18 ms·

Back to EU

145 points by mhw 5y ago

wainstead 5y ago
Sometimes I wonder if the GDPR will go down in history like, say, the Magna Carta, a legal construct that changes history.
- oaiey 5y ago
  Maybe with some Amendments ... like the US constitutions. There is stuff missing.
- dboreham 5y ago
  They're similar in that both are documents that basically say "just do the things you would do if you weren't an arsehole". One is a bit longer though.
callamdelaney 5y ago
Bye?
- vegai_ 5y ago
  Welcome!
imdsm 5y ago
- Asooka 5y ago
  Hackers have always been involved in politics in some way, even if they didn't do so willingly. The GPL itself is a very bold political statement and as RMS has remarked "Even if you're not interested in politics, politics is interested in you!" (paraphrased).
- dkdbejwi383 5y ago
  > Is no where free of it? No, everything in life is political in some way or another.
  - gpvos 5y ago
    As Dutch theologian Harry Kuitert wrote: everything is political, but politics isn't everything.
  - hagbard_c 5y ago
    To be more precise, everything in society is political in some way or another. If you want to get rid of politics, get rid of society [1]. The denser the population, the heavier the politics so it already helps to move out to less densely populated areas. This comes as no surprise given the origin of the term politics - πόλις (polis) being the Greek word for "city" and πολίτης (polites) the word for "citizen". The same goes for the 'net where the most populous (not so much popular) entities wield an overly large amount of political power. If you want to get rid of those politics you'll have to move out of those environments - in other words, decentralise the 'net. Source: a classical education as well as personal experience in moving from a densely populated country to one with more breathing space. [1] by moving elsewhere
- Xylakant 5y ago
  Everything we do, every place we choose to work, incorporate or just live is subject to rules. These rules are largely decided by politics. As a consequence, politics have always been here, visible or not.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Aw shucks, politics has found its way to HN. If there is any topic that's relevant in HN, it would be where and why to found a tech company, as well as the impact of data protection legislation on operations and product design.
- Drakim 5y ago
  When bad politics hurt business, what choice do you have?
dijit 5y ago
Interestingly the Dutch have been very keen to capture Tech companies (or at least make it an attractive place for employees). There is a low flat tax rate (30% iirc) for some years (was 5 when I last checked) if you're working in an "in-demand" sector, and tech is one of those sectors. This is somewhat controversial from what I understand, not all of the Dutch like it, and I understand why: it's not really very fair to give foreigners a tax break and not your own people. But it's interesting nonetheless.
- frenkel 5y ago
  What taxes are you talking about? Vennootschapsbelasting? I believe it is a reduced rate for all businesses below a certain revenue.
  - tgv 5y ago
    The 30% rule: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/inkomstenbelasting/belastingvoordeel-buitenlandse-werknemers https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/inkomstenbelasting/...
  - WJW 5y ago
    I think he means the 30% ruling: https://www.expatica.com/nl/finance/taxes/the-dutch-30-ruling-explained-101641/ https://www.expatica.com/nl/finance/taxes/the-dutch-30-rulin...
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    I really have trouble telling Dutch words from hand smash in keyboards. I love it.
    - WJW 5y ago
      My favorite is the word "angstschreeuw" (cry/shout of fear), which is the word with the most consecutive consonants in the Dutch dictionary.
      - sorokod 5y ago
lbriner 5y ago
Surely you don't have to degrade your security to a lower UK standard, you can still meet GDPR and make it clear on your website, "Do you conform to GDPR?", "Yes we do. Although the UK have a lower standard of data protection, we still meet the stricter standard"
- klausjensen 5y ago
  The reasoning is covered in the article.
- kuschku 5y ago
  If the company were to breach GDPR, which regulator would enforce it? If UK law would require backdoors in a way that conflicts with GDPR, how could they remain compliant?
  - archsurface 5y ago
    Backdoors for a calendar app no one's heard of? No offence, but bigger fish to fry. And why would the company breach GDPR if it's making such a fuss about sticking to it?
    - nickd2001 5y ago
      Although maybe Cronofy is not yet well-known, Adam Bird was also founder of Esendex which became pretty huge (Commify that is now known as)
      - archsurface 5y ago
        Your logic is that a government would want a backdoor in this app because another app was successful? Just because the same founder? That's a lot of hopeful backdoors - poor return on investment for the government. I've worked on bigger projects than that without backdoors. "Pretty huge" is relative I guess - I certainly wouldn't describe it as that. I seriously doubt that app had a government backdoor, and neither will this one. Was that an attempted appeal to authority?
reedf1 5y ago
The UK has ousted its boring technocrats and experts - our politicians and our public have embraced populism. We will ignore energy policy and GDPR because it's boring and spend our time debating culture wars in broadsheets and tabloids instead.
archsurface 5y ago
Why posted on the personal blog instead of the company site?
- Zenst 5y ago
  Because it is a bit politically charged and with that, by doing upon a personal blog the company always has that plausible deniability excuse and from a business aspect - this is best way as affords best of both Worlds. If it goes well, good, if there is a twitter rabble mob, then as not company domain - the good old - nothing to do with the company and the rouge individual excuse can be plausibly played. It's a smart move, though you do see thru it all over the years.
