domains Are European domainers going to start getting shunned?

[equity78]

As we get closer to GDPR being official more and more reactions and questions come in. I noticed today that Theo at DomainGang.com is going to block Europe from accessing his blog. Someone told me I should do that two weeks ago. I had a couple readers express their desire to ban Europeans from making offers on or buying their domain names. One reader came from a place of worry and the other a place … [Read more...]

 

[golan]

Are we gonna go back 100 or even 200 years?

No, it's enough to go back only 20 years and to never create this EU and especially those euro-bureaucrats who were never elected by anybody but who nevertheless dictate all Europe which shape of cucumbers we should grow and eat. Ah, and now they found a way to dictate to the entire world. Congrats.

 

[Armageddon]

So ( i am from UE) if i have a domain (Love.com ) & a person/company from other parts of the world (other then Europe) special North America will not buy the domain?!...give me a brake just sold a .us domain
GDPRSTUPRS it's a fuzzzzz + mention that SEDO.com have HQ in Cologne so i doub't will go out in clients

 

[NigelD]

you've said that line before somewhere Frank - Don't under estimate British resolve

 

[hwgriffi]

The EU has regulated their media since the dawn of television.

They have so much more regulation that the U.S. when it comes to advertising etc...

YouTube had to implement disclosure of sponsorship because people in the EU couldn't tell the difference between a paid endorsement or someone just saying they love the product. In the U.S. we just assume everyone is paid to say they like things and we're good by it bros.

More to the point. It's a shame that they have to trample on the rest of our rights, so why shouldn't we block them from the rest of the internet? They want privacy, then isolate them!

 

[Apprich]

I believe it will give more power to big corporates. Regulators show it as they care about privacy of people in Europe, it's bs.. all they care is protecting big corporations and kill the small guys.

it's going to be like this, big corporate who are accredited will have access to data, small and medium enterprises will be considered as spam marketer or will have to pay money to accredited companies. Ex. we as domainers wont be able to access data where as big registrars will have access.

I think this is going to be new trend after all in the world, Internet used to be public intellectual property, and now with regulations they are trying to change the nature of internet, and make it not private or paid service.

 

[Acroplex]

European Union countries gave up their individual decision making when they joined the union.

The GDPR was voted by the representatives of each country member. It's questionable how many of these votes were made by representatives that are tech-savvy.

Many of these voting are old men and women that are disconnected from today's technological challenges. The same, of course, applies to US senators.

As Apprich said, large companies with privacy controls in place are in a better position than the small ones. But everyone in the domain industry loses out, whether you "care" about privacy or not. Good luck when your domains get stolen.

 

[Kate]

Maybe the right question to ask would be, why everybody is scrambling to meet deadlines at the last minute, when they have had 4 years to prepare and anticipate ?

Disclaimer: I have clients in Europe who have been procrastinating just the same *cough*

 

[Acroplex]

I made a business decision, based on the poorly defined terms that the GDPR is based on.

I didn't call you, or any other European 'crazy' or stupid - but those politicians who made the decision on your behalf to create a law that extends far beyond the European Union realm, are definitely dangerous, and not just to the non-Europeans.

Today, I published an article from a Spanish publication, that shows exactly how corrupt the GDPR infrastructure is. Since DG blocks you, here's the original in Spanish: https://www.elconfidencial.com/tecn...s-fraude-multas-millonarias-abogados_1569093/

You can easily translate it using Google Translate.

As I explained, I blocked off 10% on average of my annual traffic. Faithful readers can easily circumvent the block. As you're not a content provider, I do not expect you to understand or agree with why I did it. If you feel defensive about it, read again the reasons behind my decision. I had to read 450 emails because of the GDPR junk.

