PowerBasic Kaput?

[Lord]

The grace period ended in may 2018. GPRD was already over one year an applicable law.
The now upcoming problems only show how lazy everyone was in respect to the new law,
because they had a grace period.

[Kuron]

The issue here is making a site GPRD compliant is not an easy task...

It is even more difficult for USA based companies, because we simply do not keep up with laws in countries in which we are not based in. We have a hard enough time keeping up with our Federal laws and the laws of the state we are based in. In the very near future, as states change their tax laws, we will likely have to abide by tax laws of every state for customers living in that state, whether we are based in that state or not (which could put an end to many small businesses in the USA).

GPRD is a very good thing for the citizens of the EU. But, whether it applies to American companies who are based in America, is the question. But nobody wants to be the "test case" and end up having to get International lawyers in order to defend themselves in a foreign court. That alone would bankrupt most small companies. So, sadly, it is easier to block EU IPs until everything gets figured out.

Reversing the situation, as a resident of the USA, when I make an International transaction, I do not expect a foreign company to abide by our laws here in the USA. If I have a problem with that foreign company, I would contact the appropriate consumer protection bureau in their country. It would do no good for me to contact a consumer protection bureau here in the USA as they have no legal jurisdiction over other countries.

(As an FYI, for anybody dealing with a USA based company and if you have an issue with that company, the proper place to contact is the State Attorney General's office for whatever state they are located in. Most state AG's offices have online complaint forms.)

Most software I purchase is from foreign small companies/indie developers. Even in the 90s, when I outsourced a lot of my contract programming work, I was using a Russian firm. For me, the foreign companies tend to have the type of software I want to use.

Global commerce is here to stay and that is a good thing, IMHO. However, global regulation will simply never work when there is no global government. What that will result in, is companies pulling back and only serving customers located in their own country. Things had been working fairly well. Unfortunately, the need for GPRD has come about because of the sheer monopolistic abuse by global companies like Facebook, Google, etc. who have zero respect for their users/customers.

I am most likely going to be moving my site to Wordpress.com which means I need to try and figure out the GPRD and how to abide by it, since my site will be hosted in an EU member country.

[DarkDragon]

The grace period ended in may 2018. GPRD was already over one year an applicable law.
The now upcoming problems only show how lazy everyone was in respect to the new law,
because they had a grace period.

Never heard of GDPR before then. In which newspaper did you read about it two years ago? What do you need to pay to whom to get information which you need?

[Fred]

The grace period ended in may 2018. GPRD was already over one year an applicable law.
The now upcoming problems only show how lazy everyone was in respect to the new law,
because they had a grace period.

Never heard of GDPR before then. In which newspaper did you read about it two years ago?

Same here and I follow tech news on a daily basis, so there was a communication issue somewhere.

[Bitblazer]

European Union Law

I know its a ton of stuff you need to keep up with and many companies therefore simply ignore it, but you can hardly claim that it is done in secret

On a practical sidenote - i read several Technology sites daily - both US sites and german (my country) ones and the decent news sites inform about these developments all the time. Remember that in 2018 people complain about it - who didnt even know about the grace period, who didn't know that this likely was 2 years in the making and who therefore didn't object to it (yes you can do that, its just heaps of extra work).

I assume the development of this specific law started already 4 to 5 years ago, as that's how long these processes usually take.

If companies want to sell into a country (in this case a huge region with >500 million customers), they better know the laws that it implicates or deal with the results. US companies actively violated german laws about customer data for many years and when i complained and asked about my data's usage and it being freely passed around (actually some US companies sold the data and made a profit by doing that), i was basically laughed at and told that US law allows them to do whatever they like with it.

[Mijikai]

I love the 'new' law - you see with one visit if a business is any good.
A business who cant live up to EU standards how backward is that?

[DarkDragon]

European Union Law

I know its a ton of stuff you need to keep up with and many companies therefore simply ignore it, but you can hardly claim that it is done in secret

You cannot read all that stuff. You'd need a personal lawyer for that, but many don't have that. They can't even effort such a personal lawyer. Also note that some companies don't want to make tons of euros. Still they need a lawyer. Private persons can't effort them, too, they still need them. Keep in mind that most lawyers lie to you. You need an uneven amount of lawyers > 1 to be really sure, such that you can vote the answers (the most ones win). I have had 3 for it and I am still unsure because I got three different answers on something that should be obvious and unambiguous.

Another thing is that the EU is usually just recommending the local governments what to do. They often don't force them to agree. Thus the point of view of every company is more on the local law. Still, you cannot watch the 24/7 livestream of the government while running your business.

Additionally, thats what the media should inform us about, because thats their job. No newspaper has written about it.

[Update]
I even think requiring everyone to read everything is discriminating dyslexics.

I love the 'new' law - you see with one visit if a business is any good.
A business who cant live up to EU standards how backward is that?

