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I made this software program that listens on a port on my computer, located in Springfield, IL, USA. I allow other people to connect to this program over the in

by emidln 8y ago

I made this software program that listens on a port on my computer, located in Springfield, IL, USA. I allow other people to connect to this program over the internet, which terminates at a connection I pay Comcast to provide me. I log their IP addresses (on my server that I own which resides in the United States) because I'm curious where my users are coming from. Someone from Europe is claiming that I owe them some of "their" data (which they seem to think is stored on my storage that they never bothered renting from me) or I might have to pay 20 million euros. I tell those users and their government, neither of whom I owe anything, to kindly piss off and then ban all ip addresses from the EU. To put it another way, I go to Central Park and start to juggle. I don't charge people, I just juggle because I like to juggle. Some people watch; others simply ignore me. I write observations about a couple of the people who watched me perform in my journal. One of those guys was from France. He later looks me up in a phone book and calls me to demand I give him any observations I wrote in my journal. I tell this fellow to piss off. A few months later I get a letter saying I need to pay 20 million euros because I wouldn't give away my personal observations stemming from something I did publicly and for free.

danbruc 8y ago
You have to respect the privacy of people in the same way you have to respect their lives. You can not harm or kill random people, you can not do arbitrary things with information about them.
- ryanwaggoner 8y ago
  It’s alarming that you don’t realize how insane this argument is. Now murder and keeping notes about someone you see in public are the same? You’re headed towards thought-crime with this; it’s basically murder to continue to hold an opinion of someone that they disapprove of, because “privacy”. Ridiculous.
  - danbruc 8y ago
    Of course they are not the same but they share a common principle, i.e. you can not do arbitrary things involving other people. And nobody is talking about your opinions, you are free to think whatever you want, just as you are free to harm yourself or even commit suicide. But if your »thinking« involves information about other people, there are limits just as there are limits if you go from killing you to killing others. If something is ridiculous, then the way you twisted what I said.
    - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
      Wow. There you go again! So if my thinking involves someone else’s information, they have some right to make me change my thinking or punish me if I don’t??
      - danbruc 8y ago
        First, you switched from respecting peoples' privacy to taking notes, thinking, and having opinions. I even responded to your comment before you added the notebook in the park example. You probably also noticed that I put »thinking« in quotes. Anyway, it is not the act of having the information about other people that is problematic, it is the act of collecting, using, or sharing it. Do you think I should be able to follow you around and write down every step you make? Should I be able to use that information in every way I want? Do you want me to tell your significant other what you actually did on that »business« trip, tell your coworkers what you got from the sex shop? Should your doctor be able to tell everyone about your health status, your bank about your financial status? It is just naive to pretend that handling information is inherently without any concerns and therefore no rules should apply at all. And it is just silly to pretend that writing down an observation you made in the park in a notebook is the same and should be treated in the same way as systematically collecting information about every website visitor.
        ryanwaggoner 8y ago
        I didn’t write the original comment about the notebook in the park, just FYI. And your examples are not all the same. If you’re in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. So yeah, take all the notes about me you want. That’s entirely different from my doctor sharing my health info.
Retra 8y ago
>I wouldn't give away my personal observations stemming from something I did publicly and for free. No, you'll just sell it to the highest bidder. And enough people do this in such an underhanded way that the EU decides to regulate the shit out of you. So maybe you should have asked permission before recording identifiable people's behavior or otherwise earned their trust. Instead of being shady and myopic about it.
- fiatjaf 8y ago
  Maybe he should have asked for permission before looking to identifiable people also?
toomanybeersies 8y ago
Everyone seems to have latched on to this 20mm € fine part, but missed the surrounding paragraphs that require that fines are proportionate to the offending, and only to be used after, on in conjunction with other methods of enforcement. It's most certainly not a blanket "Everybody who is not in compliance with the GDPR will get a 20 million Euro fine".
plopilop 8y ago
GDPR is not about annoying small businesses at all. First, to file a complaint one has to go through several steps, and the fine will be proportional to the offence. No small business owner will have to pay 20M€ for logging an IP (plus keeping IP logs are actually mandatory). Offenders will first be issued a reminder, then be fined if they don't comply after that. If you're a small business owner and you don't comply, then you can't complain. Secondly and most importantly, GDPR is not about preventing people to get information, but rather about preventing people to track customer. If I use your example, GDPR would prevent you from following someone after they watched you juggling. It would prevent you from following them home, noting where they work, who are their acquaintances, what kind of food they eat and so on: it's technically legal but incredibly creepy. If someone were doing this to you you would be the one to tell them to piss off. You can perfectly write what are the observations of the passer-bys who watched you, as long as the log is anonymized. Which is easy to do and not harming for your business. You didn't want to track them anyway, did you?