- adambird 5y ago
  Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that. Appreciate that as CEO these lines are blurred but I endeavoured to show some understanding of boundaries by publishing in this way. We will be providing more formal documentation about how customers can transact with us through the new entity and take advantage of the new oversight.
  - archsurface 5y ago
    Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that The whole thing is about the company. Not washing.
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      It's legally dangerous to do that, mainly because (at least in the US) it can "pierce the veil". I know that British and Dutch laws operate very differently, but I'm pretty sure that there still needs to be a clear separation in certain cases (this is a reorganisation which is a legal tightrope).
  - MauranKilom 5y ago
    Then it would be helpful to have a link to your company at the top of the post. The article starts immediately talking about Cronofy (using "we"), without any indication to the reader what Cronofy is and how you are related to it. Just an introductory sentence along the lines of "As the CEO of Cronofy [link to company site] (we do XYZ) I wanted to share thoughts on..." would have kept me reading. Instead, I followed the link to https://adambird.com/ https://adambird.com/ at the top and didn't find anything to help provide the missing context, so I just moved on. To be clear, if this article was only intended to be addressed to a narrow audience that was already aware of all the context then it was probably fine, but for an outside observer like HN it's very unclear.
WJW 5y ago
Welcome Cronofy, hope you find your bearings here quickly! (the landscape can be a bit flat, but almost everyone speaks English so that should help. Try a "stroopwafel" ASAP)
hailpixel 5y ago
An expected result from a sad, populist ideology shoved through under the guise of "winning". GDPR has plenty of flaws, but overall is a positive force for personal data privacy. Ironically, it's the business-to-business context — where the legal fees and fines are high — where this is being tested. And the UK is definitely losing.
pastyboy 5y ago
Auf wiedersehen
nanna 5y ago
Honestly what we need in the UK is a Back to the EU campaign that formulates a long term strategy for returning. In two decades England's Baby Boomer generation will no longer hold the reigns of power in the country (please God) and those in charge will have come from a generation that overwhelmingly voted Remain.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I can't see it happening but I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a Norway type deal (which was promised by many of the Brexiteers).
  - akmarinov 5y ago
    But that'll enable EU people to go live and work in the UK with no restrictions, that's way worse than what the UK had before.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      >that's way worse than what the UK had before But better than what we have now.
- Proven 5y ago
  You're effectively saying you and the rest of the people in your nation are too incompetent to run a country so you need the EU to help you with that. Pathetic, indeed. And the post is laughable: > Data privacy is, rightly so, one of the key concerns of the modern age. Is that a joke? https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/cybersecurity-eu-to-ban-anonymous-websites/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/cybersecurity-eu-to-ban-ano...
- volta83 5y ago
  Step 0: start driving on the right side of the road Step 1: adopt the euro Step 2: improve education for all ages and groups about misinformation, propaganda, etc. to reduce the chances of a bus driving around london from making you change your minds again in 4 years Step 3: apply to enter as an equal into the EU, instead of trying to cut some half assed deal for half the rights and half the benefits
BeniBoy 5y ago
A recent ruling (namely the Schrems II one) makes it very complicated to host and process data in countries that we used to consider as having "equivalent" privacy protection. The most prominent of course is the USA, but the UK could be on the line at some point. For now it has an "adequacy decision"[1] allowing such transfer, but future changes could threaten that, and activist such as Max Schrems would happily (and rightfully) attack this decision if it happened. Schrems II might be a blessing in disguise for the European hosting/Saas/Cloud industry, we'll see ! [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_21_3183 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_21_...
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  I think the UK will be fine for a while because they still enforce their implementation of the GDPR. Once those laws change, though, I'd definitely avoid storing or processing any data over there. I don't think the UK has that much to offer in terms of cloud and storage. All the big brands are in continental Europe or Ireland. The real impact would more likely be that externalised services that some European businesses contract dedicated companies in the UK for (payroll, data analysis, marketing, insurance, etc.) could suddenly become a subject to strict privacy rules that would make it impossible to continue if the UK were to be dropped of the whitelist.
Zenst 5y ago
