# GDRP fun stuff...



## ShelLuser (Jun 25, 2018)

Hi gang!

I think we all know about the GDRP?  The new data protection law which has been enforced by the EU last month?

Just read an interesting article on the Register about this and I think it might also interest some of you. In short: a lot of non-EU hosted websites have found the _perfect_ solution to become GDRP compliant: just block the entire EU from your website and be done with it 

I think this is hilarious, and in all honesty I'm secretly hoping that this trend will continue (let's just say that I'm not a big fan of this law). Even so, bias aside, if you can't reach certain bigger non-EU retailers or other websites then this could be a possible cause of that.


----------



## drhowarddrfine (Jun 25, 2018)

These are the things that happen when politicians and the public get involved with things they know nothing about.


----------



## usdmatt (Jun 25, 2018)

Yeah in the UK I've been to a few websites recently that have told me the content is not available in my country. I also now see a lot of full screen privacy/cookie notices, many of which are difficult to get rid of on mobile. (The cookie thing being another brilliant idea from the EU; Require any site that uses cookies, which is all of them, to show a warning about the fact they're using a fundamental feature of the web)

The new thing in the news is that the EU are now looking at making websites (expect this is mainly aimed at sites like Facebook) use "content recognition" to identify and block/report any copyrighted work. Of course quite how the website knows every possible piece of copyrighted work isn't discussed, just that storing the content details and identity of the uploader for reporting may clash with the GDPR data protection laws; (couldn't make this stuff up)

https://www.eff.org/files/2018/06/12/article13letter.pdf

Unfortunately the EU seem intent on throwing their weight about on the Internet and coming up with draconian policies that cause problems and additional costs for every single website, and generally only achieve making it harder/more frustrating for users.

The biggest issue with spam most people have had in the last 10 years is the flood of "we need your consent to keep emailing you because of GDPR" messages over the past few months. They'd of been far better off leaving it as it was and just keeping the "must include an unsubscribe option" requirement that has been law here for years.


----------



## obsigna (Jun 25, 2018)

Recently I wrote a post on the Howto forum about blocking the whole EU by ipfw(8) using sysutils/ipdbtools. Without any notice, my post did not pass the moderation, anyway, I put it on my GitHub page, then: Opting out of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation by Geo Blocking the EU

For people inside the EU (some of the moderators perhaps) this is not a viable option. Theoretically, UK will be out soon, however, nobody can tell whether not some of the most stupidest pieces of EU's legislation will continue to be in effect.


----------

