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Does "every company" include the thousands of local businesses running Woocommerce or Shopify? Larger companies love regulations like this because they can aff

by hnick 7y ago

Does "every company" include the thousands of local businesses running Woocommerce or Shopify? Larger companies love regulations like this because they can afford it, and it keeps smaller competitors from ever growing to be a threat. I'm not saying they should be able to do whatever with data - but for such providers, manually replying to an email is preferable than implementing a complicated technical solution they can't understand (and will often likely mis-configure, exposing your data) when they just want to sell hats.

couchand 7y ago
Clearly if this regulation existed companies like the ones you mention would include an API as part of their offering.
- hnick 7y ago
  I'd weigh that up against the very real risk it is mis-configured by someone's nephew and exposes my private data to anyone who asks. I think mandating API for certain industries like banking is a good idea, but I'm not so supportive of having it apply all the way down to my local hair salon. They have enough to worry about.
yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
That's fine. The second point was precisely that if the company doesn't want to provide an API, fine; but they then don't get to try and stop people from scraping it instead. And I agree with my sibling comment; Woocommerce or Shopify or whatever just build it in like everything else they provide.
- hnick 7y ago
  Agree re: scraping, I was more stuck on "obligatory" so I guess I glossed over that. I also agree that the big players would roll it into their core offering which would make life easier, but I'm wary of monocultures. A lot of people are already a bit annoyed at how much Wordpress is out there and this would just be another reason to skip a smaller (or bespoke) alternative and raise the barrier of entry for anyone thinking of making an alternative. But if we're agreeing that no one is forced to do it and scraping is OK, that's fine.

by hnick 7y ago

couchand 7y ago

Clearly if this regulation existed companies like the ones you mention would include an API as part of their offering.

hnick 7y ago
I'd weigh that up against the very real risk it is mis-configured by someone's nephew and exposes my private data to anyone who asks. I think mandating API for certain industries like banking is a good idea, but I'm not so supportive of having it apply all the way down to my local hair salon. They have enough to worry about.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

That's fine. The second point was precisely that if the company doesn't want to provide an API, fine; but they then don't get to try and stop people from scraping it instead. And I agree with my sibling comment; Woocommerce or Shopify or whatever just build it in like everything else they provide.

hnick 7y ago
Agree re: scraping, I was more stuck on "obligatory" so I guess I glossed over that. I also agree that the big players would roll it into their core offering which would make life easier, but I'm wary of monocultures. A lot of people are already a bit annoyed at how much Wordpress is out there and this would just be another reason to skip a smaller (or bespoke) alternative and raise the barrier of entry for anyone thinking of making an alternative. But if we're agreeing that no one is forced to do it and scraping is OK, that's fine.