3 ms·

Possibly one of the worst cases of irrational GDPR fear. The fines would have been significantly lower than the (irreversible?) loss of European market share.

evanelias 8y ago
The max fines are based on the top-level parent company's global revenue. Instapaper was owned by Pinterest until being spun off very recently. Most likely, Pinterest's lawyers and executives were not OK with risking the fines, and also did not want to devote enough development resources to GDPR compliance for such a small subsidiary like Instapaper. Also explains why they'd spin it out -- GDPR changed the calculus. This is speculation, but I've seen this GDPR fear play out elsewhere. Large parent companies are very worried about those worst-case fines and want to ensure there's no risk whatsoever. The "Instapaper must be up to something sketchy if GDPR compliance took so long" narrative here seems pretty unfair. If their former owners are to blame for the long EU outage, it's understandable that Instapaper isn't going to publicly call them out -- they may even have agreements preventing this. And the whole spin-out probably took some time and logistical effort, so they couldn't reasonably focus on GDPR immediately after that either. (Edit: not trying to knock Pinterest either; their actions would be completely understandable given the max potential fines.)
x0x0 8y ago
It's not just the fines. Even assume you negotiate the regulator (or regulators!) down to something reasonable, your international law firm with relationships with the various regulators is going to price out at well over $500 US/hour. For a simple complaint to the regulator, you're probably staring at $15k or more of legal. In Pinterest's case where an Instapaper complaint could have triggered a general review of their business practices, I'd roughly estimate the costs of talking to the regulator at a half million dollars. Start with their counsel ordering sales & marketing leadership to grab engineers to create and review a consent log for every outbound sales and marketing contact in their system.
Sujan 8y ago
It is impossible for fines ($ or €) to be lower than market share (% or number of users). Also, what you probably meant is still not possible: As Instapaper was free under Pinterest, market share was connected to $0 of revenue. So any fine would be greater than the revenue of the app's European customers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bumholio 8y ago
  That's nitpicking on language, in context I am clearly referring to the monetary value of the respective market share. That can be calculated even for a zero revenue company, unless the plan all along was to operate Instapaper as a non-profit and forever offer the service free.

evanelias 8y ago

The max fines are based on the top-level parent company's global revenue. Instapaper was owned by Pinterest until being spun off very recently. Most likely, Pinterest's lawyers and executives were not OK with risking the fines, and also did not want to devote enough development resources to GDPR compliance for such a small subsidiary like Instapaper. Also explains why they'd spin it out -- GDPR changed the calculus. This is speculation, but I've seen this GDPR fear play out elsewhere. Large parent companies are very worried about those worst-case fines and want to ensure there's no risk whatsoever. The "Instapaper must be up to something sketchy if GDPR compliance took so long" narrative here seems pretty unfair. If their former owners are to blame for the long EU outage, it's understandable that Instapaper isn't going to publicly call them out -- they may even have agreements preventing this. And the whole spin-out probably took some time and logistical effort, so they couldn't reasonably focus on GDPR immediately after that either. (Edit: not trying to knock Pinterest either; their actions would be completely understandable given the max potential fines.)

x0x0 8y ago

It's not just the fines. Even assume you negotiate the regulator (or regulators!) down to something reasonable, your international law firm with relationships with the various regulators is going to price out at well over $500 US/hour. For a simple complaint to the regulator, you're probably staring at $15k or more of legal. In Pinterest's case where an Instapaper complaint could have triggered a general review of their business practices, I'd roughly estimate the costs of talking to the regulator at a half million dollars. Start with their counsel ordering sales & marketing leadership to grab engineers to create and review a consent log for every outbound sales and marketing contact in their system.

Sujan 8y ago

It is impossible for fines ($ or €) to be lower than market share (% or number of users). Also, what you probably meant is still not possible: As Instapaper was free under Pinterest, market share was connected to $0 of revenue. So any fine would be greater than the revenue of the app's European customers.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bumholio 8y ago
That's nitpicking on language, in context I am clearly referring to the monetary value of the respective market share. That can be calculated even for a zero revenue company, unless the plan all along was to operate Instapaper as a non-profit and forever offer the service free.