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Why is this site blocked in the EU ? Was disabling cookies on your static page that hard ?

by goldenarm 3mo ago

krater23 3mo ago
This website and topic is protected by a SEP field. Who cares about U.S. problems?
- _carbyau_ 3mo ago
  On the one hand, sure, it is a US problem. On the other hand, US culture has a way of travelling. IE surveillance dickheads see what is in the US and decide to enact it in their local country. In this case, it is handy to see how the conversation about such surveillance is going.
1970-01-01 3mo ago
You're not missing anything. Here is the full text: (this could have been an email:) On Sept. 30, 2025, a Flock vice president logged into the Dunwoody PD’s Flock system and looked at a camera in the children’s gymnastics room of a private community center here in Dunwoody. He did not look at any other cameras in the entire 400-camera network that day. The community center shared their cameras directly to the PD under the pretense that access was “solely for real-time critical incident response.” Flock and Dunwoody elected officials both say this was for a “sales demo.” They claim this was “part of authorized activity approved under the city's demo partner agreement.” The problem with that is that the city cannot provide any information that that demo partner agreement exists. What kind of sales demo would require looking at one camera in a children’s gymnastics room? Can anyone rationally explain why a police agency that is interested in Flock would like to see one third-party camera integration that is in a children’s gymnastics room? Jason Hunyar lives in Dunwoody.
- actionfromafar 3mo ago
  [flagged]
- sterlind 3mo ago
  why are private community centers installing Flock cameras indoors?
  - Ekaros 3mo ago
    Why do they have any cameras indoors? Outside very specific time limited presentation uses...
advisedwang 3mo ago
This website is a small, local company. They have a newsletter signup page so they do collect user info. Quite likely they are not GDPR compliant (e.g. take longer than 30d to delete records, don't have a process for answering data requests etc). It is reasonable for them not to want to invest in getting the legal advise to know whether they are compliant or process improvements to become compliant, as there is no ROI on that. I love GDPR, but it's understandable for folks with no connection to the EU to just nope-out.
- jazzyjackson 3mo ago
  I’m still not clear why US companies with no business units in Europe feel the need to make any changes at all to be in compliance with a law that has no jurisdiction over them, but agree that Geofencing is a cheaper solution than asking a lawyer.
  - jdlshore 3mo ago
    The GDPR states that websites that serve EU citizens are subject to it, no matter where they are. Many US news organizations chose to geo-block the EU rather than going to the trouble of figuring out compliance.
    - jazzyjackson 3mo ago
      The GDPR can state whatever it wants but what are the consequences? If the taliban pass a law about what is required to serve websites in Afghanistan, for instance, what obligation am I under to even notice? If I am Reuters and AP and have offices in EU of course I am interested in complying with local law, but it doesn’t make sense to me for a local newspaper to care whether they are in compliance with foreign statutes.
      - godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
        Westerners don't travel to Afghanistan. Europe is not a pariah continent. Does this really need to be explained to you? You think global integration with Europe vs Afghanistan is comparable?
dghlsakjg 3mo ago
They are a hyper local business. The chance of making any revenue off EU users is close to 0, which is much higher than the cost of figuring out EU compliance. The conversation went like this: IT director: “If we serve ads or collect data from EU users we have to be GDPR compliant. That’ll cost several thousand dollars worth of employee time” Exec: “how much revenue is attributable to EU users.” IT: “Single digit dollars per year” Exec: “is there a cheaper solution?”
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- mywittyname 3mo ago
  GDPR compliance is good IT practice. It's easy to do, good for users, and states are rolling out similar laws. But now, instead of their story being read by people all over the world, having gone viral, it's just going to pirated. Not only losing them out on revenue, but recognition as well. This is part of the long death of online local news. They can't be bothered to do the simplest things for their site (make personal data collection optional). But they have tons of time to fill them with online cancer and make them unusable without ad blocking.
  - compiler-guy 3mo ago
    "We might, maybe, have some article go viral some day. With unknown revenue implications." is a weak argument for trying to figure out and maintain GDPR compliance, which costs real money right now, today. And you have to be sure to maintain that compliance as the web site evolves. It's such a low-probability event that I don't blame them for just saying, "Nah. Not gonna hassle with that." The recognition argument is also quite weak--it's not like recognition pays the bills.
  - dghlsakjg 3mo ago
    Going viral doesn’t really matter to them. A small local news agency prioritizes serving small local news needs. I used to work at a small local newspaper. Spending four or five figures of limited money on IT overhauls means that something else has to be sacrificed. It isn’t that they can’t be bothered, it’s that it costs money and doesn’t serve their community or customers. Being GDPR compliant hinders their ability to do local news since it literally takes resources to accomplish. Local news is dying, but it is not because of GDPR. That trend started well before then, and is very well understood. The amount of news content is a direct function of advertising revenue not actual news to be reported. Craigslist and google undercut them and that’s really the only relevant part of the story. GDPR noncompliance has nothing to do with the success or failure of a news outlet in middle America. Do you make sure that your work is fully compliant with all Chinese laws? Why not? They are the world’s largest market, after all. Do you even know if your work is possible to access in China? Or is it the case that compliance with Chinese laws is irrelevant to your business models so it’s easier to just do nothing. Same logic…
arjie 3mo ago
No one is going to go around complying with random rules from other countries, man. If you don't serve that population, just opt them out.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- urbandw311er 3mo ago
  Except that it’s an entire continent and loads of people do comply with it. You just sound ignorant.
  - baby_souffle 3mo ago
    I've been in meetings where this was discussed. "It's just a checkbox in cloudflare to not show up there" is so effortless that you need a compelling reason to ignore how easy it is. And if you don't already have traffic analysis showing that 30% of your readers and thus 30% of your ad revenue is coming from the European continent... You spend the 45 seconds it takes to find the check box and you click. Then worrying about maybe possibly getting screwed by some far away legal something or other is irrelevant.
- manytimesaway 3mo ago
  So we're supposed to deal with your bullshit Patriot Act while GDPR is too "random" for you?
  - Our_Benefactors 3mo ago
    The GDPR is an overreach as evidenced by the OP kvetching about why a foreign country does not comply with his country’s regulations regarding cookie use. What’s the corollary for the patriot act? AFAIK, its provisions would only affect immigration and travel, which happen inside a country’s borders.
    - manytimesaway 3mo ago

