[HN Gopher] Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
___________________________________________________________________
Imgur pulls out of UK as data watchdog threatens fine
Author : ANewbury
Score : 268 points
Date : 2025-09-30 13:01 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.express.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.express.co.uk)
| chuckadams wrote:
| It's not a "UK Image site", it's a US company.
| jofzar wrote:
| Where does it say it is?
| chuckadams wrote:
| In the now-edited article headline.
| nickslaughter02 wrote:
| > _Mr Capel said: "We have been clear that exiting the UK does
| not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior
| infringement of data protection law, and our investigation
| remains ongoing._
|
| Block UK access now just in case.
| turblety wrote:
| It's clear to me, it's a huge risk for any company to allow
| access to UK visitors at this stage. All companies should be
| blocking all UK visitors. It's just too much risk for them to
| take.
|
| The fault is obviously an incompetent and authoritarian UK
| government, but that's what the UK overlords have agreed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It would be much better to not block them rather serve them a
| single screen that explains why the rest of the site is
| unavailable to them citing the specific laws that make the
| action necessary
| nickslaughter02 wrote:
| Now:
|
| > _{ "data":{"error":"Content not available in your
| region."},"success":false,"status":400}_
| kps wrote:
| "status": 451
|
| https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7725
| dwood_dev wrote:
| I find it interesting that there was no mention of
| Fahrenheit 451, the very reason they picked that number.
|
| They did at least put a thanks to Ray Bradbury.
| an0malous wrote:
| Seems like they were trying to keep the reference low
| key, maybe to increase the odds of its acceptance
| AceyMan wrote:
| https://http.cat/451
| lentil_soup wrote:
| shouldn't it be the other way round? if the UK doesn't like
| something a non-UK company is doing it should be them that go
| through the trouble of blocking it.
|
| If I have a website I'm pretty sure I'm bound to break some
| random country's law without knowing
|
| Answering my own question, I guess it's exceptionalism of the
| powerful countries where they can just bully you into
| following their law
| physicsguy wrote:
| > shouldn't it be the other way round? if the UK doesn't
| like something a non-UK company is doing it should be them
| that go through the trouble of blocking it.
|
| They're clearly working up to this; it's what happened with
| Pirate Bay, etc.
| Root_Denied wrote:
| They don't want (correctly) unfavorable comparisons to
| China's "Great Firewall" made, which most Western
| governments have lambasted in the past, so there's a
| PR/Politics side of it too.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Why should they do anything when they can push the burden
| of compliance onto you?
| cjs_ac wrote:
| It's not specific to the UK: many developed countries are
| cracking down on Internet businesses. There's going to be an
| awful lot of regulation, and it will be incompatible between
| different countries. The one-model-fits-the-whole-world style
| of business is over: you're going to be confined to national
| borders again.
|
| The opinion polls are clear: the normies want this.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > The opinion polls are clear: the normies want this.
|
| Giving normies the vote was a mistake.
| cudgy wrote:
| So only snobby elitists get to vote?
| satellite2 wrote:
| Where do you get your conclusion from?
| cjs_ac wrote:
| If you mean the opinion polls, I don't have any to hand,
| but there have been a few articles submitted to
| /r/ukpolitics since the Online Safety Act took effect
| detailing opinion polls showing that the UK Government's
| regulation of internet content has been well-received by
| the wider public (although the userbase of that subreddit
| has vociferously disagreed).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| So GDPR, which protects people from companies abusing
| personal data (which this case is about, not the online
| safety act) should be repealed?
|
| (no, its not the cookie law either.)
| j_maffe wrote:
| No because GDPR is better implemented and there are clear
| and reasonable guidelines to follow. This is just clueless
| policy makers fucking around.
| bArray wrote:
| As somebody from the UK, I think this is a great form of
| protest against the government.
| noir_lord wrote:
| Same - frankly google/alphabet should just HTTP 451 the UK
| (and I say that as a brit/someone in the UK).
|
| It'd be interesting to see how fast the policy would get
| reversed then.
