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Comment by slowmotiony | Hacker News Reader

If they're in violation of EU privacy laws then how are they not fined for it or outright banned? I got a fine from the local court in Germany because I put a google maps widget on my company's "about us" page, the court gave me 30 days to remove it.

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Can you show us the exact document you received ?

I very much doubt it happened the way you describe it, you're probably omitting very important details

I’d believe it. Apparently you can’t use any 3rd party service that might expose merely an IP address thru a network request directly from the client. A map widget would do that.

You can as long as you ask for consent.

In which case the detail OP ommited would be that they did not in fact ask for consent

That's exactly what the fine was for - apparently I should have displayed a prompt and asked the user if he allows to see a google maps widget. It's definitely my fault but to my defence I've never seen anything like this on any website in my life.

I think the scepticism comes from the fact that there haven't been many stories about small businesses being hit with GDPR violations as minor as that; not that it's not a technically, feasibly valid story.

So while I won't join in the assumption that the story was a lie/exaggeration, I am equally interested in getting the full details because I'd like to know if it's the case that minor violations like that actually are being enforced.

https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/german-websi...

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-google-fonts-a...

Thanks!

Obviously not but there are some similar stories in local media, in this case it was a google font, but you'd get a similar fine for adobe typekit or whatever else that's located on a US server or cdn. https://www.bds-bayern.de/abmahnungen-wegegen-google-fonts/

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchen-google-fonts-a...

> how are they not fined for it or outright banned

Does OpenAI have a legal presence in Europe? If not, there isn't an enforcement channel. I suppose they could block EU IPs, but until enforcement is threatened they have better things to focus on.

Did you try paying millions of dollars to lawyers?

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