Why is this site blocked in the EU ? Was disabling cookies on your static page that hard ?

krater23 3mo ago

This website and topic is protected by a SEP field. Who cares about U.S. problems?

_carbyau_ 3mo ago
On the one hand, sure, it is a US problem. On the other hand, US culture has a way of travelling. IE surveillance dickheads see what is in the US and decide to enact it in their local country. In this case, it is handy to see how the conversation about such surveillance is going.

1970-01-01 3mo ago

You're not missing anything. Here is the full text: (this could have been an email:) On Sept. 30, 2025, a Flock vice president logged into the Dunwoody PD’s Flock system and looked at a camera in the children’s gymnastics room of a private community center here in Dunwoody. He did not look at any other cameras in the entire 400-camera network that day. The community center shared their cameras directly to the PD under the pretense that access was “solely for real-time critical incident response.” Flock and Dunwoody elected officials both say this was for a “sales demo.” They claim this was “part of authorized activity approved under the city's demo partner agreement.” The problem with that is that the city cannot provide any information that that demo partner agreement exists. What kind of sales demo would require looking at one camera in a children’s gymnastics room? Can anyone rationally explain why a police agency that is interested in Flock would like to see one third-party camera integration that is in a children’s gymnastics room? Jason Hunyar lives in Dunwoody.

actionfromafar 3mo ago
[flagged]
sterlind 3mo ago
why are private community centers installing Flock cameras indoors?
- Ekaros 3mo ago
  Why do they have any cameras indoors? Outside very specific time limited presentation uses...

advisedwang 3mo ago

This website is a small, local company. They have a newsletter signup page so they do collect user info. Quite likely they are not GDPR compliant (e.g. take longer than 30d to delete records, don't have a process for answering data requests etc). It is reasonable for them not to want to invest in getting the legal advise to know whether they are compliant or process improvements to become compliant, as there is no ROI on that. I love GDPR, but it's understandable for folks with no connection to the EU to just nope-out.