|
| This was always a stupid policy and so protesting it by
| pulling services is one way to draw attention to that.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I do worry that the ability of people to understand that
| there is more than one law that affects internet services.
|
| the first clue is that its the ICO that is running this.
| the ICO has _nothing_ to do with the online safety act.
|
| Secondly asking a commercial company to conform to _basic_
| data protection isn 't that onerous.
|
| Honestly its almost like HN has tumbler level reading
| comprehension.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Yeah this is where i am getting mixed up because the
| article isn't saying what the cause was. I thought it was
| related to the digital id thing that every site need to
| make sure they check for minors..
| adventured wrote:
| If big tech wants a reaction, pull all investment out of
| the UK.
|
| Microsoft + Google + Amazon + Nvidia + Meta + Apple = $630
| billion in annual operating income.
|
| They'll react to a change in capital investment faster than
| anything else.
| Winblows11 wrote:
| > pull all investment out of the UK.
|
| Wow I didn't know big tech invested so much in the UK!
| Root_Denied wrote:
| "Investment" here seems to be operations and personnel,
| resulting in taxes going to the UK government.
|
| They aren't making $630 billion per year in money off of
| those companies, but the operating income means they're
| getting taxes on that $630 billion (income tax from
| company and employees, VAT for purchases, etc.) and the
| personnel working in the UK are probably spending most of
| that money in the UK (velocity of money theory comes into
| play here).
|
| The resulting economic benefit for the UK government is
| enough that they'd notice the drop if all that started to
| transition away.
| bapak wrote:
| > should just HTTP 451 the UK
|
| Didn't something like that happen about 15 years ago maybe
| due to net neutrality? Or maybe it was wikipedia's black
| outs over SOPA.
| ksec wrote:
| How about officially starting one on HN? If we could gather a
| list of sites to join.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Wait you're against GDPR?
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Of course, I have a brain
| bapak wrote:
| I think GDPR absolutely makes sense. It's my data and you
| must delete it if I ask.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It is exactly the same with the EU's GDPR, by the way...
|
| That's the funny or hypocritical thing: Both laws have the same
| reach but people here tend to praise the GDPR for it while
| being furious about the Online Safety Act.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Imgur only has yearly revenues of around $30m. The money they
| make in the UK specifically likely doesn't justify wasting
| resources on compliance.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It is an image storage service masquerading as a business. It
| will be of no loss if it were to fail entirely.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" It will be of no loss if it were to fail entirely."_
|
| That's decades of the public internet that would be
| permanently erased; billions of dead links pointing nowhere.
| HN alone would lose ~32,000 images from its archives,
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
|
| Is it not hubris to call it "no loss" if, say, 3 hours ago,
| _" Design of a LISP-based microprocessor / Page 22 has a map
| of the processor layout:"_ was forever lost to humanity, as
| collateral damage to some techbros' dispute?
|
| Decentralization can't arrive soon enough.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > Is it not hubris to call it "no loss" if, say, 3 hours
| ago, "Design of a LISP-based microprocessor / Page 22 has a
| map of the processor layout:" was forever lost to humanity,
| as collateral damage to some techbros' dispute?
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230427181813/https://i.imgur.
| c... (link is already dead at Imgur)
|
| Wayback will have them, as is tradition. A crawl (non IA)
| has been kicked off to reconcile to ensure maximum coverage
| of Imgur links on HN.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| This is much less accessible to the average user and
| there's no guarantee that archive sites will be here in
| the future https://www.wired.com/story/internet-archive-
| loses-hachette-...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The Internet Archive will outlast Imgur. I'm willing to
| bet on it if you'd like, feel free to propose terms for
| resolution and preferred forum.
|
| (Accessing Imgur archives in Wayback is as trivial as a
| browser extension for your average user; Imgur has raised
| $60M and only does ~$30M/year, they will eventually be
| sold or close as the user experience degrades as
| operators and investors attempt to squeeze more from the
| enterprise)
| varispeed wrote:
| archive.org is also blocked in the UK. I cannot access it
| without VPN.
| teamonkey wrote:
| I can, it's not blocked.
