4 ms·

Public comments really aren’t personal information.

• kelnos 4y ago
  If they include personal information, then they absolutely are (a quick search for "GDPR user generated content" is enlightening). If I posted my full name and address in this comment, I believe a GDPR deletion request would indeed legally require HN to delete it (if I lived in the EU, that is, which I don't). And that's the problem: the vast majority of HN posts probably don't include personal information. But if someone were to submit a GDPR deletion request to HN, does HN really want to spend the time auditing perhaps hundreds or thousands of comments in order to determine what has personal information in it and what doesn't? And then also making a judgment as to whether the entire comment would need to be deleted, or if only part of it needed to be redacted? So I'd completely understand if HN would comply by deleting all comments. (I'm intentionally ignoring the fact that it's unclear if the EU could even enforce the GDPR against HN/YC, as I'm not sure if they have any business entities in the EU. Certainly the GDPR as written tries to be extraterritorial in its demands, but enforcement is another matter. HN/YC are of course subject to the CCPA, though.)