"What the UK government is proposing is going to put us on the same footing as US companies when it comes to dealing with EU customers, ie under the auspice of a regime that can’t be trusted." Not sure you want to alienate the US just to score some political points when by you own admission - the bulk of your business is with the US ( a country that has a larger patriotic base than the UK and more experience of how to exit a union ala 1776). Point being any US company can implement a more stringent data policy beyond the scope of legal remit within the country of operations, so that's a USP that isn't exclusive. More so given you charge in $ already and not £'s or ever have! But then, that's why the blog is not upon the company domain (of which cronofy.uk is available still) - even they can see it is a bit too politically charged and slanted. So with that, prudent move and appreciate it is good to vent and some venting can cause issues, so a fine balance in that approach and kudos for the hindsight to see that. As for new location - have a good look as some EU countries offer some nice incentive packages and I'm sure many would love to see those compared.
- krageon 5y ago
  > alienate the US What is alienating about speaking the truth? Any US company must of necessity be considered to reside and operate under a privacy-hostile regime by an EU company thinking about doing business with them.
- yarcob 5y ago
  > any US company can implement a more stringent data policy beyond the scope of legal remit within the country of operations Theoretically, yes, you are right. But some companies are just going to say, oh, you are based in the US, let's look for a different vendor. It's not even necessarily about the GDPR. For example, US companies tend to send really shitty invoices. There's barely any info on the invoice, some don't even include the full legal name and address of the invoicer. That really sucks when the tax authorities audit you and want proof for where all your money went. If I buy services from the EU, I can assume that they comply with the GDPR, and I know that I'll get a proper invoice with VAT, and I won't have trouble with the tax authorities.
  - 5y ago
funshed 5y ago
The UK has launched a consolution on how to improve Data Protection Laws. One campaign on this consultation is to abolish the stupid Cookie Consent requirement, that is evidenced again and again to be wholley pointless. Anouther campaign with this consultation is to enable medical researches to use anonomised NHS data. The National Health Service (NHS) is huge and useing that data could usher in some great medical advancements. The government cites a project at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology where machine learning technology was applied to thousands of historic de-personalised eye scans to identify signs of eye disease and recommend how patients should be referred for care. There is no plans to weaken GDPR. Even if there was Adam Bird's company is welcome to go above and beyond the requirement. It's all nonsense, move if you want to. At this stage he doesnt even know what is changeing, to state Brexit and GDPR as the reason is premature.
- M2Ys4U 5y ago
  >There is no plans to weaken GDPR You and I have read a very different consultation document, then. The UK government absolutely are planning to weaken the UK GDPR.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    The prospect of people protesting to save cookies and slogans upon buses saying we could save the NHS millions of clicks a year by scrapping them - has my comedy pen running away with itself.
- Thiez 5y ago
  > the stupid Cookie Consent requirement, that is evidenced again and again to be wholley pointless Is it? It caused some companies such as GitHub to get rid of third party cookies entirely, and they don't need to ask for consent for the cookies that they do use. If only the law were enforced more, and I imagine in a few more years many more companies would be compliant.
- lixtra 5y ago
  > Even if there was Adam Bird's company is welcome to go above and beyond the requirement. It’s a brand issue. Being EU based signals that you have to obey GDPR by law, not only contract. Just like being a Swiss bank was a brand advantage long time ago. Of course, for their EU customers any company has to comply with GDPR by law.
Markoff 5y ago
what's wrong with the font on that website?
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
As Bruce Sterling said in Early 2016 [1]: > Great Britain is becoming Little Britain. The UK is like a giant Cayman Islands in 2016. They used to be the wise and perfidious grownups in the geostrategic room, but now it's all about squalid, petty things like Brexit, Scottish secession, anti-immigration; British political extremes are thriving and the middle is dead as mutton. They've lost their soft-power by the bucketful; people who used to beg for their wise counsel now ignore them. What do they want -- to be Airstrip One for any creep with a trailer-truck full of cash? I've never seen them think so small. This was even before the Brexit vote, and before BoJo became PM... [1] https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/487/Bruce-Sterling-Jon-Lebkowsky-Sta-page02.html#post44 https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/487/Bruce-St...
Barrin92 5y ago
>Whilst we’re headquartered in the UK, our revenue is split 55% US, 25% EU, 9% UK Having worked as a European expat in the UK for about two years in the software industry this is how it looks for a lot of companies. Majority of revenue is either US or the European market (largely depending on what you're selling), with the UK market at most capturing say, 20%-30% of revenue. It makes in my mind no sense at all to diverge from the EU on privacy policy. All the difficult compliance matters hat already been harmonized over the years, most of them are sensible anyhow and good enough to build upon, and the world is more and more moving towards data sovereignty type frameworks, in Asia as well. The British market itself is now so small on the world-stage, some kind of national solo-mission when software is so reliant on global markets
mrlonglong 5y ago
As a Brit I'm utterly disgusted by what's happened to this country under years of corrupt Tory misrule, and yes I'm also including NuLab during the Blair years but what can I do? I have consistently voted for pro EU parties but my voice seems to be drowned out by the baying racist xenophobic majority in this country. In the end it might be time to emigrate elsewhere.

