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Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. Lots of laws allow people to protect themselves from digital exploitation. I agree that there is a ton o

Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. Lots of laws allow people to protect themselves from digital exploitation. I agree that there is a ton of bullshit as well though. Gotta dox myself with imprints for example, so I cant share my work with people without also doxing myself. Also as a hobbyist you pretty much need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore. Also gotta make sure that data of European citizens never leaves Europe and and and... Lots of things to remember. And before anyone asks, yes I know an imprint usually is only required for businesses, but nowadays pretty much everything could have business intent.

auggierose 5mo ago
Imprint is not needed everywhere in Europe. You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  True, I guess Germany has a lot of extra layers to all this. It's really not easy to actually publish anything without being in risk of some bored lawyer making your life hell.
- traceroute66 5mo ago
  > You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK Erm, dude.... - Companies Act 2006 - Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 - Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 Applies to business letters, order forms, websites, emails .... Might not be called "imprint" in UK-speak, but its basically the same thing.
wolvoleo 5mo ago
I'd never heard of that imprint stuff but that's pretty Draconian yeah. If it will start being required for foreign sites I'll block all German IPs. I avoid doing any business in Germany these days. I tried to get a VPS from Hetzner but they demanded a copy of my ID and didn't accept that I blanked out my citizen number. Which is actually recommended by our national police for identify theft risk. I moved to Scaleway instead. Much better company.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  Yea that was my bad, its Germany specific. I sometimes forget Europe usually isnt as tight as Germany when it gets to these kinda things.
- FpUser 5mo ago
  I am from Canada and when renting from Hetzner was never asked about personal ID. Maybe because I started few years ago. Never knew about Scaleway. Looked at their website - prices for bare metal seem to be higher than in Hetzner
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    The ID checks are random. When I registered a while back I had to provide mine, so I aborted the registration. I tried again recently and was not asked for one.
  - wolvoleo 5mo ago
    Yes but hetzner sell a lot of older hardware for bargain basement prices. It's their thing. They're more of a traditional hoster. Scaleway's compute is more like Amazon EC2.
    - FpUser 5mo ago
      >"Scaleway's compute is more like Amazon EC2" - meaning they give less and charge more. Thanks but I'll pass. Hardware I rend from Hetzner is usually 16 core AMD with 128GB RAM and couple of nvme's. Never had single failure. Of course I periodically buy new server, do deploy. Old one becomes standby and standby of the old gets cancelled. Scaleway's offer of the same computing power is highly unattractive comparatively.
      - wolvoleo 5mo ago
        What I mean is Scaleway is more dynamic cloud-like. You spin stuff up and pay by the hour. It's not really as cost effective for static 24/7 stuff just like Amazon isn't. That's exactly what I meant by Hetzner being more traditional.
traceroute66 5mo ago
> need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore And this is a bad thing why exactly ?!?!?! If you respect your users data and right to privacy then you've got nothing to hide by publishing an EU compliant privacy policy. It might be "just a small app", but I and many other people still very much still "do give a damn" about what the hell you do with my data, where you store it, how long you store it and how I can exercise my GDPR rights.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  Because if I want to provide an app to like 5 people I know personally, I am soon forced to do so via the Playstore due to Google disabling sideloading on Android. So now I am forced to inform myself about all the bullshit documents I never cared for beforehand. Yes I know what I am allowed to do with my users data, no I don't send it to some data brokers, yes I already comply to privacy laws and whatnot. Just requiring some official document that you have to let a lawyer take a look at is beyond me.
  - purerandomness 5mo ago
    Be mad at Google [0], not at privacy laws. [0] https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/
  - akramachamarei 5mo ago
    Google has not disabled sideloading on Android. It will become a little more complicated, but still very easy.
  - dgellow 5mo ago
    You don’t need a lawyer to create privacy terms. You can literally write a markdown file hosted on GitHub where you explain that you don’t track anything (assuming it’s the case). You also don’t need to publish something publicly to the stores to share with friends, you can both side load (no it’s not disappearing) and have test versions that your friends can install
9dev 5mo ago
Well, as a German consumer, I gotta say it's pretty darn great to be able to pinpoint a website to an actual business. It's a good way to judge how legitimate an online shop is before ordering, for example; and if anything goes wrong, I know there is someone I can hold accountable.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  Yea from a consumers perspective its neat. From a hobbyist dev perspective not so much.
  - 9dev 5mo ago
    As a hobbyist dev you don't need an imprint - unless you're selling software, at which point you're a business and your customers should be able to hold you accountable for it.
    - sevenzero 5mo ago
      You need an imprint for pretty much everything, as I wrote earlier. Even a hobbyist Youtube channel requires one if you're strict with it. It's enough that said thing could have business intent and I want to emphasize the could here. To be completely sure, you'd have to check with a lawyer.
      - Frieren 5mo ago
        > It's enough that said thing could have business intent So, it is a business.
        sevenzero 5mo ago
        Is me writing a blog post about how much I personally like hamburgers a business? Because that can be interpreted as having business intent in Germany. As soon as I drop the name of a fast food restaurant, it can be interpreted as advertisement that I got paid for. Yes I could easily prove that this isn't the case if asked, but thats work.
MetaWhirledPeas 5mo ago
> Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. I'm see a lot of "worse" in your comment and not seeing any "better". Can you give some examples of that?

