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Could American companies simply state that European citizens are not allowed to use their service due to stringent compliance laws, and add a checkbox stating s
by leggomylibro 9y ago
Could American companies simply state that European citizens are not allowed to use their service due to stringent compliance laws, and add a checkbox stating something like, 'My residence is not subject to EU jurisdiction?'
Yeah, yeah, "giving up lots of customers," but if you're a small startup it might be attractive to target a smaller problem space to start with. Also, everyone does this already with, "I am older than 13" boxes since it's broadly illegal to collect childrens' data; you probably wouldn't even have to do any verification as long as you don't wilfully stick your fingers in your ears.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago> Could American companies simply state that European citizens are not allowed to use their service due to stringent compliance laws, and add a checkbox stating something like, 'My residence is not subject to EU jurisdiction?' That works for B2C situations but it won't work if you have European companies as customers.
- kobeya 9y agoI don't have any operations in the EU. I don't collect revenue directly from EU residents using my services. I have no presence in Europe, but some Europeans do use my website (it's a free Internet). What's the EU going to do? They have no jurisdiction over me.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoIf Europeans use your website and don't pay for it that's fair game largely. The details are a bit more complicated.
- kobeya 9y agoSo.. Facebook is okay then if they move their data centers? For average users, I mean. They don't pay a cent to access facebook.com. I'm pretty sure that's not the intent of this legislation.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoFacebook is doing a ton of business in Europe and has for many reasons established local entities. They are absolutely bound by this law. A lot of facebook's money comes from selling ads to European companies.
- taysic 9y agoThat's strange - so it doesn't protect the data EU citizens give out when using free services?
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoIt does in most situations. For instance Facebook is free but Facebook still sells into the European markets and through that it triggers. Through either VAT registrations, B2B sales or any PE registration GDPR becomes a requirement.
- majewsky 9y agoSo, to clarify, if I self-host services (e.g. XMPP or mail or Git repos) and I give user accounts to my friends (whom, like me, live in the EU) for free, I'm not subject to GDPR because I'm not a business?
- the_mitsuhiko 9y agoIf you do it in the EU you are. If you have no relationship with the EU then not.