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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

#631

Post by flir »

weavie wrote: post #531
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand how someone is supposed to benefit from such a thing. If I want to use some service, I'll sign up for an account with it. The only thing a centralized ID is going to do is let the service correlate me with a different account on a different service, which is exactly the thing that I don't want. How is someone supposed to benefit from a thing whose only function is to reduce the friction again…

A well implemented system would somehow allow you to use your ID to prove you have the attributes a service needs (being over 18, able to drive, no criminal records, not a communist or whatever it is they need) without providing any further information that would allow multiple services to correlate ID's against eachother.

Better, but still vulnerable to deanonymization, I think.

And doesn't address many of the other problems (eg accuracy)

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

#632

Post by stephen_g »

graemep wrote: post #584
BatteryMountain wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, just ban children from the internet, same as gun ownership for 12yo's. Fine/imprison parents. This is a parenting problem, not a technical/business problem. Remove the supply of children and things will get better. A business cannot make laws or override laws with ToS and invent their own moral compasses - rather it is the sole responsibility of the parent on what their child gets exposed to (whether politics, po…

The internet is an extremely useful educational resource. It provides ways of communicating with people you want your kids to communicate with. it needs management by parents. My kids have learned a huge amount from the internet. I have guided them, discussed what are credible resources, the harms possible etc, who they talk to and what they tell them.... There are solutions that would make it easier for parents - pe…

Internet should not be filtered by default, that’s ridiculous. Either make it a separate product that large ISPs have to offer (like you either choose the ‘internet package’ or the ‘child-safe filtered internet package’) or ask people as part of the sign-up flow whether they want filtering.

I think it’s bad for society to treat adults as children, I’m happy that it should be made obviously available (there’s some merit to the argument that tech-illiterate parents often don’t know devices they give their kids have parental controls at all), but not on by default.

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

#633

Post by HankStallone »

vintermann wrote: post #627
flir wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comment. I don't think Starmer's trying to get invited to a Shadowy Jewish Cabal, though. That's... a bit out there. Simpler take: The middle ground has been hollowed out. The old method (appeal to the centre) does not appear to be working. Starmer's throwing stunt policies at the wall to try to get some purchase.

> That's... a bit out there. It certainly is. And he'd maybe use more classy words for it, if he ever could be convinced to talk about his sincere beliefs. But as I said, I'm fully convinced that powerful people believe all the out there things that regular people believe. We've seen so many examples of it over the decades, and it's otherwise very hard to explain why Starmer would keep doing things which are neither…

Yeah, there's normal political corruption and graft, and then there are some who go above and beyond, taking unnecessarily destructive actions that don't even appear to benefit them in any visible way. Usually you can say, "So-and-so did X because Y," even if you disagree with X or think Y is a bad reason. You can at least see the motive.

When the action is clearly going to hurt their political career, and there's no indication that it will put money in their pockets, and they don't even make much of an attempt to claim they're fighting for a principle, yet they clearly have a purpose in mind and keep doubling-down on it, you have to start looking for a motive somewhere else. "They hate their own people" comes to mind, but that's not really an answer because it still leaves you looking for the reason why they hate their own people. Not all leaders do, after all.

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

#634

Post by rusk »

ljosifov wrote: post #628
dr_dshiv wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed Britain would not be Europe but “other”

Eh - for the world's audiences: EU is not Europe. I geddit how/why why people equate eu == europe - it would simplify things for all, one niggle less to consider. But - it ain't so, for better or worse. There are countries in Europe, that can't be members of the European Union, or could be, but don't want to be members. (e.g. UK, probably Island, Switzerland, some of the Nordics) There are no countries in the Europea…

> probably Island

?

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

#635

Post by enedil »

jojobas wrote: post #379
avianlyric wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about I sell advertising packages to a US company from my US HQ but someone in the UK views and advert on my site and therefore generates me 0.001¢ - debatable. Not entirely sure what is debatable about this situation. You quite unambiguously derived revenue from a UK citizen here, although not much. If you didn’t want that revenue, then don’t display ads in the UK. If that makes serving traffic to the UK unec…

This always appeared to me to be quite similar to serving UK tourists say in Thailand. Should that make massage parlors subject to UK law?

