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It's also elsewhere, e.g. on reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/rh81c0/mitch_letter_chinese_dissident_student/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comm

It's also elsewhere, e.g. on reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/rh81c0/mitch_letter_chinese_dissident_student/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/rh81c0/mitch_letter... I am surprised it's blocked in the EU. My first guess is that this student newspaper doesn't have a lot of technical folks on staff and didn't see much point in investing in being Europe-friendly. Their hosting site, https://townnews.com/ https://townnews.com/, doesn't look super legit at a glance but perhaps someone else knows more.

qeternity 5y ago
As an American living in London, I find GDPR blocks extremely annoying…but I blame GDPR. It is a well intentioned law but horribly scoped. If I were the technical staff at a regional university in the US, I wouldn’t invest in compliance with a law that in theory can issue severe penalties. I would simply block that traffic, as they and many others have done.
- Majestic121 5y ago
  Compliance is easy : don't add the code that track users and you're compliant. If you do insist on tracking, make it opt out by default.
  - drcongo 5y ago
    You mean opt in by default / opted out by default?
  - t-3 5y ago
    So, I have to disable logging on my servers to comply with your regulations? No thanks.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Are the logs permanent? If not then GDPR doesn't cover it. Can you use the logs to identify users and their behaviour? If not GDPR doesn't cover it. If you keep permanent logs with information about users, then yeah that is a problem. But it should be a problem, that is a big potential security/privacy issue.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        This is a student run newspaper. They probably don’t employ a dedicated IT professional nor a legal professional to help them understand what GDPR requires of them. It’s easy to say “compliance with GDPR is so easy” when you’ve taken the time to understand what it requires—why should an American student newspaper have to take the time to learn other countries’ laws? Blocking access is easier especially considering the probability of the web site appealing to an international audience.
        C19is20 5y ago
        "...why should an American student newspaper have to take the time to learn other countries’ laws?". Students! Learning! (Continents!).
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        > Students! Learning! (Continents!). I’m not sure how I’m supposed to parse this. Maybe the “continents” is meant to be a correction from “countries’ laws”, but that would be a mistake because the EU isn’t a continent but rather a union of sovereign nations, and “countries’” is plural possessive so the original wording is correct.
        splitstud 5y ago
        Also a good lesson for students: avoid trouble when it is easy to do so.
  - StevePerkins 5y ago
    Since GDPR, I've had to implement a lot of data retention policy and "nuke" button type feature in various systems. But as a general web consumer myself, all I've noticed is that nearly every website I visit has a banner at the bottom saying "We use cookies, click Accept". Very rarely is there some kind of "Please Don't" button. It's just tacit acceptance, or else close the browser tab to opt-out.
    - DocTomoe 5y ago
      Banners without the option to decline unnecessary cookies and still get the content are a GDPR violation.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    Or block access and move on with your day.
gpvos 5y ago
Being GDPR-friendly is easy.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Right, block access and carry on with your day.
  - gpvos 5y ago
    No, stop tracking. (And there are other ways too which are not that much harder.)
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      “Not much harder” for the technical person maybe, but for the nontechnical person who doesn’t even know what information their software stores or for how long much less the requirements to appease GDPR, it’s much easier to block and get on with life especially considering what little legitimate EU-originating traffic their site probably received when the decision to geoblock was made. How does a nontechnical user with little knowledge of GDPR know if he needs to display a cookie popup (he may not even know what a cookie is or whether or not his software uses them or in what capacity). What about email addresses in user accounts? Is he now collecting private information and making himself culpable for expunging that information on request? He may not even know how to expunge in the case of log files or other artifacts. “Not much harder” my arse.

qeternity 5y ago

As an American living in London, I find GDPR blocks extremely annoying…but I blame GDPR. It is a well intentioned law but horribly scoped. If I were the technical staff at a regional university in the US, I wouldn’t invest in compliance with a law that in theory can issue severe penalties. I would simply block that traffic, as they and many others have done.

Majestic121 5y ago
Compliance is easy : don't add the code that track users and you're compliant. If you do insist on tracking, make it opt out by default.
- drcongo 5y ago
  You mean opt in by default / opted out by default?
- t-3 5y ago
  So, I have to disable logging on my servers to comply with your regulations? No thanks.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Are the logs permanent? If not then GDPR doesn't cover it. Can you use the logs to identify users and their behaviour? If not GDPR doesn't cover it. If you keep permanent logs with information about users, then yeah that is a problem. But it should be a problem, that is a big potential security/privacy issue.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      This is a student run newspaper. They probably don’t employ a dedicated IT professional nor a legal professional to help them understand what GDPR requires of them. It’s easy to say “compliance with GDPR is so easy” when you’ve taken the time to understand what it requires—why should an American student newspaper have to take the time to learn other countries’ laws? Blocking access is easier especially considering the probability of the web site appealing to an international audience.
      - C19is20 5y ago
        "...why should an American student newspaper have to take the time to learn other countries’ laws?". Students! Learning! (Continents!).
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        > Students! Learning! (Continents!). I’m not sure how I’m supposed to parse this. Maybe the “continents” is meant to be a correction from “countries’ laws”, but that would be a mistake because the EU isn’t a continent but rather a union of sovereign nations, and “countries’” is plural possessive so the original wording is correct.
        splitstud 5y ago
        Also a good lesson for students: avoid trouble when it is easy to do so.
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  Since GDPR, I've had to implement a lot of data retention policy and "nuke" button type feature in various systems. But as a general web consumer myself, all I've noticed is that nearly every website I visit has a banner at the bottom saying "We use cookies, click Accept". Very rarely is there some kind of "Please Don't" button. It's just tacit acceptance, or else close the browser tab to opt-out.
  - DocTomoe 5y ago
    Banners without the option to decline unnecessary cookies and still get the content are a GDPR violation.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Or block access and move on with your day.

gpvos 5y ago

Being GDPR-friendly is easy.

throwaway894345 5y ago
Right, block access and carry on with your day.
- gpvos 5y ago
  No, stop tracking. (And there are other ways too which are not that much harder.)
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    “Not much harder” for the technical person maybe, but for the nontechnical person who doesn’t even know what information their software stores or for how long much less the requirements to appease GDPR, it’s much easier to block and get on with life especially considering what little legitimate EU-originating traffic their site probably received when the decision to geoblock was made. How does a nontechnical user with little knowledge of GDPR know if he needs to display a cookie popup (he may not even know what a cookie is or whether or not his software uses them or in what capacity). What about email addresses in user accounts? Is he now collecting private information and making himself culpable for expunging that information on request? He may not even know how to expunge in the case of log files or other artifacts. “Not much harder” my arse.