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

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

#301
post #244
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.

I feel the EU regulators could stand to learn something. If EU citizens are small portion of your users, and your tasked with parsing this document http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX... just blocking them doesn't seem like that bad of an idea, especially with the fines involved. I think the things that bother me is: 1) A College student working on a side project with no revenue are treated t…

> A College student working on a side project with no revenue are treated the same as some massive multi-national.

And why not? The result/harm is the same.

It doesn't matter a bit whether a company's web site is handing its visitors' data over to Facebook or a "private site" does.

The side project or the private site always have the option of not participating in the adtech frenzy.

But of course they want to participate (free money!), even if they find out much later that almost no money is coming their way.

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

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a French guy, these type of comments make me smile. The GDPR is basically just the implementation of the French law "Informatique et Liberté" into the European Level. (You can read on HN many Germans saying that it's actually the implementation of the Datenschutzgesetzt. The truth is: these two laws are extremely similar.) This law has been in application since 1978 [1]. And in 2018, we have adtech companies like…

Giving people the option to delete their data is a bit like allowing someone to get their money back two years after eating a meal at a restaurant. Given the EU assertion of global jurisdiction, the GDPR seems like a bit of a trade war and it's surprising more commentators aren't treating it as such. The US should be inspired by this and give online retailers the opportunity to collect and remit sales taxes.

No it isn't. If your business relationship with the customer ends, so should your data relationship.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean like America? Ahh yes, one of my favorite logical fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

It's not being used as a fallacy, since it's not part of an argument that proves a point.

I don't follow you. My interpretation was that OP said roughly, "I don't understand/approve of GDPR because of this and this." Child then responded by saying roughly, "but America does it too." Seems like the child was trying to imply that OP's claims/concerns are false because they are hypocritical.

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

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the EU going to target American banks of American businesses and try to extract fines? You mean like America? That time when the USA decided to enforce their embargo against Cuba by intercepting a payment from one of the Nordics for a bunch of Cuban cigars? No, that's unlikely. > Is the EU going to extradite owners of these businesses? Extremely unlikely, besides that would require the cooperation of the other c…

Jacques - I love the effort you've put into explaining the GDPR to clueless and needlessly exasperated (mostly) americans here on HN. To be honest I used to think you were just a shameless self-promoter like almost everyone else, but in this case you've risen to the occasion. Bravo. I think you're now rating quite high in most people's "mental books of good people". Or at the very least, in the minds of people who ac…

>clueless and needlessly exasperated (mostly) americans

I'd love to see the dataset you have access to backing up any of that statement. It must be fascinating.

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

#306
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. That's an excellent attitude to take towards your users.

Let's try another formulation. Valuable, dear, beloved users for which the business has boundless sympathy, empathy, and compassion are now awkwardly the source of compliance concerns for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance. While compassion is unlimited, it is possible the budgets and time may not be. Better?

"for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance"

The GDPR is not about revenue but about privacy. It's not meant to be cost neutral. Bank robbers could also quote you to complain about the burden of anti-robbery laws.

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

#307

To offer a non-dev perspective on Hn, it feels like tech companies are really trying to annoy us users with GDPR updates in an effort to nurture opposition to similar proposed regulations in the future. I hope it doesn't work. I love GDPR, getting rid of the WHOIS database stuff alone is enough to make me a huge fan. The option to delete my data is also amazing.

> really trying to annoy us users with GDPR updates

Isn't that the law that required these updates, pop ups, and new consent forms? Not sure how the companies could be blamed for that.

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

#308

To offer a non-dev perspective on Hn, it feels like tech companies are really trying to annoy us users with GDPR updates in an effort to nurture opposition to similar proposed regulations in the future. I hope it doesn't work. I love GDPR, getting rid of the WHOIS database stuff alone is enough to make me a huge fan. The option to delete my data is also amazing.

Isn't this pretty much what happened with the cookie law? It states that cookies necessary for the functioning of sites were ok, but everyone ended up putting up those warnings anyways and it greatly diluted any benefit of the rule and it ended up like Prop 65: warnings everywhere, even when they weren't useful. Overall, it just led to the law being ridiculed.

Wait what? Really? All the annoying "cookie" popups I've seen were them telling me the cookies were used for necessary function. I always thought it was due to some European law. Are you telling me it's not even required by the law?

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

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean like America? Ahh yes, one of my favorite logical fallacies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Tu quoque is not a logical fallacy. There's no logical step that's violated. It's an informal fallacy.

Right FTA: it's an "informal logical fallacy.

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

#310
post #109
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No. It does not. States are members, not individuals. The legal terminology for citizens is, quite simply, "citizens of the Union".
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