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US media. Why do I need always a VPN from Europe? Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. "Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitor

US media. Why do I need always a VPN from Europe? Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. "Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors... blablabla". UPDATE: And this news website even detects if I use incognito mode: "To continue reading, please disable private/incognito mode, log in, or enroll as a member" omg

_ph_ 8y ago
I was able to access the text via reader mode in Firefox. (I am surfing from the EU)
DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
> Why do I need always a VPN from Europe? Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. "Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors... blablabla" If you think there's a compelling business case for enabling European access, you may wish to contact the publisher.
- cco 8y ago
  The compelling business case is avoiding the burden of complying with GDPR regulations. At a minimum someone has to answer those requests for info and/or deletion, if Europe represents a small percentage of your traffic it might not be worth bothering with.
  - codedokode 8y ago
    Or they might just not collect any data from EU users.
    - therealmarv 8y ago
      ha, best comment here so far. Interesting approach! :D
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but if you are running a web server you have to try to not collect data on people who hit it. My personal website )if it were up, oops) is not GDPR-compliant, and it is completely hosted on my own server using nothing but static HTML with a bit of Bootstrap JavaScript. I have no ads. I have no referral links. I have no analytics. I don't even have comments on the articles I post. If I were running this site as a business I would need to evaluate how much it would cost to bring, and keep, the site into compliance versus how much revenue I derive from European visitors. Don't give me the "it's simple if you aren't tracking people" line, either. It's not simple, and I'm not going to trust the health of a business to the interpretations of random Internet posters or the benevolence of regulars on the other side of an ocean.
    - cco 8y ago
      Ok, now you are supporting two different user experiences, depending upon your site that could have massive software implications, i.e. extra cost, versus just checking IP location and saying "sorry no". I'm not defending the decision, I'm just providing a possible explanation as to why businesses, when faced with GDPR might choose to block EU users.
raverbashing 8y ago
Done with js, so you just need to stop or block it But the article is very light on details
shawnz 8y ago
Wow, the incognito mode blocking is something I've never seen before. Disgusting. Hopefully Google corrects the bug which they are using to discover the incognito mode status.
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  I'm sure Google appreciates the protection of their advertising revenue.
- jordanthoms 8y ago
  They are working on that actually, planned to be in Chrome 74 and then enabled by default in Chrome 76.
  - helper 8y ago
    Interesting. Here's an article describing the changes: https://9to5google.com/2019/02/15/google-chrome-detect-incognito/ https://9to5google.com/2019/02/15/google-chrome-detect-incog...
  - Sylamore 8y ago
    They are also able to detect private mode in FireFox I was able to eventually get past it using ABP by adding rules to block https://courier-api.dallasnews.com/v1/paywall/* https://courier-api.dallasnews.com/v1/paywall/* and www.dallasnews.com###courier-iframe
cm2187 8y ago
Rather than posting the same comment on every story, I recommend you rather flag the link. Having links that are inaccessible from large parts of the world only hurts HN, making it annoying and frustrating to many users.
helper 8y ago
> Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. Its also not free. Rational companies will apply a cost benefit analysis to GDPR compliance and some of them will determine it is better to block EU visitors than to do the GDPR work.
- therealmarv 8y ago
  Well this is the WWW at its 30th birthday... we have regional internet nowadays :(
- tschwimmer 8y ago
  Bingo, correct answer. I'm a bit saddened that I see how few people seem to understand this. This is a real cost of the GDPR. If enforcement ticks up more companies will do the cost/benefit and some will decide to withdraw from the European internet. That leads to a more fractured web.
thro_awayz_days 8y ago
Well US media hates GDPR. Its all a circular reference
- gsich 8y ago
  It will come there too.
whalesalad 8y ago
Likewise a lot of us in the US are not willing to play the GDPR game. Ultimately this is a Dallas-based news organization that caters to a metropolitan area of one state in the US... European readers are not even on their radar.
chopin 8y ago
The site works fine in Firefox incognito mode and Javascript disabled (uMatrix).
neop1x 8y ago
block javascript ;)

