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List of Websites not available in the EU because of GDPR
- mtgx 8y ago"Because of websites not willing to stop tracking users against their freely-given consent." Fixed that for you.
- fiiv 8y agoI agree, it's really not the legislation that should be blamed, it's the crappy websites.
- hutzlibu 8y agoHm, I don't know all the details of those websites, but I think it might have also something to do with the unwillingness to having to comply with foreign law. The US Military News for example, probably won't need the tracking, as they have other intel and income sources, but they are also on the list. I suspect as a political statement.
- oytis 8y agoMaybe not a political statement, just unwillingness to pay lawyers extra for supporting compliance to a law they don't care about.
- aicantar 8y agoA political statement against protecting people? Awesome.
- hutzlibu 8y agoA political statement against foreign intervention. A la, if there is a need to protect people, then we make those laws ourself. "But who is the EU to tell our companys what to do!" But maybe note, that I am explaining the possible point of view for this side, not that I take this side. But since I got downvoted allready apparently, this was intellectually too hard for some to understand.
- BjoernKW 8y agoIt's both. The legislation, while based on good intentions, isn't exactly a prime example of an easy-to-implement, consistent set of rules. There's no excuse for larger players to not implement these rules. Many smaller players however, struggled and in some cases still struggle with this because some of the rules are rather vague (sometimes intentionally so in order to be future-proof) and hence open for interpretation. There's the rub: While the law is clearly targeted at larger companies - to the extent some have called it Lex Facebook - it's the smaller companies and hobbyists, for whom implementing GDPR is more of a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if, in the long run, companies such as Facebook actually benefited from GDPR, at the expense of smaller competitors.
- oytis 8y ago> I wouldn't be surprised if, in the long run, companies such as Facebook actually benefited from GDPR, at the expense of smaller competitors. That is basically the end effect of any regulation: life gets harder for small players and newcomers.
- zucan 8y agoIs it really a problem with the specific implementation (GDPR) or rather with the general idea that a person should be in control about their data?
- BjoernKW 8y ago
- amelius 8y agoWhy is this useful? I'd rather like to see a list of websites that someone needed to visit but couldn't because of GDPR.
- SiempreViernes 8y agoClearly it is a list of website someone tried to visit, judging if they actually needed to is a tad police-state.
- lagadu 8y agoAKA: list of websites whose habits regarding your personal data are so shady, they're literally illegal in large swaths of the world.
- thisgoodlife 8y agoOr maybe just revenue from eu < cost to comply
- pmlnr 8y agocost to comply is not to log data of the same users they are showing the blockade right now. I fail to see how that's so expensive to do.
- chrismeller 8y agoNo, that's not the only requirement. At the very least there are additional record keeping steps, policies and procedures to draft, the appointment of a DPO that responds to requests for access or erasure, and the development of the features to fulfill both of those requests. Not to mention the potential risk of doing any of that wrong and dealing with the fallout if you get called on it. One of the sites on this list is the Aiken Standard. We're talking a local newspaper serving Aiken, SC - a city of less than 30,000 people. Even if an EU citizen (or someone traveling in the EU) cared about their local news, it's simply not worth it - that's not their audience.
- jlengrand 8y agoInteresting that there are quite a few news websites in there. GDPR is better for users overall, but due to websites not willing to reduce their user tracking practices some news sources become less available.
- donohoe 8y agoIts not all about 'unwilling to reduce' its often a matter of not knowing how, or which ones are compliant and which ones are not.
- jlengrand 8y agoDon't disagree! The reasons could be multiple. What is the reason to spend money to be compliant to european laws for a local californian newspaper? What I find interesting is that they took the time to raise a location based 405, so they seem at least aware of it !
- notimetorelax 8y agoRandom two I tried loaded for me. I’m in Switzerland, though. Maybe it makes a difference?
- messe 8y agoWell, for one thing, Switzerland isn't in the EU.
- oblio 8y agoIt's in the EEA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area), so GDPR still applies.
- PlutoIsAPlanet 8y agoIt isn't in the EEA either. The page you just linked literally says that. "One EFTA member, Switzerland, has not joined the EEA, but has a series of bilateral agreements with the EU which allow it also to participate in the internal market."
