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I'm the author of the post. My most stupid post is in HN! crazy! I just wanted to be sarcastic and make some laughs about people blocking all traffic from Europ

I'm the author of the post. My most stupid post is in HN! crazy! I just wanted to be sarcastic and make some laughs about people blocking all traffic from Europe, which is crazy! It's a Friday afternoon blog post to show how cool my product is with Cloudflare Workers and having fun at the same time!

ultimoo 8y ago
Well, it is well written and informational.
matte_black 8y ago
It's no laughing matter for some companies. EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. There are businesses who don't make much money from the EU to justify compliance with the regulations.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  > EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. That's an excellent attitude to take towards your users.
  - Kalium 8y ago
    Let's try another formulation. Valuable, dear, beloved users for which the business has boundless sympathy, empathy, and compassion are now awkwardly the source of compliance concerns for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance. While compassion is unlimited, it is possible the budgets and time may not be. Better?
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Much better. But I wonder what changed since last week because those compliance concerns were just as valid last week. Or do you mean to imply the company knowingly broke the law for a couple of years just because they could?
      - Kalium 8y ago
        > Much better. Is it? It's a lot of bloviating about love and kindness and positivity that dances around the point a lot. It implies, instead of being explicit. It focuses on feelings instead of making a point clearly and concisely. It's poor communication. For the same reasons, it's great PR material. > But I wonder what changed since last week because those compliance concerns were just as valid last week. I imagine that for a lot of really small shops, what's changed is that GDPR is now law when it wasn't for the past couple of years. > Or do you mean to imply the company knowingly broke the law for a couple of years just because they could? Maybe! Depends on the company, I should think. In some cases, I'm completely certain that you're absolutely right and they've been knowingly breaking the law for years because they can and there were no consequences. For others, it's possible that the situation may be more subtle. The costs in time and money and opportunity costs to determine how compliant they are or need to be might be daunting or dwarf any reasonable forecast of revenue from EU users. It's possible that not all scenarios might not be quite as simple as having nothing to fear so long as you are doing nothing wrong.
        jacquesm 8y ago
        > what's changed is that GDPR is now law when it wasn't for the past couple of years. That just isn't true, the GDPR has been law for the last two years and before that there was a law with roughly the same (say 80% or so) components. That the law got ignored we can agree on.
        Kalium 8y ago
        > That just isn't true, the GDPR has been law for the last two years and before that there was a law with roughly the same (say 80% or so) components. You're absolutely, completely, 100% correct! Please accept my deepest apologies for being unclear. Until May 25, GDRP which has been law for years did not take full effect. It's possible that some people made choices based around which laws are in full effect, rather than what is law, for reasons that might at times be other than negligence or malice. Again, please accept my apologies for being unclear. Please let me know if there's anything else I can clarify!
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      "for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance" The GDPR is not about revenue but about privacy. It's not meant to be cost neutral. Bank robbers could also quote you to complain about the burden of anti-robbery laws.
      - Kalium 8y ago
        You're absolutely right! GDPR is in no way, shape, form, or manner meant to be cost-neutral. Your point about bank robbers is well-taken. However, is it possible that in a context where companies are weighing the cost of GDPR compliance against the benefits of GDPR compliance (i.e., keeping their EU business) some might come down on the side of jettisoning the EU business? They might even opt to do it by using a tool, like Cloudflare Workers, that they can convince to block everyone in the EU. You would be absolutely, completely, 100% right to consider this fully in line with the intentions of GDPR. Protect privacy or GTFO, right?
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        If companies find it too onerous to do business in the EU I am sure others will happily fill that gap, so I am not worried. A lot of polluters probably also went out of business once environmental regulations got tightened.
        Kalium 8y ago
        You're right! I'm also sure others will happily try! With that said, it's possible that a fragmented market with fewer legal business models may not be as conducive an environment to all possible businesses. It's even possible that as a result, not all gaps will get filled.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        Personally I think it's healthier to have a fragmented market. Maybe it's not as efficient but fragmentation makes it more possible for smaller companies to find a niche. Otherwise big companies like Amazon, Facebook and others monopolize business world wide. Different legal models also provide grounds for experimentation. Who knows what works better in the long run? Wild West or regulation like GDPR? We don't know.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    I hate to break it to you but not all users are treated the same.