| Jach wrote:
| As already pointed out that link is already gone, except
| for the IA. That's part of why it's "no loss" -- it's not
| actually lost.
|
| Personally even if the IA didn't have a copy, I'd still say
| "marginal loss" and "inconvenient". imgur is just another
| in the line of image hosting sites that have come and gone.
| Much of what it hosts isn't actually high value, and isn't
| actually the sole copy.
|
| Not sure what you're pining for with respect to
| "decentralization" -- we already have it, nothing stops
| someone from uploading an imgur image elsewhere, either the
| original uploader or someone downloading and reuploading
| somewhere. There are other image hosting sites. And yes,
| the internet is filled with dead URLs, privatized or
| deleted forums and discords and twitter accounts that host
| or previously hosted unique discussion or media, etc. etc.
| and any number of other minor tragedies. imgur totally
| dying would be among the least of them.
| donatj wrote:
| > image storage service masquerading as a business
|
| ...
|
| > service
|
| Money is good for goods and _services_ ...
|
| If people give them money or _cough_ ad revenue and get the
| service they want, that's called a business.
| roenxi wrote:
| I suppose this is a serious question - does this mean that in
| theory HN should ban UK users? Or is HN likely compliant with
| this law? It is hard to pierce through the Orwellian language in
| the article (does "safeguarding children's personal information"
| mean retaining or deleting the data?).
| jsheard wrote:
| It looks like this law (which is unrelated to the Online Safety
| Act) is concerned with children being subjected to ad-tech
| tracking and similar indiscriminate data harvesting, so a site
| like this which doesn't feel the need to share your habits with
| 2,541 partners is probably out of scope.
|
| https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/the-children-s-code-what-i...
| rapnie wrote:
| > a site like this which doesn't feel the need to share your
| habits with 2,541 partners
|
| How many might there be in this case, one wonders?
| https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/
| thegrim33 wrote:
| I like how it's always "oh just safeguard people's data", oh
| "just" don't do anything bad with people's data.
|
| Then you look up what the actual regulation says and it's
| hundreds of pages of pure legaleese (over 100 pages for GDPR,
| over 300 for Online Safety Act), that you'd need to hire a
| team of lawyers to parse and interpret to make sure you're
| not breaking any of the regulations therein.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > over 100 pages for GDPR
|
| The first 33 pages are reasons why the law needs to exist.
| 23 pages are instructions for EU member countries and the
| EU itself.
|
| The remaining legal text itself is spaced out more than any
| high school teacher would ever allow, and IMO it's also
| quite light on the legalese. Not enough that I'd feel
| confident to skip the legal department in my multinational,
| but it's far from the unreadable mess people make it out to
| be.
|
| The OSA on the other hand... I'm glad I don't personally
| serve the UK.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Then you look up what the actual regulation says and it's
| hundreds of pages of pure legaleese
|
| _sigh_
|
| There is a difference between guidance and regulation.
|
| GDPR isn't that hard to comply with, I know because I
| helped take a very large Financial News company from 0
| compliance to full compliance. the guidance is quite easy
| to understand: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-
| gdpr-guidance-and-re...
|
| but, why are the regulations 100 pages of legalese? because
| rich companies, and unscrupulous shits pay money to to
| lawyers to avoid having to pay fines for breaking the law.
| You also have to carve out exceptions for things like
| charities, small organisations, have specific rules for
| things like health care, and define exceptions based on
| what are reasonable exceptions when detecting criminality
|
| Say you take "the right to be forgotten", ie, I as someone
| who banks with Natwest want to close my account, withdraw
| my money, and get them to forget everything about me (ie
| stop sending me fucking emails you shits)
|
| Thats simple right? the law says I have the right to have
| my details deleted.
|
| But what if I committed fraud in that time? what if I am
| opening and closing, asking for deletion to get round money
| laundering laws?
|
| And thats why the regulations for data protections are
| long.