- repolfx 8y agoIt's not in the EEA and your own wiki link shows that. Switzerland is not under GDPR however, unfortunately many American sites assume EU = Europe. This is understandable because so many EU supporters insist on using the word "Europe" when what they actually mean is EU, in order to create this exact impression (and to confer on the EU the sense that it's as large and stable as a continent).
- oblio 8y agoTo-may-to, to-mah-to. They're in EFTA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Free_Trade_Associatio... > They adopt almost all EU legislation related to the single market, except laws on agriculture and fisheries. https://blog.kpmg.ch/eu-data-protection-regulation-also-concerns-switzerland/ https://blog.kpmg.ch/eu-data-protection-regulation-also-conc... > When the Swiss Federal Council has engaged the Federal Department of Justice and Police to draft a revised DPA, which is expected by end of August 2016, it was the decision of the Swiss Federal Council to draft the revision in due consideration of the EU data protection regulation. The Swiss Federal Council also outlined, that it is economically important for Switzerland to be recognized as a country with an appropriate data protection level for the EU. Hence, the revised DPA is likely to be influenced by GDPR’s principles and will likely include largely analogical rules and provisions. According to the envisaged timeline, the revised DPA should be enacted around the same period as the GDPR, which is beginning of 2018. Switzerland is for most intents and purposes in the EU, minus a delay of several years of applying the EU acquis (EU body of laws concerning countries part of the single market).
- zorked 8y agoAnd nothing of value was lost.
- an8a 8y agoDoesn't look like I'll need to visit any local American news website anytime soon anyway.
- tw1010 8y agoSuch a lazy and stubborn approach to just ban EU users to protest GDPR.
- patricius 8y agoWell, complying has costs, you know. Perhaps, in some cases, it’s just a matter of not wanting/being able to justify that cost.
- brobdingnagians 8y agoCurrently a US citizen living in Spain, I hit these decently often looking up news articles that look interesting about things in the US, but stopped short by the notices about GDPR. I'd be curious if some of the newspapers eventually comply after several court cases defining some details on how it is treated-- seems disproportionately higher for newspapers; anyone know why? other than their audiences don't tend to be in Europe?
- Mashimo 8y agoMaybe they relay more on selling data?
- guitarbill 8y agoA lot of these sites are ostensibly local US news or media (e.g. WPTA - Fort Wayne, IN), and it's hard to see how they fall under the GDPR. So either it's a political statement, or they somehow are subject to the GDPR, e.g. they are owned by a multi-national conglomerate, or sell data to them.
- raverbashing 8y agoYeah, they don't fall under GDPR it's mostly a knee-jerk reaction (or, as you mentioned, they are owned by a bigger conglomerate)
- guitarbill 8y agowell, the latter is quite insidious, and something they've likely tried to keep a secret. Weirdly, this could a win for transparency by the GDPR even outside of Europe.
- chrismeller 8y agoIP addresses are specifically considered to be personal data, so even accepting a page view from an EU citizen and writing the IP to an Apache log file could subject them to it. Same with cookies and any kind of analytics or advertising partners (which most local news sites seem oddly heavy on). Even if they somehow figured out that they were already completely compliant (and ignoring the work involved in discovering that), there are policies and procedures you need to write to document who you share their data with and respond to requests from EU citizens about their data and the features to support answering those.
- dotancohen 8y agoThank you for this list of websites that I'll never use, even though I'm not in the EU.
- franciscop 8y agoIt'd be nice if there was an Alexa ranking column and sorted by that instead of alphabetic.
- sshine 8y agoYes, right now they are ordered by how little I care.
- megous 8y agoWhy is it all mostly news websites?
- Freak_NL 8y agoLocal and regional news media like newspapers are often owned by large conglomerates that hold dozens, if not hundreds, of titles. These are likely to follow a single guideline with regards to the GDPR.
- daw___ 8y agoBecause are those that run the most ads, which do profiling and automated decision-making (i.e.: real-time bidding). It's hard to get that GDPR compliant.
