Outrage! Now where am I going to get my cat pictures from ?! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
91–100 of 735 posts
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you receive a request to your website (or any service), that request comes from an IP address. There are databases that can tell you what country an IP address is from. It's not perfect, but it works well enough 99.99% of the time. Then, if the country is blacklisted, you do not allow access.
So that could be defeated by a VPN?
Of course.
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#93[flagged]
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you receive a request to your website (or any service), that request comes from an IP address. There are databases that can tell you what country an IP address is from. It's not perfect, but it works well enough 99.99% of the time. Then, if the country is blacklisted, you do not allow access.
So that could be defeated by a VPN?
Trivially which is why VPN's have boomed in the UK since this was brought in.
An entirely predictable result given how easy it is to install a VPN vs having to verify yourself constantly to sketchy third parties on every site that has adult content (note: adult meaning adult not pornography..a lot of non-porn adult stuff get caught in the net).
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
So that could be defeated by a VPN?
Trivially which is why VPN's have boomed in the UK since this was brought in. An entirely predictable result given how easy it is to install a VPN vs having to verify yourself constantly to sketchy third parties on every site that has adult content (note: adult meaning adult not pornography..a lot of non-porn adult stuff get caught in the net).
For now.
1. Driver's licenses are becoming a web standard soon. https://github.com/w3c-fedid/digital-credentials
Support was added just last week in Safari 26. https://digitalcredentials.dev
2. The UK is keeping a very close eye on VPNs. https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/could-vpn...
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#96Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s you who are mixing things. Putting up a website outside the UK and “deciding to provide services in the UK” are two decidedly different things. UK legal imperialism is self centered and unrealistic and undermines speech the world over.
I’m guessing that Imgur happily accepted the ad revenue from UK users while it served them images. If you genuinely were “not providing services” to UK users, you wouldn’t do that. I’m not happy with extraterritorial assertions over internet services either, but you can’t wish them away with sophistry about “we’re not providing services to them!” if you’re happy to take their money and serve them a page in exchange.…
Do they run their own ad network, or do the ad networks take the money from advertisers and cut Imgur a check? Maybe instead of trying to enforce your standards on every little site on the internet, you should just focus on the people who actually have a direct point of contact with money coming from UK businesses. (Yes, the ad networks.)
It’s completely absurd to say that some hobbyist would have nexus in the UK because they run a Google Adwords campaign to get some occasional pocket change from their project. Pre-Internet, it would be like going after a US magazine because someone brought home a copy from the US. Websites are not global entities by default, somehow responsible for obeying laws across nearly 200 national jurisdictions and many more state/provincial/local jurisdictions, across different languages and legal customs. Completely absurd! Who do you think you are to demand such a thing?
On the other hand, I think it would be perfectly fine to say that UK domiciled ad networks cannot put their ads on sites that violate some arbitrary standard. (An anti-freedom law to be sure, but at least it’s consistent with common international conventions.) This puts the onus on the ad network, rather than the site owner, who may not know or care who is visiting or from which country.
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US does exert its laws extraterritorially when there is a sufficient nexus to US interests too. Why wouldn't the UK be allowed to do so?
The UK? How many divisions do they have? Why shouldn’t Russia be allowed to exert their laws extraterritorially? Or Mali? Or Sudan? Or the Iranians? Or China? Or Israel? What you’re asking for is the end of the internet, full stop.
They are! Russia has been fining Google increasingly insane amounts for blocking state media [1]. It's the company's prerogative of whether they want to have a legal entity falling under the country's jurisdiction and whether employees want to travel there and risk being held criminally liable.
It's likely simpler to just block access to the country's IP ranges (or ignore!) and move on.
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m guessing that Imgur happily accepted the ad revenue from UK users while it served them images. If you genuinely were “not providing services” to UK users, you wouldn’t do that. I’m not happy with extraterritorial assertions over internet services either, but you can’t wish them away with sophistry about “we’re not providing services to them!” if you’re happy to take their money and serve them a page in exchange.…
Do they run their own ad network, or do the ad networks take the money from advertisers and cut Imgur a check? Maybe instead of trying to enforce your standards on every little site on the internet, you should just focus on the people who actually have a direct point of contact with money coming from UK businesses. (Yes, the ad networks.) It’s completely absurd to say that some hobbyist would have nexus in the UK bec…
The standard you are proposing here ultimately boils down to "you can do business in a country without being subject to its laws, as long as your commercial transactions with the customers in that country are laundered through a sufficiently convoluted network of international companies like payment processors and ad exchanges". I don't think it should be terribly surprising that states don't subscribe to this view of sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Re: Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
UK passed an insanely stupid and dangerous (as well as authoritarian) act called Online Safety Act. It's essentially because of shitty parents allowing kids unsupervised access to the internet, rather than expecting parents to parent they pushed the cost/risk to companies. Imgur decided they didn't want to foot the cost/risk and pulled out. As a brit, I don't blame them, if I was US based I'd geoblock the UK as well.…
> because of shitty parents allowing kids unsupervised access to the internet >90% of parents allow their kids unsupervised access to the internet. That's reality. We've spent the last 30 years begging them to supervise and it hasn't worked, so proposing to do it again is a nonstarter. On the other hand, I completely get why. Expecting parents to know how to operate Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, iOS, Android, Nintendo, Pla…
Perhaps they just don't care enough? I got unsupervised internet access when I was 10 and I don't see what's wrong with that. Similarly, video games didn't make me a psycho.