|
| Also GDPR regulations aren't that unreadable. You're most
| likely a programmer, legal texts are highly structured
| instructions (ie just like any high level programming
| language)
|
| However, do not take this as endorsement of the unrelated
| law that is the online saftey act, which is badly drafted,
| gives too much power to an under resourced semi independent
| body, and is too loosely defined to be practically managed
| in any meaningful way by OFCOM.
|
| I will however stick up for GDPR, because it stops the
| fucking nasty trade in in personal data that is so rife in
| the USA.
| pavon wrote:
| The US tax code is over 2.5k pages, with an additional 10k
| pages of regulations. And I manage to file my taxes fine
| every year without having read all that because most of it
| doesn't apply to me. Following the GDPR is easy if you
| aren't trying to maximize tracking with minimal concessions
| to the law.
| hamdingers wrote:
| > because most of it doesn't apply to me
|
| Maybe, you hope. Unless you've read (and understood!) all
| of it you can't say this with certainty.
|
| In all likelihood you trust a 3rd party company like
| Intuit and their team of lawyers to tell you what
| actually applies to you.
| bArray wrote:
| In theory, HackerNews should be concerned. There is no
| prevention of children using the site, and potentially "harmful
| content" could be access either on or through the site. Being
| an aggregator doesn't seem to be a get-out.
| IanCal wrote:
| This has nothing to do with harmful content it's about
| managing children's data you collect.
| pixl97 wrote:
| So if I (not really) a 13 year old of the UK provide my
| email address to HN, how is that managed?
| j_maffe wrote:
| that's not data.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Wrong law.
|
| This is GDPR. So long as they conform to the 13 principles
| then HN will be fine. Its nothing to do with the online
| safety act.
|
| For the OSA (which I think is very badly drafted, and poorly
| enforced by OFCOM) so long as there is decent moderation
| (which there is), a way to report posts (there is) and the
| site doesn't persistently host actual abuse, then you're
| mostly fine.
|
| It doesn't help that OFCOM are unwilling to change the scope
| of guidance to match the size and type of community.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| HN is already non-compliant with several data privacy laws
| KaiserPro wrote:
| In what way?
| celticninja wrote:
| You cannot delete your comments.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Are public comments in a public forum classed as private
| data under GDPR?
|
| for example the only thing that can really be classed as
| PII is my username. does it count as reasonable to
| request it be deleted?
| oncallthrow wrote:
| Yes and yes. Google "right to be forgotten"
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Good
| crimsoneer wrote:
| HN has moderation, won't track you without telling you, and
| will delete your content if you ask. That's literally all it
| takes, it's really not that Orwellian
| deadbabe wrote:
| Will HN really delete all your content if you ask?
|
| Like, all your posts just disappear?
| celticninja wrote:
| No they will not. You can change your username at the most.
| deadbabe wrote:
| What if you are European? How is this not a violation
| afandian wrote:
| Prior discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45418587
| dreamlayers wrote:
| How is one country able to fine businesses in other countries?
| What legal authority or ability do they have to do anything?
| general1465 wrote:
| It can't, that's why they moved out.
| kylecazar wrote:
| If you do business in a country you have to operate under that
| country's laws and regulations, regardless of where you are
| registered.
|
| Most commonly it's the EU fining American tech for GDPR
| violations and related privacy shenanigans.
| stavros wrote:
| Right, but the UK is saying they'll fine Imgur even after
| Imgur blocked access. At that point, what tooth does the fine
| have? "You must pay this fine if you want to, err, nothing I
| guess"?
| yorwba wrote:
| If Imgur decides they want to make money in the UK after
| all, and they have an unpaid fine outstanding, that money
| can be seized to pay off the fine first.
| hayd wrote:
| "make money in the UK"
|
| an oxymoron.
| Yokolos wrote:
| Honestly, that's the most noteworthy part of this. The EU
| hasn't pursued any site that just blocks EU access (see any
| number of US sites than aren't GDPR compliant and I can't
| access from Europe). The UK is threatening to do something
| nobody else has really done before. It's crazy, imo,
| because I can see a whole lot of sites immediately blocking
| the UK to avoid any potential litigation.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >see any number of US sites than aren't GDPR compliant
| and I can't access from Europe
|
| 1. Make sites gdpr compliant by installing an extension
| or two. 2. Use a vpn to pretend to be not from Europe.