Why do you need to state each fucking paragraph why you need some information you collect on a website? Why do you need to write it in such complicated ways? In former times we've given 14 year olds the possibility to become rich just by coding some programs. Today most of them would not be able to effort it, just because of the lawyers they'd need.

[Kuron]

US companies actively violated german laws about customer data for many years.

It is impossible for a company in the USA to violate German laws when they are not located in Germany and are not subject to German laws. If you order from a company based in the USA, that is where the point of sale is and those are the laws that govern the transaction. If you are not willing to abide by the laws of another country, you should not make purchases from companies based in that country.

Personally, as long as my server is located in the USA, I will NEVER adhere to any EU law as they do not apply to me. As a vet, any attempt by any entity in the EU to force me to comply with their laws would be met with lethal force.

[deeproot]

Same here and I follow tech news on a daily basis, so there was a communication issue somewhere.

Exactly the same for small businesses in the UK. Communication to small businesses was really bad! It was also the same thing for the EU rules about VAT for digital sales in 2015. Even when you find the information it takes lot of of time read through all the detail. For a very small business (one person and not much turnover) it is almost impossible to comply totally with these kind of new rules - there is just not enough hours in the day!

[Bitblazer]

US companies actively violated german laws about customer data for many years.

It is impossible for a company in the USA to violate German laws when they are not located in Germany and are not subject to German laws. If you order from a company based in the USA, that is where the point of sale is and those are the laws that govern the transaction. If you are not willing to abide by the laws of another country, you should not make purchases from companies based in that country.

Personally, as long as my server is located in the USA, I will NEVER adhere to any EU law as they do not apply to me. As a vet, any attempt by any entity in the EU to force me to comply with their laws would be met with lethal force.

International law is way more complicated than that. What you mentioned here is your opinion and i know its a very common one.

[Kuron]

Exactly the same for small businesses in the UK. Communication to small businesses was really bad! It was also the same thing for the EU rules about VAT for digital sales in 2015. Even when you find the information it takes lot of of time read through all the detail. For a very small business (one person and not much turnover) it is almost impossible to comply totally with these kind of new rules - there is just not enough hours in the day!

It is the same over here when states or the feds introduce new laws that affect business owners. Of course with the recent US supreme court ruling, lots of small businesses will be disappearing in the future.

[MarcNL]

The issue here is making a site GPRD compliant is not an easy task, and while the law was in the work 2 years ago they only voted it 2 months ago very quickly, taking everybody by surprise. It should have come with a grace period or something.

Same for Instapaper:
https://www.instapaper.com/gdpr

"Temporarily offline ...."

[Dude]

Personally, as long as my server is located in the USA, I will NEVER adhere to any EU law as they do not apply to me.

I hear you, but if we sell to EU customers, then GDRP does apply to us, whether we like it or not. It doesn't matter where we're geographically located. That's the problem.

However, and this is not legal advice (use it at your own risk), it only applies to personal data of the customer. In my case, I can get around this because I don't collect any personal data from the customer, except from what PayPal provides to me, ie. their email address and real address. If they want me to delete that info (a GDRP right for a customer), then fine, I'll delete it and they'll cease to be my customer and not get any updates anymore because they have chosen to sever ties with me. No refunds and not my problem; I'll refer the customer to GDRP law as the reason, and stick this in my EULA as well.

Another GDRP issue is that EU members must by law hire a data compliance officer. I don't know if Fred can afford to hire one, but he must (it cannot be himself). I assume it can be a friend on a salary of $1 per year.

[Lord]

The grace period ended in may 2018. GPRD was already over one year an applicable law.
The now upcoming problems only show how lazy everyone was in respect to the new law,
because they had a grace period.

Never heard of GDPR before then. In which newspaper did you read about it two years ago? What do you need to pay to whom to get information which you need?

I read this in the german magazin c't months ago.
Right now I'm on holidays, so I cant' verify this.
But here is a Link (in german): https://www.sage.com/de-de/blog/wann-tr ... -in-kraft/

[DarkDragon]

US companies actively violated german laws about customer data for many years.

It is impossible for a company in the USA to violate German laws when they are not located in Germany and are not subject to German laws. If you order from a company based in the USA, that is where the point of sale is and those are the laws that govern the transaction. If you are not willing to abide by the laws of another country, you should not make purchases from companies based in that country.

Personally, as long as my server is located in the USA, I will NEVER adhere to any EU law as they do not apply to me. As a vet, any attempt by any entity in the EU to force me to comply with their laws would be met with lethal force.

The USA already forces us Europeans to follow their laws. E.g. hacking a server completely inside Europe could bring you to jail in the USA. Europeans have to respect the US export laws and write annual reports if they want to sell an app over the mainstream app stores into their own country, even if you don't sell them inside the USA.