- disconnected 8y ago
  > EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. More than USA citizens with dubious DMCA takedown requests?
  - frockington 8y ago
    Yes, much bigger pests
  - matte_black 8y ago
    We've never had a DMCA takedown.
  - freedomben 8y ago
    This strikes me as the typical political response when you are backing a terrible candidate and somebody points out something terrible they do/did. Rather than defend your candidate you respond by attacking theirs. My kids do this all the time when I catch them doing something wrong, "well #{brother} was doing #{badthing}!" Both seem wrong, can we agree on that? DMCA is a disgusting weapon, as is a lot that the US has done. Does that make weapons created by Europe ok?
    - pjscott 8y ago
      It's been around long enough to have a short name in a dead language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
      - freedomben 8y ago
        Oh man, that's genius. Totally gonna bookmark that.
  - zerostar07 8y ago
    You don't need to do anything to implement DMCA on your site - just respond to emails. How is this even comparable with the kafkaesque implementation required by gdpr?
- mephitix 8y ago
  >> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. Are they really pests for demanding privacy? In today's environment?
  - ythn 8y ago
    To me it seems like a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too. "I want to use your free service without participating in your monetization model. K thanks" -- EU citizens
    - mephitix 8y ago
      'Free' is a powerful word - there's a lot of incentive for companies to tout 'free' and for users to feel like they're getting a good deal - when in reality there's a whole lot of other stuff happening behind the scenes. My take is that consumers need to be aware of what 'free' really means for each service that advertises it. What are the real implications - not just something hidden in doublespeak in a ToS or privacy policy. Everything spelled out in the GDPR is a great thing for users and should have been there from the very beginning - being able to erase all their data, see all their data, export their data, and get notified when data is accessed.
      - ythn 8y ago
        > Everything spelled out in the GDPR is a great thing for users and should have been there from the very beginning - being able to erase all their data, see all their data, export their data, and get notified when data is accessed. I hate this "empowering users" philosophy of the EU. It's reminiscent of "right to be forgotten" type regulation where EU believes users should be in control of "their" data, when it reality it isn't "theirs" to begin with. Once data is "public" you can't ever "erase" it because it's not "yours". I'm sorry, if you shoplift in my store (online or no), I'm keeping track of you no matter how much you demand that I erase "your" information.
        llukas 8y ago
        So your private database about customers is somehow public? Where can I get it?
- orf 8y ago
  Is it onerous because you are doing dodgy things with EU citizens data, because you don't take information security seriously or because you've fallen for some of the FUD around GDPR (having to hire a DPO, being fined 2 trillion dollars, etc etc)? If it's too hard for you to copy paste a GDPR compliant privacy policy and monitor a GDPR email address then well, maybe you're in the wrong job.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    We do take security seriously and we're not doing anything dodgy. We have business reasons for collecting user data, and users have no real reason to tell us to delete it at will, other than the fact that it makes them feel "creeped out". The future is probably going to be super creepy. If you want to participate, get over it.
    - Panoramix 8y ago
      -We're not doing anything dodgy. -Other than the fact that it makes them feel "creeped out". Pick one.
      - matte_black 8y ago
        Feeling creeped out doesn't mean someone is being dodgy.
        craftyguy 8y ago
        But more times than not it does. Since there's a long history of companies doing bad stuff, you definitely don't deserve the benefit of the doubt on this one.
        mirko22 8y ago
        there is also a long history of people giving up their personal data to get some (overall) irrelevant service and then being surprised when their data is missused...
- notananthem 8y ago
  Hey, rest of the world, sorry some of our idiots are calling people pests for defending privacy.
  - austinheap 8y ago
    Hey, rest of world, sorry some of our commenters can’t express disagreement without name calling.
- mikestew 8y ago
  EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. EU citizens turned into "pests" two years ago. Much like Y2K was a "pest" years before January 1, 2000. But unlike EU regulations, Y2K was like The Terminator: there was no appeal process, and it absolutely would not stop...ever, until you fix your Y2K bugs. GDPR OTOH, eh, maybe there's some way to wiggle out of it? And two years later, when Compliance Day comes, here we are.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
phyzome 8y ago
Unfortunately, I think people are taking it seriously. -.-

ultimoo 8y ago

Well, it is well written and informational.