 

[anantj]

There are other differences e.g. English speaking people are most advanced people on earth. They allow and accept almost anything, every field. Another benefit or added advantage they are one step ahead from rest of the world. Then I don't think I am missing anything. Instead I can collect most advanced knowledge in any subject when requires.

lol. you're imaginary superiority complex due to your language is moving from being funny (for me) to ridiculous. Your first statement is so full of shit! Not going to get into a culture war here but that's one of the most ridiculous sentences I've read

 

[eurorealtor]

As we get closer to GDPR being official more and more reactions and questions come in. I noticed today that Theo at DomainGang.com is going to block Europe from accessing his blog. Someone told me I should do that two weeks ago. I had a couple readers express their desire to ban Europeans from making offers on or buying their domain names. One reader came from a place of worry and the other a place … [Read more...]

Couldn't care less about DomainGang being blocked for Europeans. It take few hours to update privacy & policy on website. Australia's Privacy Act in place since 1988. Free whois privacy, we are the winners after all

 

[Armageddon]

DomainGang ...we have proxy so if i want to read something write by Acroplex i will read , but nothing to read there

 

[1Darko]

With the continued balkanization of the Internet we may see the fracturing of DNS itself over time, which will seriously undermine trust in the accuracy of the DNS system.

I like the word "balkanization"

 

[Apprich]

So all Europa got free privacy on their domains? lol..
this is gonna hit badly on Europa market, soon there will be no Europa union..

 

[Apprich]

Brexit was smart move.. now Brits can do business with anyone they want. EU is killing herself by putting more regulation. Despite the fact Eu was established to do better business under custom union and free movement.

 

[Constantin S]

Banning around 350M people from buying your domains sounds like a great idea, get ready for UDRP complaints.

 

[domainer111]

lol crazy stuff. Once you have a data process in place, that protects you. If small-medium websites and bloggers think they are going to be targeted they are crazy. This is ten people in an office in Carlow or somewhere.

The big targets are insurance companies. Do you steal other people's social welfare details? No? Well, then I'd relax :D

Do you hold data on anyone's health, such as whether they have cancer?

No? Then I'd relax.

While I'm having a bit of a rant, ICAAN has truly hit the panic button.

You *are* allowed to maintain data *if* that data is necessary for *legal* purposes.

ICAAN is the same body that brought you GTLDs and the they are the body in charge of WHOIS regulations.

I'm available for counselling services if anyone needs that lol

 

[MadAboutDomains]

On the argument about GDPR preventing people from swapping business cards... It would only apply if you intended to input their details into your computer system and assume that you are free to market to them just because they gave you a business card. You're not free to market to them without their permission, it's pretty simple.

If you intend to collect people's details and use it for nefarious means like marketing to them when they didn't ask you to and you don't agree to stop doing it when asked, then you're going to get into trouble. There's not really anything wrong with that imho.

The GDPR talks about processing data, storing it safely, using it as intended, only asking for data that you need, marketing to those who agree, keeping it up to date and deleting it if someone asks you to. It's a way to allow people control over their data. If it's that onerous to do these things, even as a start up, you're probably doing something that you shouldn't be doing.

I'm no legal expert, but interested to know your thoughts.

I draw the line at all of this cookie consent bs though... no one I've ever met knows or cares about exactly which cookies are set and why. I'm getting a bit sick of going onto websites and clicking 'Accept' just to get the thing out of my view... the only other option is to go exploring their privacy policies and having the onerous task of opting out of everything. Websites are listing every cookie they've ever set in a table and explaining what they are all for... no one is every going to read that.

This is one of the opt out pages for one website that I saw the other day:

Cookies just shouldn't contain personal data and shouldn't be personally identifiable. Maybe the cookie API should allow developers to mark tracking cookies as tracking cookies... then at least those that want to comply, can do easily. There's no hard and fast way to prevent websites from 'abusing' cookies to track people without legal action.

 

[wwwulff]

I´m from Europe and don´t support GDPR in the form it has now and especially not when it comes to whois information that anyone can make private if they want, but I don´t think there are a lot of European law firms preparing to sue DomainGang

 

[stewmath]

This is why the UK is leaving European Union because of crap like this

 

[RozasMD]

Sorry Boss, world changed. Everything is online and global. Everything is international. Accept it or stay disconnected and become a person with limited knowledge because it means knowledge from regional source only.

