Critters website unsubscribes EU Members

[mosaix]

Companies can choose not to trade in / with a particular geographical area.

But I fear we are, once again, veering towards World Affairs.

 

[Onyx]

Companies can choose not to trade in / with a particular geographical area.

Could Chrons, for instance, prevent EU or US using anonymous hotmail or yahoo addresses from creating a login without major programming to stop certain IP addresses? Because it really isn't a question of trade, but people putting their data onto a server somewhere.

 

[Ursa major]

Companies don't broadcast their websites across fiber to other countries

But as yourself said, some do.

Indeed, doesn't Facepalm treat us all, wherever we live in the world, as members (but in the case of those not signed up, "members who have not yet signed up"), and collects data on us so that when we do eventually sign up, it can already give us a "good user experience" (= make money out of us)?

It is this sort of company (in terms of its behaviour, not its size) that is in the sights of the GDPR legislation.

 

[zmunkz]

But as yourself said, some do.

Indeed, doesn't Facepalm treat us all, wherever we live in the world, as members (but in the case of those not signed up, "members who have not yet signed up"), and collects data on us so that when we do eventually sign up, it can already give us a "good user experience" (= make money out of us)?

It is this sort of company (in terms of its behaviour, not its size) that is in the sights of the GDPR legislation.

Agreed on the size point, and those big ones (Facebook, Google, Apple, etc) all have points of presence in EU data centers, if not actual offices, so in that case they need to submit to the laws in each place they occupy. I think GDPR is reasonably clear cut for the big guys. Much less so for small guys, and especially small non-EU guys using services like Cloudflare, which PUT them, virtually, into data centers in the EU in order to provide speed improvements, even if the small guy's own equipment is entirely out of the EU.

 

[mosaix]

Could Chrons, for instance, prevent EU or US using anonymous hotmail or yahoo addresses from creating a login without major programming to stop certain IP addresses? Because it really isn't a question of trade, but people putting their data onto a server somewhere.

It's about the harvesting of private information and the responsible storage of it, either as a by-product of trading or as a by-product of providing a service.

For Chrons (and critters), I admit, it's not as easy to identify the geographical area of the individuals whose data they hold as it is for trading organisations where the invoice / delivery address would be a give away.

 

[awesomesauce]

It's about the harvesting of private information and profiting from it, either as a by-product of trading or as a by-product of providing a service.

For Chrons (and critters), I admit, it's not as easy to identify the geographical area of the individuals whose data they hold as it is for trading organisations where the invoice / delivery address would be a give away.

It's possible to roughly geoblock by IP address. It would be plenty easy to ask people, when they register, to confirm that they're a resident and/or citizen of the geographical location the business serves. Amazon and Netflix seem to manage this just fine when telling me a digital product isn't available in my region.

It's actually pretty easy for companies to shut off EU users and I feel like a lot of the criticism comes down to wanting the penny and the bun. Businesses want access to the EU market, whether that's to sell products or services (and so they need to collect customer information, marketing contact information, etc.) or they want to collect data on EU citizens and sell it on, because we are their product, but they don't want to comply with the laws where they want to do the business or source the product.

 

[RJM Corbet]

... Facepalm ...

As in SLAP?

 

[Brian G Turner]

And... we're way off-topic now, so time to move on from this thread.