- OJFord 8y agoI've ran into this a few times through 'normal usage', e.g. I search for something, click the link, and get told off for being in the EU (for the time being). 'Food Network' is one I've hit a few times searching for recipes; it seems several other domains are under its umbrella: https://www.foodnetwork.com/not-available.html https://www.foodnetwork.com/not-available.html
- dmortin 8y agoThere could be a browser extension which opens these pages via US proxies when blocked.
- Freak_NL 8y agoWhere can we submit pull requests? Plenty of crappy websites missing that do show up in search engine results.
- __BrianDGLS__ 8y agoI can access them and I'm in the EU... By not available what do you mean?
- danols 8y agoSame. I clicked 5 of them at random and only 2 was blocked for me.
- erikbye 8y agoGood riddance.
- sjmulder 8y agoWhat I think would also be useful (or more useful) is a list of sites that blatantly don't comply in popular ways such as requiring tracking consent ("By continuing to use …") or assuming consent, often making it hard to opt out ("You need to enable third party cookies and visit these 95 places to opt out"). Right now ICOs can't even begin to hunt down all the small offenders, but once case law builds up and we have such a list bulk processes can be set up. A browser extension could be used to ease reporting and even detect popular noncompliant solutions.
- cyborgx7 8y agoYeah, all the website manufacturers seem to have severly misunderstood what "opt-in" means. I hope they get some hefty fines to make them comply.
- sshine 8y agoMeanwhile, visiting a large commercial website today involves: 1. A pop-up notifying the visitor on the website's cookie policy (required by EU law). 2. A pop-up asking the visitor to consent to its privacy policy (required by EU law). 3. A pop-up asking the visitor if they'd like to subscribe to its newsletter. 4. A pop-up telling the visitor that it's run out of "free articles", but that you can sign up at a premium. 5. A pop-up asking the visitor to turn off the adblocker because the site's revenue depends on the ads. 6. A pop-up asking the visitor to participate in an online survey. 7. A pop-up telling the visitor about a unique way to earn money in your underwear. None of the pop-ups will share UI for closing them, and some of the close buttons will be so hard to press that you accidentally change site instead. (Clarification: It doesn't have to be a pop-up, but it does have to be annoying.)
- nmca 8y agoDon't forget about the pop-up for the live sales chat!
- VexorLoophole 8y agoOh, and a pop-up about the new redesign and it's new (clunky for desktop users) features.
- barking 8y agoThat's OK those sites are toast if they keep that up.
- black_puppydog 8y agoYeah, because competition will make it so? Just that "the competition" is doing the exact same things...
- barking 8y agoYes and cable took the piss for years with subscriptions plus ads and then along came netflix
- jzs 8y agoI can't figure out what i think about it. Most of those are of no use to me anyways as a European citizen. However were i interested in US local news i'd be sad not to be able to access them. From the websites point of view, i guess there's not enough money to be made from people located in the European union. They are certainly not targeting a global audience. In the end, they are free to choose.
- Nursie 8y agoThe GDPR stuff has opened my eyes to just how widespread data tracking and sharing has been. I went to a small local news site to read a story, I think it was for "Wales Online" and got presented with the options box. After clicking through to look at their advertising 'partners' my data could be sent to, I found a list of probably 200 different entities. Presumably, for being a local news thing, this means that they have used some sort of advertising and analytics framework that plugs into some middleware system and from there passes out what it knows to these other places. I can't imagine each one is individually in the codebase. What it exposed was the massive extent of what's going on. To access just a few hundred words of text, my details and activity would be passed on to an unbelievable array of companies. I'm very glad the GDPR has come in.
- techscruggs 8y agoThe majority of these websites appear to be US based local news outlets. They have very little motivation to comply with GDPR. As a side note, a lot of the comments here suggest that few people are reviewing the list at all before offering their opinion. Yes GDPR is a great step forward for data privacy, but there is little reason to shame "The Pueblo Chieftain" for not complying with GDPR. What is more likely: 1) compliance doesn't matter to them or their audience 2) they are trying to exploit and monetize your data
- DanBC 8y agoThey don't need to comply with GDPR. They're not doing business in the EU; they're not based in the EU; they're not targetting EU citizens. They're exempt from the regulations. > but there is little reason to shame "The Pueblo Chieftain" for not complying with GDPR. People are complaining about the corrupt business model of massive misuse of personal data.