_ph_ 8y ago

I was able to access the text via reader mode in Firefox. (I am surfing from the EU)

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

> Why do I need always a VPN from Europe? Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. "Unfortunately, our site is unavailable to European Union visitors... blablabla" If you think there's a compelling business case for enabling European access, you may wish to contact the publisher.

cco 8y ago
The compelling business case is avoiding the burden of complying with GDPR regulations. At a minimum someone has to answer those requests for info and/or deletion, if Europe represents a small percentage of your traffic it might not be worth bothering with.
- codedokode 8y ago
  Or they might just not collect any data from EU users.
  - therealmarv 8y ago
    ha, best comment here so far. Interesting approach! :D
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but if you are running a web server you have to try to not collect data on people who hit it. My personal website )if it were up, oops) is not GDPR-compliant, and it is completely hosted on my own server using nothing but static HTML with a bit of Bootstrap JavaScript. I have no ads. I have no referral links. I have no analytics. I don't even have comments on the articles I post. If I were running this site as a business I would need to evaluate how much it would cost to bring, and keep, the site into compliance versus how much revenue I derive from European visitors. Don't give me the "it's simple if you aren't tracking people" line, either. It's not simple, and I'm not going to trust the health of a business to the interpretations of random Internet posters or the benevolence of regulars on the other side of an ocean.
  - cco 8y ago
    Ok, now you are supporting two different user experiences, depending upon your site that could have massive software implications, i.e. extra cost, versus just checking IP location and saying "sorry no". I'm not defending the decision, I'm just providing a possible explanation as to why businesses, when faced with GDPR might choose to block EU users.

raverbashing 8y ago

Done with js, so you just need to stop or block it But the article is very light on details

shawnz 8y ago

Wow, the incognito mode blocking is something I've never seen before. Disgusting. Hopefully Google corrects the bug which they are using to discover the incognito mode status.

JeremyBanks 8y ago
I'm sure Google appreciates the protection of their advertising revenue.
jordanthoms 8y ago
They are working on that actually, planned to be in Chrome 74 and then enabled by default in Chrome 76.
- helper 8y ago
  Interesting. Here's an article describing the changes: https://9to5google.com/2019/02/15/google-chrome-detect-incognito/ https://9to5google.com/2019/02/15/google-chrome-detect-incog...
- Sylamore 8y ago
  They are also able to detect private mode in FireFox I was able to eventually get past it using ABP by adding rules to block https://courier-api.dallasnews.com/v1/paywall/* https://courier-api.dallasnews.com/v1/paywall/* and www.dallasnews.com###courier-iframe

cm2187 8y ago

Rather than posting the same comment on every story, I recommend you rather flag the link. Having links that are inaccessible from large parts of the world only hurts HN, making it annoying and frustrating to many users.

helper 8y ago

> Beeing GDPR compliant is not rocket science. Its also not free. Rational companies will apply a cost benefit analysis to GDPR compliance and some of them will determine it is better to block EU visitors than to do the GDPR work.

therealmarv 8y ago
Well this is the WWW at its 30th birthday... we have regional internet nowadays :(
tschwimmer 8y ago
Bingo, correct answer. I'm a bit saddened that I see how few people seem to understand this. This is a real cost of the GDPR. If enforcement ticks up more companies will do the cost/benefit and some will decide to withdraw from the European internet. That leads to a more fractured web.

thro_awayz_days 8y ago

Well US media hates GDPR. Its all a circular reference

gsich 8y ago
It will come there too.

whalesalad 8y ago

Likewise a lot of us in the US are not willing to play the GDPR game. Ultimately this is a Dallas-based news organization that caters to a metropolitan area of one state in the US... European readers are not even on their radar.

chopin 8y ago

The site works fine in Firefox incognito mode and Javascript disabled (uMatrix).

neop1x 8y ago

block javascript ;)