I think "UK citizen" should have been replaced by "person acting from within the UK". This is how it is defined in the context of GDPR - the nationality doesn't matter, what matters is where you are when you are provided services.

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

#636

Post by squidbeak »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #500
gambiting wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbf, well implemented digital ID would be much preferable to the idiotic situation that we're in now. The emphasis on well implemented.

I still don't understand how someone is supposed to benefit from such a thing. If I want to use some service, I'll sign up for an account with it. The only thing a centralized ID is going to do is let the service correlate me with a different account on a different service, which is exactly the thing that I don't want. How is someone supposed to benefit from a thing whose only function is to reduce the friction again…

You're mistaken, the proposed system isn't centralized. The IDs only exist in the wallet.

The wallet uses Digital Verification Services (DVS) to poll APIs in front of the data the government already holds on you. These services check details you enter against that data and return cryptographic signatures for each. The wallet puts these together as IDs in a bespoke way, depending on what you need to prove. You can have any number of variations of ID and none of them are centralized.

Some of these signed proofs can be disclosed using Zero Knowledge Proofs (a cryptographic means of demonstrating something without demonstrating anything else) which would actually make it harder to 'correlate' you in the way you describe.

Another thing to bear in mind, the ID is backed up by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 which reinforces data protection laws and actually wards against the use you describe.

There's a lot of misinformation flying around about this proposal, but the design itself doesn't match the negative characterizations. It's surprisingly good and weighted to the citizen.

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

#637

Post by DroneBetter »

rusk wrote: post #634
ljosifov wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh - for the world's audiences: EU is not Europe. I geddit how/why why people equate eu == europe - it would simplify things for all, one niggle less to consider. But - it ain't so, for better or worse. There are countries in Europe, that can't be members of the European Union, or could be, but don't want to be members. (e.g. UK, probably Island, Switzerland, some of the Nordics) There are no countries in the Europea…

> probably Island ?

i think they meant Ireland, which is a member of the EU and has a populace that strongly desires to continue to be, according to https://gov.ie/en/department-of-foreign-affairs/press-releas...

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

#638

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

gethly wrote: post #588
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back then facebook did not exist. ... so government comes in and makes things worse for everyone. I really do not agree at all. The power consolidation that Facebook is a good example of is just not a government regulation thing at all. The opposite in fact. Government regulation being hands-off allowed the internet to become "5 giant websites that share screenshots from the other 4". And that they're largely uncou…

We do not have to agree. My point was that internet should be as little regulated as possible, as it transcends borders and governments. You see it in another way, and that is fine. I have no issue with that. Merely difference of opinion. Cheers.

I don't really understand the argument that Facebook should have been allowed to consolidate its power by acquiring WhatsApp and Instagram ... because the apps are multinational.

Maybe those acquisitions should have been allowed, and maybe not. But the reasoning there is non-sequitur. The one thing simply does not follow from the other.

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

#639

Post by 4728276368272 »

basisword wrote: post #550
darkamaul wrote: post #452

Serious question: why are people siding with Imgur here, instead of blaming the company that chose to ignore the laws of the country it operates in? Imgur's business model is ad sales and tracking users - that inherently requires collecting and protecting data, including vulnerable groups like children. Even if the UK rules are imperfect or possibly overbroad (I haven't read them), if a company choose to operate wher…

>> Serious question: why are people siding with Imgur here, instead of blaming the company that chose to ignore the laws of the country it operates in? Because if we've learnt anything from the debate around the Online Safety Act, it's that the majority of people are so unbelievably addicted to porn they feel like it's a human rights violation to put up barriers to their access to it. While there are obvious privacy…

[dead]

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

#640

Post by smittywerben »

darkamaul wrote: post #452

Serious question: why are people siding with Imgur here, instead of blaming the company that chose to ignore the laws of the country it operates in? Imgur's business model is ad sales and tracking users - that inherently requires collecting and protecting data, including vulnerable groups like children. Even if the UK rules are imperfect or possibly overbroad (I haven't read them), if a company choose to operate wher…

HN always sides with web operators. There's probably a vc joke in there.
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