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Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

discourse.drone.io

331–340 of 534 posts

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You brought up it targeting non-European business. That was the main way it seems to have disproportionately affected them.

How about you try answering this question I posed to you What is your point here? What is your point when you say that the EU is not litigious? Are you saying that I shouldn't expect to receive a fine for violating GDPR? Are you saying that I should just ignore GDPR data access requests if I am operating in a supposedly ethical manner and I am not selling user information?

I didn't see any question in there. My answer though is: respond to the request (which shouldn't be as hard as some are making out), but don't worry about fines unless you've been misusing the data or repeatedly ignoring warnings.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread or violate the GDPR. -- Anatole France (I might have edited that quote slightly)

OMG this is perfect! I'm so stealing this quote. It applies to so much it's scary.

But in this context it really doesn't work well as an analogy.

Few rich people have any inclination to sleep rough, whereas many wealthy tech companies have been happily selling their users' data as the law allowed it.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#333

I'm a little confused. Who is sending compliance requests? If it's not the ico, there's rely no problem. If it is the ico, ask what needs to change. No lawyers required.

> No lawyers required. Phrases like this just sound weird to me. If there's a risk that someone could sue you over something, from a business perspective I have always been taught that you avoid it, period, until you get a lawyer. I wonder if this is a cultural difference between the US and EU? Might explain some of the different reactions people have had to the legislation.

> > No lawyers required.

> Phrases like this just sound weird to me.

Are you from the USA? Because my best guess is that that's why it sounds weird to you. I almost sued a company (they paid just in time) and even then wouldn't have looked for representation, let alone for issues like these. Just read a blog post or two about GDPR. No lawyers required.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#334
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that free services like Facebook should be exempt from privacy laws like GDPR?

Well if you know that Facebook is bad, why did people even register in the first place? Or put their whole life onto it? It's ok if the privacy law only gone against stuff like analytics or horrible facebook buttons that even collected stuffs from people who clearly weren't users. i.e. tracking especially tracking outside their "domain" however GDPR goes against all and anything. I mean if I go to a supermarkt I can'…

> in germany the ard has tons of data about everybody

Your name, address, move-in date, and whether you paid them. Additionally – if you don't to pay twice – who you live with. Am I missing anything? In any case, they are still bound by the same GDPR as we all are.

(A small nitpick: The ARD does not hold any data but their members do.)

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, this is really little different from shutting down a whole forum because you received a single DMCA request. Completely unrelated. Not only are DMCA requests easier to handle than data access requests, the fines for not complying with GDPR are disproportionately larger for violating DMCA. Work required for complying with a DMCA request: delete the offending material, a basic feature implemented on every single…

Except this forum software does provide a tool that lets the user export their own data, as well as a tool that lets an admin strip all identifying data. The only way this targets non-European businesses is because the litigious nature of US culture seems to lead to this sort of overreaction. I'm also not sure how a malevolent user is any more incentivised to abuse this than DMCA. The DMCA lets them issue actual lega…

A lot of the US over reaction to the GDPR probably stems from the fact that they assume that Europe has a system where parties sue each other, the jury system, as opposed to the state suing parties, the inquisitorial system.

Getting sued in Europe is a huge deal, getting sued in the US is part of doing business.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about Disqus specific features? Because that is really beside the point and the fact that you are bringing it up shows how clueless you GDPR zealots actually are.

What's Disqus got to do with it? The fact you are bringing it up does you've no interest in the facts of this case. This is about a forum, which uses Discourse, which has these features. This is totally relevant.

Discourse, disqus good job nit picking.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about you try answering this question I posed to you What is your point here? What is your point when you say that the EU is not litigious? Are you saying that I shouldn't expect to receive a fine for violating GDPR? Are you saying that I should just ignore GDPR data access requests if I am operating in a supposedly ethical manner and I am not selling user information?

I didn't see any question in there. My answer though is: respond to the request (which shouldn't be as hard as some are making out), but don't worry about fines unless you've been misusing the data or repeatedly ignoring warnings.

Then wtf is the point of GDPR if nobody will be sued for violating it?

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#338

The GDPR seems to me to be just another example of nontechnical authorities trying to regulate what they don't understand. Why don't more technical people become politicians, or at least form lobbying groups or think tanks?

> The GDPR seems to me to be just another example of nontechnical authorities trying to regulate what they don't understand.

Either you are against any laws at all and believe that corporations could provide physical security and wage wars, or you are misinformed.

If you gossip about me behind my back, is it wrong of me to ask what you told others about me? If you are a company sharing my data with other companies, should I not be allowed to demand to know with whom you're sharing my data?

If you process personal data of millions of people, wouldn't it make sense that you have to have someone in charge of watching out for their data?

If you want to track people to create profiles of them, should you not ask them whether they're actually okay with that, rather than doing it secretly?

If you accidentally lose my data and hackers could be stealing my identity or using my password, should I not be told?

These are the things covered by GDPR, or previously, the data protection directive, cookie law and the data leak reporting laws. For example, the previous cookie law was also deemed a stupid idea by a tech-illiterate government, because lots of websites started popping up cookie walls and everyone got annoyed. But the truth is, the websites with cookie walls are the ones who want to do extensive profiling beyond any normal visitor count trackers or login systems or whatever. Of course they should inform you about that.

GDPR is not much more than common sense should already tell you to do. But since corporations are not people and do not have a collective conscience, it has to be codified in laws.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see any question in there. My answer though is: respond to the request (which shouldn't be as hard as some are making out), but don't worry about fines unless you've been misusing the data or repeatedly ignoring warnings.

Then wtf is the point of GDPR if nobody will be sued for violating it?

The point is to make companies stop misusing data. The fines are the teeth for if they don't stop.

Re: Shutting Down Forum (GDPR)

#340
The EU is already targetting Open Source in the new legislation. We should start making a stronger case for the internet while we still have it. The Pirate Party tends to be the best resource for the support, they organise petitions and have elected officials in the Parliament.
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