5 ms·
they blocked a continent without seeking any advice?
by soopypoos 5mo ago
they blocked a continent without seeking any advice?
- forgotaccount3 5mo agoWhy not? That continent is not their target audience. It probably wasn't worth the effort to block foreign countries just from random unnecessary compute cost to serve a site to them, but when those countries start being serious about penalties you could face for serving their residents? Now it's justifiable to block non-US countries.
- soopypoos 5mo agothe thing is "We don't want to get legal advice" is a ridiculous justification for acting on legal advice
- bombcar 5mo agoI'm sure they (or whoever sells the product they use to publish) did get legal advice, of the "what is the cheapest way to ensure this isn't an issue for us" and the response was "block 'em all, let God VPN them out." After all, using a VPN doesn't absolve companies of the GDPR.
- soopypoos 5mo agoYes so the informed choice they made was "block gdpr countries" vs "be transparent about our use of personal data". Every site that gdpr-blocks itself is saying that they intend to extract value from your data and they don't want to tell you how.
- throwaway920102 5mo agoNo, it can also be saying "I simply have too many other things to do than worry about what the correct data retention or ban appeal or DSA statement of reasons requirement or DSA statement of reasons transparency DB API or UK Ofcom age verification requirements or..." Sometimes if you're just one person and the EU isn't a core market and you are a small business or non-profit, it's easier to just say, ok you know what, no thanks to all this for now.
- soopypoos 5mo agoThe signal remains the same: "Will you sell my data?" "This interview is over. (I'm very busy.)"
- troad 5mo agoThat's absurd. Are you, right now, compliant with all relevant laws and regulations in Turkmenistan? Do you have legal advice to back that up? Why not? Is it because you're a criminal? No! Of course not! It's because you don't care about Turkmenistan, to the extent you've never even bothered to look up what is and is not legal there, let alone get legal advice about it. That's a perfectly fine answer. This random Michigan newspaper doesn't care about the EU. That's a perfectly fine answer too.