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Comment by bmer | Hacker News Reader

I hope a Firefox extension comes out to automatically block visiting any website that blocks EU users in general, regardless of whether you are in the EU. I would use it.

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If you have negligible EU revenue and no intentions of changing that, it makes no sense to expend any effort on complying with GDPR.

Blocking EU users is a smart business choice to avoid any possible legal issues and far easier than compliance.

fine; but it’s also a red flag for companies that do some pretty terrible things with your data... id prefer not to use a service that gives off those red flags than to chance it. we all have choices, and if a company chooses to represent itself in a shady looking way, i’ll choose to take my business elsewhere.

Or it means... they are a small business with no EU customers.

Those are not in the scope of the GDPR anyway, as per Recital 23.

What if a EU sitizen uses a VPN to use a non GDPR conform service? What's with the California Online Privacy Protection Act? You have to comply to that. And from there it's not such a big step to comply to GDPR. Not?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

Edit: Apprently, there is a new one on its way: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2018/06/28/ho...

Should they also include any websites that are censored by China?

Yes, as websites are censored in China due to laws meant to protect consumers from the collection of personal information. I want some of that corrupt, totalitarian, and unjust "protection" too!

People like me are the sort who think about Stalin and sigh: "oh, things were so good back then!". That's why we love regulation.

But I recommend to you that get a list of websites that are censored in China and stop using them. Start with Facebook and Google.

I am unable to see the point of such extension. Why would it matter to you as a user whether the service is available in EU or not ? It is like penalising a website for being complaint with the law. (Not serving EU users is a cheaper alternative for non-EU focused websites).

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