- donohoe 8y agoIts not that simple. The may have a parent company that does have an EU presence making the parent company liable in the event of a violation.
- BearsAreCool 8y agoThe number I am more interested in is how many websites don't comply with the GDPR but don't block EU residents from viewing. One website I use basically said "We're too small matter, nobody will care if we don't comply" and I imagine there are many other websites like that.
- KineticLensman 8y agoI haven't exactly done a scientific survey here, but what is interesting is to click the links and see what response comes back (I'm in the UK, still part of the EU). Here are some of them: * Sorry, this content is not available in your region. * The precondition on the request for the URL / evaluated to false. * Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. " * 451: Unavailable due to legal reasons * Error code 16. This request was blocked by the security rules * Apologies! The site you are trying to visit is not available in your area. Please note, to comply with GDPR we have purged our newsletter lists and databases for anyone located within the European Union. Thank you for your interest. * 403 ERROR The request could not be satisfied. * We're sorry you’re not able to access the site at this time, but this is a temporary measure to ensure we can best protect your data under new privacy regulations. We value your support; thanks for your patience and we can't wait to have you back! I find it interesting that some present the problem as a technical problem whereas others explicitly mention a region problem or even GDPR I also found a couple of places where the sites are in fact accessible, e.g. instapaper.com The vast majority of the sites seem to be US local news sites, so perhaps to them providing access for EU citizens isn't really a key goal
- seszett 8y ago> The vast majority of the sites seem to be US local news sites That's even more weird since they are explicitly not covered by GDPR, because their target audience is obviously not based in the EU (and they most probably don't do any business in the EU either, so are completely out of reach as well). It seems to me like they are the very websites for which this exemption was intended.
- josteink 8y ago> It seems to me like they are the very websites for which this exemption was intended. That doesn't help much when every US arm-chair lawyer (like the techies here on HN) spends all their time causing paranoia and telling everyone how even access logs are illegal now under GDPR, and how they will be brought into bankruptcy by the EU. Ofcourse the business-people are going to panic when all they hear are their techies are telling them that EU is going to shut them down. Whatever crappy legal regime these US techies will be stuck with in the future, one thing is certain: they brought it onto themselves.
- nkkollaw 8y agoI think we should rephrase, it's not "because of GDPR", it's "because of their incompetence". I have made a few sites GDPR-compliant, and honestly unless your business practices are based on exploiting people's data, it's not that hard.
- donohoe 8y agoUnnecessarily harsh. It often comes down to advertising. No one (and I include Google and others in this) has properly figured out GDPR compliant advertising IMHO. The effort of disabling ads for EU visitors is higher than just blocking EU visitors if you don't have a lot of resources.
- nkkollaw 8y agoI think you're confused about what GDPR requires from companies. The whole thing is simply about not collecting data you're not supposed to need in order to provide the service, and whatever you do it must be opt-in. The only reason why a company needs to block a whole continent is that they've based their whole infrastructure on exploiting the user's data to such a level that they cannot provide their service without collecting and retain data they're not supposed to collect. As for "a lot of resources", Instagram and the L.A. Times should have enough resources to become compliant.
- yumashka 8y agoBy the way, some of them are not accessible from Russia. :) But Russia is not in EU/GDPR. <sic>
- yakamok 8y agoi honestly like the fact these sites block access, for me its a sign they don't care about users privacy or are just too lazy to comply. I have several projects that need to comply with the GDPR, i did not feel it to be a big effort to comply. I currently block sites with annoying pop ups or show failure to comply.
- fmajid 8y agoList of websites with despicable privacy practices FTFY
- mdrzn 8y agoSo, any chance to blacklist them from HN? Or at least offer an alternative for EU-members? There must be a couple millions on this platform, I guesstimate. I'm still hoping for the "Outline it" link right after the "web" one.