145 points by mhw 5y ago

Sometimes I wonder if the GDPR will go down in history like, say, the Magna Carta, a legal construct that changes history.

oaiey 5y ago
Maybe with some Amendments ... like the US constitutions. There is stuff missing.
dboreham 5y ago
They're similar in that both are documents that basically say "just do the things you would do if you weren't an arsehole". One is a bit longer though.

callamdelaney 5y ago

Bye?

vegai_ 5y ago
Welcome!

imdsm 5y ago

Asooka 5y ago
Hackers have always been involved in politics in some way, even if they didn't do so willingly. The GPL itself is a very bold political statement and as RMS has remarked "Even if you're not interested in politics, politics is interested in you!" (paraphrased).
dkdbejwi383 5y ago
> Is no where free of it? No, everything in life is political in some way or another.
- gpvos 5y ago
  As Dutch theologian Harry Kuitert wrote: everything is political, but politics isn't everything.
- hagbard_c 5y ago
  To be more precise, everything in society is political in some way or another. If you want to get rid of politics, get rid of society [1]. The denser the population, the heavier the politics so it already helps to move out to less densely populated areas. This comes as no surprise given the origin of the term politics - πόλις (polis) being the Greek word for "city" and πολίτης (polites) the word for "citizen". The same goes for the 'net where the most populous (not so much popular) entities wield an overly large amount of political power. If you want to get rid of those politics you'll have to move out of those environments - in other words, decentralise the 'net. Source: a classical education as well as personal experience in moving from a densely populated country to one with more breathing space. [1] by moving elsewhere
Xylakant 5y ago
Everything we do, every place we choose to work, incorporate or just live is subject to rules. These rules are largely decided by politics. As a consequence, politics have always been here, visible or not.
nuerow 5y ago
> Aw shucks, politics has found its way to HN. If there is any topic that's relevant in HN, it would be where and why to found a tech company, as well as the impact of data protection legislation on operations and product design.
Drakim 5y ago
When bad politics hurt business, what choice do you have?