matte_black 8y ago

It's no laughing matter for some companies. EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. There are businesses who don't make much money from the EU to justify compliance with the regulations.

jacquesm 8y ago
> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. That's an excellent attitude to take towards your users.
- Kalium 8y ago
  Let's try another formulation. Valuable, dear, beloved users for which the business has boundless sympathy, empathy, and compassion are now awkwardly the source of compliance concerns for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance. While compassion is unlimited, it is possible the budgets and time may not be. Better?
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Much better. But I wonder what changed since last week because those compliance concerns were just as valid last week. Or do you mean to imply the company knowingly broke the law for a couple of years just because they could?
    - Kalium 8y ago
      > Much better. Is it? It's a lot of bloviating about love and kindness and positivity that dances around the point a lot. It implies, instead of being explicit. It focuses on feelings instead of making a point clearly and concisely. It's poor communication. For the same reasons, it's great PR material. > But I wonder what changed since last week because those compliance concerns were just as valid last week. I imagine that for a lot of really small shops, what's changed is that GDPR is now law when it wasn't for the past couple of years. > Or do you mean to imply the company knowingly broke the law for a couple of years just because they could? Maybe! Depends on the company, I should think. In some cases, I'm completely certain that you're absolutely right and they've been knowingly breaking the law for years because they can and there were no consequences. For others, it's possible that the situation may be more subtle. The costs in time and money and opportunity costs to determine how compliant they are or need to be might be daunting or dwarf any reasonable forecast of revenue from EU users. It's possible that not all scenarios might not be quite as simple as having nothing to fear so long as you are doing nothing wrong.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        > what's changed is that GDPR is now law when it wasn't for the past couple of years. That just isn't true, the GDPR has been law for the last two years and before that there was a law with roughly the same (say 80% or so) components. That the law got ignored we can agree on.
        Kalium 8y ago
        > That just isn't true, the GDPR has been law for the last two years and before that there was a law with roughly the same (say 80% or so) components. You're absolutely, completely, 100% correct! Please accept my deepest apologies for being unclear. Until May 25, GDRP which has been law for years did not take full effect. It's possible that some people made choices based around which laws are in full effect, rather than what is law, for reasons that might at times be other than negligence or malice. Again, please accept my apologies for being unclear. Please let me know if there's anything else I can clarify!
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    "for which the costs outstrip the reasonably expected revenues enabled by compliance" The GDPR is not about revenue but about privacy. It's not meant to be cost neutral. Bank robbers could also quote you to complain about the burden of anti-robbery laws.
    - Kalium 8y ago
      You're absolutely right! GDPR is in no way, shape, form, or manner meant to be cost-neutral. Your point about bank robbers is well-taken. However, is it possible that in a context where companies are weighing the cost of GDPR compliance against the benefits of GDPR compliance (i.e., keeping their EU business) some might come down on the side of jettisoning the EU business? They might even opt to do it by using a tool, like Cloudflare Workers, that they can convince to block everyone in the EU. You would be absolutely, completely, 100% right to consider this fully in line with the intentions of GDPR. Protect privacy or GTFO, right?
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        If companies find it too onerous to do business in the EU I am sure others will happily fill that gap, so I am not worried. A lot of polluters probably also went out of business once environmental regulations got tightened.
        Kalium 8y ago
        You're right! I'm also sure others will happily try! With that said, it's possible that a fragmented market with fewer legal business models may not be as conducive an environment to all possible businesses. It's even possible that as a result, not all gaps will get filled.
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        Personally I think it's healthier to have a fragmented market. Maybe it's not as efficient but fragmentation makes it more possible for smaller companies to find a niche. Otherwise big companies like Amazon, Facebook and others monopolize business world wide. Different legal models also provide grounds for experimentation. Who knows what works better in the long run? Wild West or regulation like GDPR? We don't know.
