4 ms·

Not just WSJ. It was in the news last week: https://www.wral.com/north-carolina-apple-negotiating-deal-on-triangle-campus-second-site-in-cary/17558985/ https://

by woobar 8y ago

Not just WSJ. It was in the news last week: https://www.wral.com/north-carolina-apple-negotiating-deal-on-triangle-campus-second-site-in-cary/17558985/ https://www.wral.com/north-carolina-apple-negotiating-deal-o...

Reason077 8y ago
Wow: "We are a local media company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. We have detected that you are in one of the member countries of the European Union, which is now subject to the General Data Protection Regulation. ... Until we are able to ensure our full compliance with the rigorous GDPR requirements, we are blocking access from EU countries to our websites, which include wral.com, wralsportsfan.com, highschoolot.com and wraltechwire.com. We take the GDPR seriously."
- hyperbovine 8y ago
  I think that's great.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  Isn't it great that they're taking it seriously, and ensuring that your privacy is protected?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- kizer 8y ago
  Reap what you sow, Europer. Seriously though, is GDPR compliance that difficult? What does a news site have to do to comply?
  - madeofpalk 8y ago
    That's actually the worry. What are they doing with your data that they don't to be transparent about?
    - icelancer 8y ago
      They don't know and don't feel like being in compliance with it. Laws like GDPR and specific sales tax laws net these kinds of results all the time in local businesses who don't gain anything by complying.
    - erik_seaberg 8y ago
      Just to answer that question can take more time from engineers and lawyers than it's worth for a small userbase.
  - m_fayer 8y ago
    If you're a small or medium sized non-tech publisher who outsourced the building of your digital publishing system 5 years ago and have been cruising along ever since, you might not be very motivated to spend real cash on a big new IT project to ensure your various server logs don't have IP addresses or other "personally identifying information" in them, just to name an example.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      And, in this case, a local newspaper in a relatively small market. Their exposure is probably pretty limited but it's not hard to imagine a legal or compliance person asked IT is they were compliant with GPDR and the answer came back "dunno." At which point, the decision is between spend an hour to cut off EU access, decide to deliberately sweep any potential problem under the rug, or spend a fair bit of effort to do at least a compliance audit. #1 doesn't seem like a bad choice in this situation.
  - rahoulb 8y ago
    That's probably the issue. The news site itself doesn't have to do much. But the ad code and trackers and beacons and all the other stuff that they have installed on each and every page - the news site has no idea what it's doing and how to even begin ensuring compliance.
  - gowld 8y ago
    They don't want to risk 4% fo global revenue to find out.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  You can't be all that surprised, right? EU users are now a liability, so it makes sense to block them until you can be absolutely sure you can comply with their laws.
- na85 8y ago
  Nothing of value was lost.
- m_fayer 8y ago
  On the one hand I think this is a great sign that the GDPR is being taken seriously. On the other, I see this as corporate speak for "We're not sure if ensuring compliance makes business sense for us and this notice may actually be permanent. You're from a region where anyone interested in our content is probably a long-tail outlier that won't make us much money, so ensuring access for you is not a priority." I really hope that data privacy regulations don't have the unintended side-effect of significantly increasing the geographic balkanization of the web.
  - oicie0uD 8y ago
    > We're not sure if ensuring compliance makes business sense If that is the the case then it is working as intended. Instead of just ignoring regulation and writing off a small risk of some fixed and difficult to enforce fine as cost of business the "4% of global revenue" clause puts the fear of god into companies.
  - GFischer 8y ago
    It will. Copyright protections do the same - I wanted to see an US-based SNL skit and it's blocked in my country. BBC stuff is likewise blocked. I find region-based blocks all the time :( , mostly related to IP and copyright.
  - lyzan 8y ago
    Yep, just had that call yesterday: <0.1% of customers? Drop EU users off our email list and blacklist the EU until we want to actually target the market. Ended up not worth it to even check if we're compliant than to just lose the business, at least for the short term.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    I don't blame them. I'm thinking about doing the same thing for a few of my web sites that have very local content. The company that sells the advertising on those sites says non-US traffic dilutes the value of the ads, and I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic. I've kept them open until now because I like to check on the sites when I travel, but GDPR might be the incentive I need to pull the plug.