dijit 5y ago

Interestingly the Dutch have been very keen to capture Tech companies (or at least make it an attractive place for employees). There is a low flat tax rate (30% iirc) for some years (was 5 when I last checked) if you're working in an "in-demand" sector, and tech is one of those sectors. This is somewhat controversial from what I understand, not all of the Dutch like it, and I understand why: it's not really very fair to give foreigners a tax break and not your own people. But it's interesting nonetheless.

frenkel 5y ago
What taxes are you talking about? Vennootschapsbelasting? I believe it is a reduced rate for all businesses below a certain revenue.
- tgv 5y ago
  The 30% rule: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/inkomstenbelasting/belastingvoordeel-buitenlandse-werknemers https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/inkomstenbelasting/...
- WJW 5y ago
  I think he means the 30% ruling: https://www.expatica.com/nl/finance/taxes/the-dutch-30-ruling-explained-101641/ https://www.expatica.com/nl/finance/taxes/the-dutch-30-rulin...
- brianwawok 5y ago
  I really have trouble telling Dutch words from hand smash in keyboards. I love it.
  - WJW 5y ago
    My favorite is the word "angstschreeuw" (cry/shout of fear), which is the word with the most consecutive consonants in the Dutch dictionary.
    - sorokod 5y ago

lbriner 5y ago

Surely you don't have to degrade your security to a lower UK standard, you can still meet GDPR and make it clear on your website, "Do you conform to GDPR?", "Yes we do. Although the UK have a lower standard of data protection, we still meet the stricter standard"

klausjensen 5y ago
The reasoning is covered in the article.
kuschku 5y ago
If the company were to breach GDPR, which regulator would enforce it? If UK law would require backdoors in a way that conflicts with GDPR, how could they remain compliant?
- archsurface 5y ago
  Backdoors for a calendar app no one's heard of? No offence, but bigger fish to fry. And why would the company breach GDPR if it's making such a fuss about sticking to it?
  - nickd2001 5y ago
    Although maybe Cronofy is not yet well-known, Adam Bird was also founder of Esendex which became pretty huge (Commify that is now known as)
    - archsurface 5y ago
      Your logic is that a government would want a backdoor in this app because another app was successful? Just because the same founder? That's a lot of hopeful backdoors - poor return on investment for the government. I've worked on bigger projects than that without backdoors. "Pretty huge" is relative I guess - I certainly wouldn't describe it as that. I seriously doubt that app had a government backdoor, and neither will this one. Was that an attempted appeal to authority?

reedf1 5y ago

The UK has ousted its boring technocrats and experts - our politicians and our public have embraced populism. We will ignore energy policy and GDPR because it's boring and spend our time debating culture wars in broadsheets and tabloids instead.

archsurface 5y ago

Why posted on the personal blog instead of the company site?

Zenst 5y ago
Because it is a bit politically charged and with that, by doing upon a personal blog the company always has that plausible deniability excuse and from a business aspect - this is best way as affords best of both Worlds. If it goes well, good, if there is a twitter rabble mob, then as not company domain - the good old - nothing to do with the company and the rouge individual excuse can be plausibly played. It's a smart move, though you do see thru it all over the years.
adambird 5y ago
Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that. Appreciate that as CEO these lines are blurred but I endeavoured to show some understanding of boundaries by publishing in this way. We will be providing more formal documentation about how customers can transact with us through the new entity and take advantage of the new oversight.
- archsurface 5y ago
  Because I wanted to express my genuinely personal opinion about the situation and the company blog isn't really the place for that The whole thing is about the company. Not washing.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    It's legally dangerous to do that, mainly because (at least in the US) it can "pierce the veil". I know that British and Dutch laws operate very differently, but I'm pretty sure that there still needs to be a clear separation in certain cases (this is a reorganisation which is a legal tightrope).
- MauranKilom 5y ago
  Then it would be helpful to have a link to your company at the top of the post. The article starts immediately talking about Cronofy (using "we"), without any indication to the reader what Cronofy is and how you are related to it. Just an introductory sentence along the lines of "As the CEO of Cronofy [link to company site] (we do XYZ) I wanted to share thoughts on..." would have kept me reading. Instead, I followed the link to https://adambird.com/ https://adambird.com/ at the top and didn't find anything to help provide the missing context, so I just moved on. To be clear, if this article was only intended to be addressed to a narrow audience that was already aware of all the context then it was probably fine, but for an outside observer like HN it's very unclear.