| nickslaughter02 wrote:
| Pay this fine if you don't want to be arrested when
| entering the UK? Not that they plan to after this...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Imgur isn't a person, and the UK gov isn't ICE.
|
| The whole point of corporations is that the _company_ is
| liable, not its employees. also the shareholders are only
| liable for the money they put in, and not anything else.
|
| Convictions in the UK are non-transferable. you can't
| convict a company, then transfer guilt onto its
| employees, they need to be tried at the same time.
| baobun wrote:
| Are you saying that the Pavel Durov situation wouldn't
| have been possible in the UK? Seems naive.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Are you saying that the Pavel Durov situation wouldn't
| have been possible in the UK
|
| first Durov is a French citizen, so its not like he's
| immune to french laws
|
| Second france has a totally different legal system to the
| UK(legal code vs common law)
|
| thirdly, he's the primary _owner_ of telegram, not an
| employee
|
| Fourthly he was arrested on fraud, money laundering and
| child porn charges. Those are all criminal charges, not
| civil(GDPR is mostly Civil, same with the online saftey
| act, howefver with the OSA "senior managers" could be
| criminally liable, but again that's for CSAM, of which
| possession and distribution is a criminal already)
|
| > Seems naive.
|
| I really wish people would actually bother to understand
| law, because its pretty important. For programmers is
| much easier, because we are used to reading oddly worded
| specifically ordered paragraphs to divine logical intent.
| The law is really similar to programming.
| bendigedig wrote:
| Just because they've blocked UK users doesn't mean they
| aren't making revenue from advertising operating via the
| UK.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| They used to have UK legal presence, and planning to move
| out. The UK is saying something like "crimes done during
| your presence won't be ignored".
|
| If Imgur never had UK presence, then yeah there would be no
| teeth. But if you're doing business in a country you can't
| break the law then leave and expect them to just ignore
| what you did during that time.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| ...but how enforceable would the fine be? They pull out
| and have no UK assets to seize.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| > They pull out and have no UK assets to seize.
|
| How do you expect the "pull out" to happen? They must
| have had a UK bank account or similar, whose transfers
| won't get approved as they're trying to escape from
| criminal prosecution. Or they'll work with the US to
| ensure responsible individuals are held responsible.
|
| It isn't exactly the first time someone/something commits
| crime in a country then try to escape, there is lots of
| ways to work with others on this.
| hollerith wrote:
| >they'll work with the US to ensure responsible
| individuals are held responsible.
|
| I heard here recently during a similar discussion (about
| 4chan and this same British watchdog agency) that the US
| does not allow extradition of its citizens for breaking
| non-US laws if the behavior is legal in the US.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > They must have had a UK bank account or similar
|
| How so? None is needed to take revenue from UK-seen ads.
| baobun wrote:
| They had more business than that in the UK. UK
| advertisers as customers for example
| chrisjj wrote:
| I do not see how having UK advertisers necessitates the
| publisher having a UK bank account.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Depends.
|
| If you're the US you call planes of out the sky that have
| representatives and owners of the companies on them.
|
| I'm assuming any leadership of Imgur would want to avoid
| going to the UK for the rest of eternity.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Or they simply decide to pay the fine for the short
| duration they were not in compliance.
|
| I would do that (after appealing) and be done with it.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| Why does it have to be immediately enforceable? Now Imgur
| have thrown the baby out with the bath water and cannot
| serve the UK and it leaves a big market for another
| company to come along and capitalise on that.
|
| American companies are too use to being able to bully
| their way in America. Some countries do have better
| consumer protection laws.
| tomxor wrote:
| There are various international economic laws, treaties and
| agreements between cooperating countries, whether or not
| any of them cover this scenario for to US, and whether the
| US would honour any agreement in the current political
| climate remains to be seen. But there are mechanisms in
| place that allow w the UK to reach US companies through
| each others legal systems to a degree and vice versa,
| regardless of asset location.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| > whether the US would honour any agreement in the
| current political climate remains to be seen
|
| That this is even a question is bananas to me. Isn't that
| handled by the judicial system rather than involving
| politics/the administration? Shouldn't be possible for
| the US to have a treaty, and there are questions about if
| the treaty will actually be enforced or not, how could
| anyone trust the US as a whole for anything if those
| aren't enforced?