jazzyjackson 3mo ago
I’m still not clear why US companies with no business units in Europe feel the need to make any changes at all to be in compliance with a law that has no jurisdiction over them, but agree that Geofencing is a cheaper solution than asking a lawyer.
- jdlshore 3mo ago
  The GDPR states that websites that serve EU citizens are subject to it, no matter where they are. Many US news organizations chose to geo-block the EU rather than going to the trouble of figuring out compliance.
  - jazzyjackson 3mo ago
    The GDPR can state whatever it wants but what are the consequences? If the taliban pass a law about what is required to serve websites in Afghanistan, for instance, what obligation am I under to even notice? If I am Reuters and AP and have offices in EU of course I am interested in complying with local law, but it doesn’t make sense to me for a local newspaper to care whether they are in compliance with foreign statutes.
    - godwinson__4-8 3mo ago
      Westerners don't travel to Afghanistan. Europe is not a pariah continent. Does this really need to be explained to you? You think global integration with Europe vs Afghanistan is comparable?

dghlsakjg 3mo ago

They are a hyper local business. The chance of making any revenue off EU users is close to 0, which is much higher than the cost of figuring out EU compliance. The conversation went like this: IT director: “If we serve ads or collect data from EU users we have to be GDPR compliant. That’ll cost several thousand dollars worth of employee time” Exec: “how much revenue is attributable to EU users.” IT: “Single digit dollars per year” Exec: “is there a cheaper solution?”

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
mywittyname 3mo ago
GDPR compliance is good IT practice. It's easy to do, good for users, and states are rolling out similar laws. But now, instead of their story being read by people all over the world, having gone viral, it's just going to pirated. Not only losing them out on revenue, but recognition as well. This is part of the long death of online local news. They can't be bothered to do the simplest things for their site (make personal data collection optional). But they have tons of time to fill them with online cancer and make them unusable without ad blocking.
- compiler-guy 3mo ago
  "We might, maybe, have some article go viral some day. With unknown revenue implications." is a weak argument for trying to figure out and maintain GDPR compliance, which costs real money right now, today. And you have to be sure to maintain that compliance as the web site evolves. It's such a low-probability event that I don't blame them for just saying, "Nah. Not gonna hassle with that." The recognition argument is also quite weak--it's not like recognition pays the bills.
- dghlsakjg 3mo ago
  Going viral doesn’t really matter to them. A small local news agency prioritizes serving small local news needs. I used to work at a small local newspaper. Spending four or five figures of limited money on IT overhauls means that something else has to be sacrificed. It isn’t that they can’t be bothered, it’s that it costs money and doesn’t serve their community or customers. Being GDPR compliant hinders their ability to do local news since it literally takes resources to accomplish. Local news is dying, but it is not because of GDPR. That trend started well before then, and is very well understood. The amount of news content is a direct function of advertising revenue not actual news to be reported. Craigslist and google undercut them and that’s really the only relevant part of the story. GDPR noncompliance has nothing to do with the success or failure of a news outlet in middle America. Do you make sure that your work is fully compliant with all Chinese laws? Why not? They are the world’s largest market, after all. Do you even know if your work is possible to access in China? Or is it the case that compliance with Chinese laws is irrelevant to your business models so it’s easier to just do nothing. Same logic…

arjie 3mo ago

No one is going to go around complying with random rules from other countries, man. If you don't serve that population, just opt them out.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
urbandw311er 3mo ago
Except that it’s an entire continent and loads of people do comply with it. You just sound ignorant.
- baby_souffle 3mo ago
  I've been in meetings where this was discussed. "It's just a checkbox in cloudflare to not show up there" is so effortless that you need a compelling reason to ignore how easy it is. And if you don't already have traffic analysis showing that 30% of your readers and thus 30% of your ad revenue is coming from the European continent... You spend the 45 seconds it takes to find the check box and you click. Then worrying about maybe possibly getting screwed by some far away legal something or other is irrelevant.
manytimesaway 3mo ago
So we're supposed to deal with your bullshit Patriot Act while GDPR is too "random" for you?
- Our_Benefactors 3mo ago
  The GDPR is an overreach as evidenced by the OP kvetching about why a foreign country does not comply with his country’s regulations regarding cookie use. What’s the corollary for the patriot act? AFAIK, its provisions would only affect immigration and travel, which happen inside a country’s borders.
  - manytimesaway 3mo ago