by emidln 8y ago

danbruc 8y ago

You have to respect the privacy of people in the same way you have to respect their lives. You can not harm or kill random people, you can not do arbitrary things with information about them.

ryanwaggoner 8y ago
It’s alarming that you don’t realize how insane this argument is. Now murder and keeping notes about someone you see in public are the same? You’re headed towards thought-crime with this; it’s basically murder to continue to hold an opinion of someone that they disapprove of, because “privacy”. Ridiculous.
- danbruc 8y ago
  Of course they are not the same but they share a common principle, i.e. you can not do arbitrary things involving other people. And nobody is talking about your opinions, you are free to think whatever you want, just as you are free to harm yourself or even commit suicide. But if your »thinking« involves information about other people, there are limits just as there are limits if you go from killing you to killing others. If something is ridiculous, then the way you twisted what I said.
  - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
    Wow. There you go again! So if my thinking involves someone else’s information, they have some right to make me change my thinking or punish me if I don’t??
    - danbruc 8y ago
      First, you switched from respecting peoples' privacy to taking notes, thinking, and having opinions. I even responded to your comment before you added the notebook in the park example. You probably also noticed that I put »thinking« in quotes. Anyway, it is not the act of having the information about other people that is problematic, it is the act of collecting, using, or sharing it. Do you think I should be able to follow you around and write down every step you make? Should I be able to use that information in every way I want? Do you want me to tell your significant other what you actually did on that »business« trip, tell your coworkers what you got from the sex shop? Should your doctor be able to tell everyone about your health status, your bank about your financial status? It is just naive to pretend that handling information is inherently without any concerns and therefore no rules should apply at all. And it is just silly to pretend that writing down an observation you made in the park in a notebook is the same and should be treated in the same way as systematically collecting information about every website visitor.
      - ryanwaggoner 8y ago
        I didn’t write the original comment about the notebook in the park, just FYI. And your examples are not all the same. If you’re in public, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. So yeah, take all the notes about me you want. That’s entirely different from my doctor sharing my health info.

Retra 8y ago

>I wouldn't give away my personal observations stemming from something I did publicly and for free. No, you'll just sell it to the highest bidder. And enough people do this in such an underhanded way that the EU decides to regulate the shit out of you. So maybe you should have asked permission before recording identifiable people's behavior or otherwise earned their trust. Instead of being shady and myopic about it.

fiatjaf 8y ago
Maybe he should have asked for permission before looking to identifiable people also?

toomanybeersies 8y ago

Everyone seems to have latched on to this 20mm € fine part, but missed the surrounding paragraphs that require that fines are proportionate to the offending, and only to be used after, on in conjunction with other methods of enforcement. It's most certainly not a blanket "Everybody who is not in compliance with the GDPR will get a 20 million Euro fine".

plopilop 8y ago

GDPR is not about annoying small businesses at all. First, to file a complaint one has to go through several steps, and the fine will be proportional to the offence. No small business owner will have to pay 20M€ for logging an IP (plus keeping IP logs are actually mandatory). Offenders will first be issued a reminder, then be fined if they don't comply after that. If you're a small business owner and you don't comply, then you can't complain. Secondly and most importantly, GDPR is not about preventing people to get information, but rather about preventing people to track customer. If I use your example, GDPR would prevent you from following someone after they watched you juggling. It would prevent you from following them home, noting where they work, who are their acquaintances, what kind of food they eat and so on: it's technically legal but incredibly creepy. If someone were doing this to you you would be the one to tell them to piss off. You can perfectly write what are the observations of the passer-bys who watched you, as long as the log is anonymized. Which is easy to do and not harming for your business. You didn't want to track them anyway, did you?