WJW 5y ago

Welcome Cronofy, hope you find your bearings here quickly! (the landscape can be a bit flat, but almost everyone speaks English so that should help. Try a "stroopwafel" ASAP)

hailpixel 5y ago

An expected result from a sad, populist ideology shoved through under the guise of "winning". GDPR has plenty of flaws, but overall is a positive force for personal data privacy. Ironically, it's the business-to-business context — where the legal fees and fines are high — where this is being tested. And the UK is definitely losing.

pastyboy 5y ago

Auf wiedersehen

nanna 5y ago

Honestly what we need in the UK is a Back to the EU campaign that formulates a long term strategy for returning. In two decades England's Baby Boomer generation will no longer hold the reigns of power in the country (please God) and those in charge will have come from a generation that overwhelmingly voted Remain.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I can't see it happening but I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a Norway type deal (which was promised by many of the Brexiteers).
- akmarinov 5y ago
  But that'll enable EU people to go live and work in the UK with no restrictions, that's way worse than what the UK had before.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >that's way worse than what the UK had before But better than what we have now.
Proven 5y ago
You're effectively saying you and the rest of the people in your nation are too incompetent to run a country so you need the EU to help you with that. Pathetic, indeed. And the post is laughable: > Data privacy is, rightly so, one of the key concerns of the modern age. Is that a joke? https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/cybersecurity-eu-to-ban-anonymous-websites/ https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/cybersecurity-eu-to-ban-ano...
volta83 5y ago
Step 0: start driving on the right side of the road Step 1: adopt the euro Step 2: improve education for all ages and groups about misinformation, propaganda, etc. to reduce the chances of a bus driving around london from making you change your minds again in 4 years Step 3: apply to enter as an equal into the EU, instead of trying to cut some half assed deal for half the rights and half the benefits

BeniBoy 5y ago

A recent ruling (namely the Schrems II one) makes it very complicated to host and process data in countries that we used to consider as having "equivalent" privacy protection. The most prominent of course is the USA, but the UK could be on the line at some point. For now it has an "adequacy decision"[1] allowing such transfer, but future changes could threaten that, and activist such as Max Schrems would happily (and rightfully) attack this decision if it happened. Schrems II might be a blessing in disguise for the European hosting/Saas/Cloud industry, we'll see ! [1]: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_21_3183 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pt/ip_21_...

jeroenhd 5y ago
I think the UK will be fine for a while because they still enforce their implementation of the GDPR. Once those laws change, though, I'd definitely avoid storing or processing any data over there. I don't think the UK has that much to offer in terms of cloud and storage. All the big brands are in continental Europe or Ireland. The real impact would more likely be that externalised services that some European businesses contract dedicated companies in the UK for (payroll, data analysis, marketing, insurance, etc.) could suddenly become a subject to strict privacy rules that would make it impossible to continue if the UK were to be dropped of the whitelist.

Zenst 5y ago

"What the UK government is proposing is going to put us on the same footing as US companies when it comes to dealing with EU customers, ie under the auspice of a regime that can’t be trusted." Not sure you want to alienate the US just to score some political points when by you own admission - the bulk of your business is with the US ( a country that has a larger patriotic base than the UK and more experience of how to exit a union ala 1776). Point being any US company can implement a more stringent data policy beyond the scope of legal remit within the country of operations, so that's a USP that isn't exclusive. More so given you charge in $ already and not £'s or ever have! But then, that's why the blog is not upon the company domain (of which cronofy.uk is available still) - even they can see it is a bit too politically charged and slanted. So with that, prudent move and appreciate it is good to vent and some venting can cause issues, so a fine balance in that approach and kudos for the hindsight to see that. As for new location - have a good look as some EU countries offer some nice incentive packages and I'm sure many would love to see those compared.

