A month after the enforcement date of the General Data Protection Regulation – a law that businesses had two years to prepare for – many websites are still locking out users in the European Union as a method of compliance.
[...] Another retailer that failed to get its house in order is posh homeware store Pottery Barn, whose notice says that "due to technical challenges caused by new regulations in Europe" it can't accept orders from the EU.
"The pace of global regulations is hard to predict," the shop complains about the legislation, which was adopted on 14 April 2016. "But we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our products everywhere."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:41AM (12 children)
They don't need to.
But if they choose not to give a fuck, expect them to be banned in doing business in the European space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @02:59AM (11 children)
I'm unsure of who that would hurt more. Isn't this going to basically end up as a Great Firewall of Europe? There's nothing to stop US companies from advertising, selling or collecting data, or anything else. European companies will still want those services if they can get them, but now they're gonna have to pay extra to cover the Executive Bond Fund. The physical presence stuff is laughable. Networks connect, so fuck going to the EU when I can mine your data from outside the jurisdiction. Try seizing a US company's assets that doesn't have them where you can grab them. How are you gonna stop Google from doing business as usual when they can pull out and stop supporting EU android phones, search service, news, and all the other stuff. I can flash a ROM on most Android phones without too much trouble, can your parents or grandparents? When the App Store is replaced with the botnet store, who wins?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:08AM (5 children)
And? Show me the damage.
Give me an analogy.
Is it like those protectionist taxes your president puts on the trade "for national security reasons"? Or those "Ban Huawei from competing in 5G technology on US soil"?
Isn't POTUS in his rights to raise them?
Isn't Europe in their rights to ask for a better protection of privacy for european citizens than what the american companies offer? The europeans seems to value private/personal data as much as the US value "trade secrets" - what's wrong with that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @09:48AM (2 children)
Europe is not the EU and EU legislation is proposed by the commission, not the people or their duly elected representatives.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday June 26 2018, @10:52AM
Their elected representatives can actually refuse to ratify or adopt the law into their respective countries if they feel is contrary to the interest of the people they represent.
Has happened for the case of ACTA [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by quietus on Tuesday June 26 2018, @06:56PM
The Commission merely draws up proposals for EU legislation. The Council of Ministers (the Council of the European Union) as well as the European Parliament have to vote on those proposals before they can come into 'law'. Both bodies consist of elected representatives.
In practice it's a bit more complicated. The initiative for EU legislation typically originates in the Council of the European Union, which gives the order to the Commission to (a) provide technical expertise and/or (b) translate their initiative into legislative proposal. The Parliament then typically modifies this legislative proposal through amendments, in negotiation with the Commission.
The Commission itself can (and does) provide proposals of her own -- the recent GDPR legislation [iapp.org] is a case in point, for instance -- but these still have to go through the same back-and-forth with both the Council and the Parliament (which, again, consists of directly elected representatives).
The linky gives you a bit of an impression of this negotiating process (start at 25 January 2012).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @01:31PM (1 child)
Europe can do whatever it wants. Just as any other entity can. Just dont expect those outside Europe to care. Just as other entities dont.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday June 26 2018, @07:24PM
As this article summary demonstrates, they don't need to care unless they want to do business there.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday June 26 2018, @03:41AM (2 children)
Google are free to pull out of the European market if they want to and to block their services from that region. They'll hand their market share over to another company that is prepared to play by the EU rules.
BUT, if they stay, they have to play by the rules too. How does Europe ensure that it does this? By arresting Sergey/Larry when they go on their next holiday in Ibiza, or attend the Cannes Film Festival, or go to a friend's chalet in Switzerland, etc. The 1% enjoy travel too much to give a bloc as large as the EU a big FU.
(Score: 1) by oldmac31310 on Tuesday June 26 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
Switzerland? Not a good example. Not an EU member!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:29AM
Neither was or is Bolivia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident [wikipedia.org]
It's a bit more difficult to fly into Switzerland if you need to avoid EU airspace.
And even if you can bet on them not wanting you that badly, sometimes planes need to land somewhere else than their planned destination. Then it's "Nice of you to drop in, we've a cell waiting for you" time if you're on their arrest list.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 26 2018, @04:00AM (1 child)
"How are you gonna stop Google from doing business as usual when they can pull out and stop supporting EU android phones, search service, news, and all the other stuff."
I doubt they will. But just imagine all the now local opportunities for services that respect customer/user rights that can spring up in the EU once google and the like take their ball and go home all because they can't abuse the population anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28 2018, @07:32AM