auggierose 5mo ago

Imprint is not needed everywhere in Europe. You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK.

sevenzero 5mo ago
True, I guess Germany has a lot of extra layers to all this. It's really not easy to actually publish anything without being in risk of some bored lawyer making your life hell.
traceroute66 5mo ago
> You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK Erm, dude.... - Companies Act 2006 - Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 - Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 Applies to business letters, order forms, websites, emails .... Might not be called "imprint" in UK-speak, but its basically the same thing.

wolvoleo 5mo ago

I'd never heard of that imprint stuff but that's pretty Draconian yeah. If it will start being required for foreign sites I'll block all German IPs. I avoid doing any business in Germany these days. I tried to get a VPS from Hetzner but they demanded a copy of my ID and didn't accept that I blanked out my citizen number. Which is actually recommended by our national police for identify theft risk. I moved to Scaleway instead. Much better company.

sevenzero 5mo ago
Yea that was my bad, its Germany specific. I sometimes forget Europe usually isnt as tight as Germany when it gets to these kinda things.
FpUser 5mo ago
I am from Canada and when renting from Hetzner was never asked about personal ID. Maybe because I started few years ago. Never knew about Scaleway. Looked at their website - prices for bare metal seem to be higher than in Hetzner
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  The ID checks are random. When I registered a while back I had to provide mine, so I aborted the registration. I tried again recently and was not asked for one.
- wolvoleo 5mo ago
  Yes but hetzner sell a lot of older hardware for bargain basement prices. It's their thing. They're more of a traditional hoster. Scaleway's compute is more like Amazon EC2.
  - FpUser 5mo ago
    >"Scaleway's compute is more like Amazon EC2" - meaning they give less and charge more. Thanks but I'll pass. Hardware I rend from Hetzner is usually 16 core AMD with 128GB RAM and couple of nvme's. Never had single failure. Of course I periodically buy new server, do deploy. Old one becomes standby and standby of the old gets cancelled. Scaleway's offer of the same computing power is highly unattractive comparatively.
    - wolvoleo 5mo ago
      What I mean is Scaleway is more dynamic cloud-like. You spin stuff up and pay by the hour. It's not really as cost effective for static 24/7 stuff just like Amazon isn't. That's exactly what I meant by Hetzner being more traditional.

traceroute66 5mo ago

> need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore And this is a bad thing why exactly ?!?!?! If you respect your users data and right to privacy then you've got nothing to hide by publishing an EU compliant privacy policy. It might be "just a small app", but I and many other people still very much still "do give a damn" about what the hell you do with my data, where you store it, how long you store it and how I can exercise my GDPR rights.

sevenzero 5mo ago
Because if I want to provide an app to like 5 people I know personally, I am soon forced to do so via the Playstore due to Google disabling sideloading on Android. So now I am forced to inform myself about all the bullshit documents I never cared for beforehand. Yes I know what I am allowed to do with my users data, no I don't send it to some data brokers, yes I already comply to privacy laws and whatnot. Just requiring some official document that you have to let a lawyer take a look at is beyond me.
- purerandomness 5mo ago
  Be mad at Google [0], not at privacy laws. [0] https://keepandroidopen.org/ https://keepandroidopen.org/
- akramachamarei 5mo ago
  Google has not disabled sideloading on Android. It will become a little more complicated, but still very easy.
- dgellow 5mo ago
  You don’t need a lawyer to create privacy terms. You can literally write a markdown file hosted on GitHub where you explain that you don’t track anything (assuming it’s the case). You also don’t need to publish something publicly to the stores to share with friends, you can both side load (no it’s not disappearing) and have test versions that your friends can install

9dev 5mo ago

Well, as a German consumer, I gotta say it's pretty darn great to be able to pinpoint a website to an actual business. It's a good way to judge how legitimate an online shop is before ordering, for example; and if anything goes wrong, I know there is someone I can hold accountable.

sevenzero 5mo ago
Yea from a consumers perspective its neat. From a hobbyist dev perspective not so much.
- 9dev 5mo ago
  As a hobbyist dev you don't need an imprint - unless you're selling software, at which point you're a business and your customers should be able to hold you accountable for it.
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    You need an imprint for pretty much everything, as I wrote earlier. Even a hobbyist Youtube channel requires one if you're strict with it. It's enough that said thing could have business intent and I want to emphasize the could here. To be completely sure, you'd have to check with a lawyer.
    - Frieren 5mo ago
      > It's enough that said thing could have business intent So, it is a business.
      - sevenzero 5mo ago
        Is me writing a blog post about how much I personally like hamburgers a business? Because that can be interpreted as having business intent in Germany. As soon as I drop the name of a fast food restaurant, it can be interpreted as advertisement that I got paid for. Yes I could easily prove that this isn't the case if asked, but thats work.

MetaWhirledPeas 5mo ago

> Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. I'm see a lot of "worse" in your comment and not seeing any "better". Can you give some examples of that?