krageon 5y ago
> alienate the US What is alienating about speaking the truth? Any US company must of necessity be considered to reside and operate under a privacy-hostile regime by an EU company thinking about doing business with them.
yarcob 5y ago
> any US company can implement a more stringent data policy beyond the scope of legal remit within the country of operations Theoretically, yes, you are right. But some companies are just going to say, oh, you are based in the US, let's look for a different vendor. It's not even necessarily about the GDPR. For example, US companies tend to send really shitty invoices. There's barely any info on the invoice, some don't even include the full legal name and address of the invoicer. That really sucks when the tax authorities audit you and want proof for where all your money went. If I buy services from the EU, I can assume that they comply with the GDPR, and I know that I'll get a proper invoice with VAT, and I won't have trouble with the tax authorities.
- 5y ago

funshed 5y ago

The UK has launched a consolution on how to improve Data Protection Laws. One campaign on this consultation is to abolish the stupid Cookie Consent requirement, that is evidenced again and again to be wholley pointless. Anouther campaign with this consultation is to enable medical researches to use anonomised NHS data. The National Health Service (NHS) is huge and useing that data could usher in some great medical advancements. The government cites a project at Moorfields Eye Hospital and the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology where machine learning technology was applied to thousands of historic de-personalised eye scans to identify signs of eye disease and recommend how patients should be referred for care. There is no plans to weaken GDPR. Even if there was Adam Bird's company is welcome to go above and beyond the requirement. It's all nonsense, move if you want to. At this stage he doesnt even know what is changeing, to state Brexit and GDPR as the reason is premature.

M2Ys4U 5y ago
>There is no plans to weaken GDPR You and I have read a very different consultation document, then. The UK government absolutely are planning to weaken the UK GDPR.
- Zenst 5y ago
  The prospect of people protesting to save cookies and slogans upon buses saying we could save the NHS millions of clicks a year by scrapping them - has my comedy pen running away with itself.
Thiez 5y ago
> the stupid Cookie Consent requirement, that is evidenced again and again to be wholley pointless Is it? It caused some companies such as GitHub to get rid of third party cookies entirely, and they don't need to ask for consent for the cookies that they do use. If only the law were enforced more, and I imagine in a few more years many more companies would be compliant.
lixtra 5y ago
> Even if there was Adam Bird's company is welcome to go above and beyond the requirement. It’s a brand issue. Being EU based signals that you have to obey GDPR by law, not only contract. Just like being a Swiss bank was a brand advantage long time ago. Of course, for their EU customers any company has to comply with GDPR by law.

Markoff 5y ago

what's wrong with the font on that website?

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

As Bruce Sterling said in Early 2016 [1]: > Great Britain is becoming Little Britain. The UK is like a giant Cayman Islands in 2016. They used to be the wise and perfidious grownups in the geostrategic room, but now it's all about squalid, petty things like Brexit, Scottish secession, anti-immigration; British political extremes are thriving and the middle is dead as mutton. They've lost their soft-power by the bucketful; people who used to beg for their wise counsel now ignore them. What do they want -- to be Airstrip One for any creep with a trailer-truck full of cash? I've never seen them think so small. This was even before the Brexit vote, and before BoJo became PM... [1] https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/487/Bruce-Sterling-Jon-Lebkowsky-Sta-page02.html#post44 https://people.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/487/Bruce-St...

Barrin92 5y ago

>Whilst we’re headquartered in the UK, our revenue is split 55% US, 25% EU, 9% UK Having worked as a European expat in the UK for about two years in the software industry this is how it looks for a lot of companies. Majority of revenue is either US or the European market (largely depending on what you're selling), with the UK market at most capturing say, 20%-30% of revenue. It makes in my mind no sense at all to diverge from the EU on privacy policy. All the difficult compliance matters hat already been harmonized over the years, most of them are sensible anyhow and good enough to build upon, and the world is more and more moving towards data sovereignty type frameworks, in Asia as well. The British market itself is now so small on the world-stage, some kind of national solo-mission when software is so reliant on global markets

mrlonglong 5y ago

As a Brit I'm utterly disgusted by what's happened to this country under years of corrupt Tory misrule, and yes I'm also including NuLab during the Blair years but what can I do? I have consistently voted for pro EU parties but my voice seems to be drowned out by the baying racist xenophobic majority in this country. In the end it might be time to emigrate elsewhere.