by woobar 8y ago

Reason077 8y ago

Wow: "We are a local media company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. We have detected that you are in one of the member countries of the European Union, which is now subject to the General Data Protection Regulation. ... Until we are able to ensure our full compliance with the rigorous GDPR requirements, we are blocking access from EU countries to our websites, which include wral.com, wralsportsfan.com, highschoolot.com and wraltechwire.com. We take the GDPR seriously."

hyperbovine 8y ago
I think that's great.
freeone3000 8y ago
Isn't it great that they're taking it seriously, and ensuring that your privacy is protected?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kizer 8y ago
Reap what you sow, Europer. Seriously though, is GDPR compliance that difficult? What does a news site have to do to comply?
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  That's actually the worry. What are they doing with your data that they don't to be transparent about?
  - icelancer 8y ago
    They don't know and don't feel like being in compliance with it. Laws like GDPR and specific sales tax laws net these kinds of results all the time in local businesses who don't gain anything by complying.
  - erik_seaberg 8y ago
    Just to answer that question can take more time from engineers and lawyers than it's worth for a small userbase.
- m_fayer 8y ago
  If you're a small or medium sized non-tech publisher who outsourced the building of your digital publishing system 5 years ago and have been cruising along ever since, you might not be very motivated to spend real cash on a big new IT project to ensure your various server logs don't have IP addresses or other "personally identifying information" in them, just to name an example.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    And, in this case, a local newspaper in a relatively small market. Their exposure is probably pretty limited but it's not hard to imagine a legal or compliance person asked IT is they were compliant with GPDR and the answer came back "dunno." At which point, the decision is between spend an hour to cut off EU access, decide to deliberately sweep any potential problem under the rug, or spend a fair bit of effort to do at least a compliance audit. #1 doesn't seem like a bad choice in this situation.
- rahoulb 8y ago
  That's probably the issue. The news site itself doesn't have to do much. But the ad code and trackers and beacons and all the other stuff that they have installed on each and every page - the news site has no idea what it's doing and how to even begin ensuring compliance.
- gowld 8y ago
  They don't want to risk 4% fo global revenue to find out.
craftyguy 8y ago
You can't be all that surprised, right? EU users are now a liability, so it makes sense to block them until you can be absolutely sure you can comply with their laws.
na85 8y ago
Nothing of value was lost.
m_fayer 8y ago
On the one hand I think this is a great sign that the GDPR is being taken seriously. On the other, I see this as corporate speak for "We're not sure if ensuring compliance makes business sense for us and this notice may actually be permanent. You're from a region where anyone interested in our content is probably a long-tail outlier that won't make us much money, so ensuring access for you is not a priority." I really hope that data privacy regulations don't have the unintended side-effect of significantly increasing the geographic balkanization of the web.
- oicie0uD 8y ago
  > We're not sure if ensuring compliance makes business sense If that is the the case then it is working as intended. Instead of just ignoring regulation and writing off a small risk of some fixed and difficult to enforce fine as cost of business the "4% of global revenue" clause puts the fear of god into companies.
- GFischer 8y ago
  It will. Copyright protections do the same - I wanted to see an US-based SNL skit and it's blocked in my country. BBC stuff is likewise blocked. I find region-based blocks all the time :( , mostly related to IP and copyright.
- lyzan 8y ago
  Yep, just had that call yesterday: <0.1% of customers? Drop EU users off our email list and blacklist the EU until we want to actually target the market. Ended up not worth it to even check if we're compliant than to just lose the business, at least for the short term.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I don't blame them. I'm thinking about doing the same thing for a few of my web sites that have very local content. The company that sells the advertising on those sites says non-US traffic dilutes the value of the ads, and I'd get 3-5% higher CPM if I filtered non-US traffic. I've kept them open until now because I like to check on the sites when I travel, but GDPR might be the incentive I need to pull the plug.