Imagine if China decided that Chinese citizens accessing foreign servers was a breach of national security due to the ability of these foreign servers to collec

Imagine if China decided that Chinese citizens accessing foreign servers was a breach of national security due to the ability of these foreign servers to collect private browsing information, and imagine if China decided to make laws that fined these foreign entities in violation of their laws. I agree with you. Fortunately, at least in the case of GDPR, we don't have to worry about it, as this article is completely off base legally. While I'm sure there are many in the EU that would love for it to be illegal for foreign entities to block EU residents, here's the reality of this. Under Recital 23 [1], you are not subject to the GDPR if you are outside of the EU and it cannot be established that you "envisage" servicing EU customers. This Recital explicitly states that the mere accessibility of a foreign website from within the EU does not by itself subject the site to the GDPR. In other words, none of the GDPR applies to foreign websites that are blocking EU residents, because they have shown that they don't intend to serve EU residents. Since the law doesn't apply, its restrictions on automated profiling don't apply either (and you can legally store their IP address and any other information gleaned from HTTP requests for eternity and not bother responding to their "nightmare letters"). I find articles written in bad faith like this odd on a number of levels. Do people in the EU really want to falsely make sites in other parts of the world believe that they must comply with this absurd legislation? It's almost like they are trying to say "HA! We have power over you and can force you to do whatever we want!". It seems like a weird and desperate power struggle. Block the EU, and GDPR doesn't apply (as long as you don't already hold EU resident data). It's as simple as that. [1] http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/recital-23-GDPR.htm http://www.privacy-regulation.eu/en/recital-23-GDPR.htm