What?

First, I don't think English will stop being an official language. But even if it does, it just means that official communications won't be written in English. It doesn't mean all Europeans will suddenly forget how to speak English.

It won't be banned either. We'll still be able to read and write. No one will be punished for speaking English.

There's 83 million Germans, 67 million French, 60 million Italians, 47 million Spaniards. If UK finally leaves, there will be 4.7 million Irish and 0.4 million Maltese as English native speakers in the EU. That's the only reason why English might stop being an official language.

But you can swear if I ever meet a Dutch guy or a Finnish girl, we'll have a conversation in English. No one will block English in any way.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I didn't understand the requirements of this law. I don't want to take risk. One of my sites were receiving 60% traffic from Ireland and 25% from UK, and another one was over 50% from UK and Ireland now those websites are almost dead. However I have other sites with 80% US, AU and CA traffic. I can live with it.

You're not off the hook just because you've blocked the traffic. I take it that you've deleted all of the data for EU citizens? How do EU citizens contact you to have their details removed from your systems if they can't get onto your site?

It could be causing more issues than it's resolving by blocking the traffic. It's like an admission of malpractice?

 

[MadAboutDomains]

I get exactly where you're coming from. As a website owner myself I understand the complications.

Maybe this is the point of GDPR. If you don't know how to control the data, or don't have the means to take responsibility for the data that your systems collect, you shouldn't be allowed to collect it.

Trying to fix this by blocking EU traffic is literally zero defense and if someone wants their data removed then they can't because as far as they know you don't exist anymore when they try to visit your site. It's not even like they can rely on the WHOIS to contact you to remove their data now. Your website is the means by which your previous EU traffic accessed your services, so to remove it from access to them and to keep their data isn't the right thing to do.

I'd suggest incremental steps to addressing it rather than a big bang like blocking traffic or deleting your websites completely.

Sadly just saying that you don't know how to do it doesn't help the situation for anybody.

Good luck getting your site sorted.

 

[branding]

Many people will try to file a lawsuit, this GDPR can become money making tool for many people. Is it true?

The slogan is "data is new oil". Europe missed the train. They (European lawmakers) are now playing villain's role. Is it true? If true, what is the safeguard? Please suggest.

People can only file a lawesuit if a company is unwilling to comply with the GDPR and only concerning their own data. Unlikely this is going to happen as you'll have to lawyer up yourself to get that to court. Being on the other side of the planet doesn't help in that scenario.

The real lawsuits that may happen are those initiated by 'europe'. They are the one who can impose these big fines and whatever the fine is, you'll personally won't see a single dime out of it. So no, not an issue.

Competition may rat you out sure, but that would be as likely a they would tip the IRS so...

As for websites... complicated. They're still working on some adjustments but if you show good intent you'll be fine. If you have a 'real business' spend the money and adjust it. You're a business for gods sake.

If you really think this will just be an EU thing/law you're wrong. More countries will in some way follow this path as will the gorilla companies who basically power the internet.

I'm not trying to make a judgement about either side but this is the reality. Do as you see fit but to think long-term would be my advise.

 

[Kate]

1) Do they have authority?

Possibly.
Say you do business in Europe/with Europeans. Then EU and national laws may apply to you, regardless of where you live.

Again, not a European thing. Americans in particular really think their laws should apply worldwide (sometimes, beyond the reasonable). Example: Microsoft Corp. v. United States

Also, authoritarian governments like those in China and Russia now require companies like Linked Facebook etc to keep their own nationals' personal data on servers hosted on their soil. Allegedly for data protection reasons, but the motive is of course spying. Unfortunately, the extent of US spying is such that it has provided justification for that kind of regulations.
Globalization still goes hand in hand with legal fragmentation and granular control.

Differences between the US and Europe regarding privacy and protection of personal data have a long history ie the now defunct Safe harbor framework.

 

[golan]

The thread was about European Domainers. Now discussing India and China population