product to you. A competitor which doesn't use child labour charges more, so you think "the cost of compliance is high", rather than "my profits are being subsidised by child labour"

Re: Shopify Is Illegal in Germany

#290

Post by BlueTemplar »

indrora wrote: post #230
kuschku wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is GDPR ugly? It's easy to build websites, even interactive ones, that comply. If you build a mobile app, you are also supposed to only ask for permissions once you actually need them. Replace interactive embeds with a dumb replacement of the actual content and e.g., "we want to show you an embedded tweet here, [allow once] [allow always]". Don't use CDNs for delivering assets, they've long stopped being useful a…

> only ask for permissions once you actually need them Hard on Android, where "did my wifi go away" means asking "can I have access to your phone's internal state including call logs and if you're in a call right now?" > replace interactive embeds with a dumb replacement Sucks when you depend on that content or the content has to be interactive under the TOS of the service you're using. > [CDNs have] stopped being us…

But Android itself is also threatened... (Unless maybe if you're running a Google-free version of AOSP ?)

Google is clearly a company that is in dire straits in the EU, both from its business model that relies so much on tracking people across the Internet, and from its ties to the US intelligence agencies.

As for the apps available on Google Play...

https://9to5google.com/2018/12/31/android-apps-facebook/

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/some-popular-android-apps-a...

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