- matte_black 8y ago
  I hate to break it to you but not all users are treated the same.
disconnected 8y ago
> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. More than USA citizens with dubious DMCA takedown requests?
- frockington 8y ago
  Yes, much bigger pests
- matte_black 8y ago
  We've never had a DMCA takedown.
- freedomben 8y ago
  This strikes me as the typical political response when you are backing a terrible candidate and somebody points out something terrible they do/did. Rather than defend your candidate you respond by attacking theirs. My kids do this all the time when I catch them doing something wrong, "well #{brother} was doing #{badthing}!" Both seem wrong, can we agree on that? DMCA is a disgusting weapon, as is a lot that the US has done. Does that make weapons created by Europe ok?
  - pjscott 8y ago
    It's been around long enough to have a short name in a dead language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
    - freedomben 8y ago
      Oh man, that's genius. Totally gonna bookmark that.
- zerostar07 8y ago
  You don't need to do anything to implement DMCA on your site - just respond to emails. How is this even comparable with the kafkaesque implementation required by gdpr?
mephitix 8y ago
>> EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. Are they really pests for demanding privacy? In today's environment?
- ythn 8y ago
  To me it seems like a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too. "I want to use your free service without participating in your monetization model. K thanks" -- EU citizens
  - mephitix 8y ago
    'Free' is a powerful word - there's a lot of incentive for companies to tout 'free' and for users to feel like they're getting a good deal - when in reality there's a whole lot of other stuff happening behind the scenes. My take is that consumers need to be aware of what 'free' really means for each service that advertises it. What are the real implications - not just something hidden in doublespeak in a ToS or privacy policy. Everything spelled out in the GDPR is a great thing for users and should have been there from the very beginning - being able to erase all their data, see all their data, export their data, and get notified when data is accessed.
    - ythn 8y ago
      > Everything spelled out in the GDPR is a great thing for users and should have been there from the very beginning - being able to erase all their data, see all their data, export their data, and get notified when data is accessed. I hate this "empowering users" philosophy of the EU. It's reminiscent of "right to be forgotten" type regulation where EU believes users should be in control of "their" data, when it reality it isn't "theirs" to begin with. Once data is "public" you can't ever "erase" it because it's not "yours". I'm sorry, if you shoplift in my store (online or no), I'm keeping track of you no matter how much you demand that I erase "your" information.
      - llukas 8y ago
        So your private database about customers is somehow public? Where can I get it?
orf 8y ago
Is it onerous because you are doing dodgy things with EU citizens data, because you don't take information security seriously or because you've fallen for some of the FUD around GDPR (having to hire a DPO, being fined 2 trillion dollars, etc etc)? If it's too hard for you to copy paste a GDPR compliant privacy policy and monitor a GDPR email address then well, maybe you're in the wrong job.
- matte_black 8y ago
  We do take security seriously and we're not doing anything dodgy. We have business reasons for collecting user data, and users have no real reason to tell us to delete it at will, other than the fact that it makes them feel "creeped out". The future is probably going to be super creepy. If you want to participate, get over it.
  - Panoramix 8y ago
    -We're not doing anything dodgy. -Other than the fact that it makes them feel "creeped out". Pick one.
    - matte_black 8y ago
      Feeling creeped out doesn't mean someone is being dodgy.
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        But more times than not it does. Since there's a long history of companies doing bad stuff, you definitely don't deserve the benefit of the doubt on this one.
        mirko22 8y ago
        there is also a long history of people giving up their personal data to get some (overall) irrelevant service and then being surprised when their data is missused...
notananthem 8y ago
Hey, rest of the world, sorry some of our idiots are calling people pests for defending privacy.
- austinheap 8y ago
  Hey, rest of world, sorry some of our commenters can’t express disagreement without name calling.
mikestew 8y ago
EU citizens have turned into pests overnight. EU citizens turned into "pests" two years ago. Much like Y2K was a "pest" years before January 1, 2000. But unlike EU regulations, Y2K was like The Terminator: there was no appeal process, and it absolutely would not stop...ever, until you fix your Y2K bugs. GDPR OTOH, eh, maybe there's some way to wiggle out of it? And two years later, when Compliance Day comes, here we are.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

phyzome 8y ago

Unfortunately, I think people are taking it seriously. -.-