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| They're only threatening to fine them for previous
| violations of the law, not anything after they block
| access. Blocking access doesn't make the existing fine from
| when they were doing business in the UK go away, it just
| prevents future fines.
|
| Whether they can collect the money while Imgur aren't doing
| business in the UK is a different argument, but it's not
| particularly controversial that a country can fine a
| business operating in its jurisdiction for violating that
| country's laws. Even if those laws are authoritarian
| bullshit.
| stavros wrote:
| Sure, I'm only saying that I don't think there's much
| they can do by way of enforcement if the company decides
| to stop doing business there, especially over fines this
| small (it's not like the UK will push to extradite over
| this).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > they'll fine Imgur even after Imgur blocked access
|
| _after_ they have infringed the data protection laws.
|
| For example, if I get a parking fine, and then move my car.
| I can't claim that now that I've moved my car, I'm not
| liable for the previous fine. This is no different.
| beardyw wrote:
| Thanks. That needs to be in an HN guide somewhere, along
| with: online services cost money to run so don't be surprised
| that they need either fees or advertising.
| dreamlayers wrote:
| Being accessible over the internet from a country can't be
| the same as having a physical presence there. Otherwise,
| anyone putting any content on the internet needs to comply
| with the laws of every single country.
| noirscape wrote:
| Placing the fines is pretty easy; they just go through their
| legal system, finish up the case and get their judgement.
| Russia has a giant outstanding fine against Google for example
| since Google is not censoring things the Kremlin doesn't like,
| even though Google has no corporate presence in Russia and the
| fine is iirc now larger than the entire world economy. (So it's
| an unrealistic amount designed to deter Google more than
| anything else in practice.)
|
| The difficulty is getting enforcement; in practice, what
| happens is that the fine is put down as outstanding and if any
| executive or employee of the company enters the country,
| they're arrested and held hostage until the company pays up (or
| are held directly responsible for whatever the company is
| accused of). Most countries _usually_ have corporate presency
| laws to avoid this sort of scenario though.
|
| Alternatively, the judgement can be enforced through diplomatic
| channels, but that's a giant clusterfuck and unlikely to
| succeed unless it's something that's very blatantly a crime in
| both countries, since it's effectively retrying the case. (And
| even then it can depend on if the country just doesn't feel
| like cooperating for that specific case, for no other reason
| than spite; France for example is fond of doing this.)
| fulafel wrote:
| Being a country means you can make your own laws so the
| authority question has a pretty clear answer. Unless you
| disaviow national borders and state power and such stuff
| generally of course. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
| weberer wrote:
| Read the question you're replying to again. Its a question
| about jurisdiction.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| If it affects UK citizens, living in the UK, then there's
| jurisdiction. Either the entities comply, remove their
| services to the UK, or they risk sanctions/being arrested
| when abroad/etc.
|
| Why should a US company harm UK citizens just because
| they're in the US?
|
| If you want to serve a market in another country you have
| to follow their rules.
|
| In this case, Imgur have been misusing UK children's
| information. Considering the laws are pretty similar, I
| suspect they're misusing EU children's information too.
| joe463369 wrote:
| I invite you to search HN for 'libor' and see how many of the
| American users of this website were affronted by the vast fines
| dished out by the US government to UK-headquartered banks for
| manipulating the LONDON Interbank Offered Rate from their
| offices in London, UK. If you can find a single one I'll eat my
| hat.
| elAhmo wrote:
| > The ICO also confirmed that companies could not avoid
| accountability by withdrawing their services in the UK.
|
| This is quite a slippery slope. If I host a website in one
| country, I do not necessarily care where people access my website
| from. It is not like I actively provide a service to them - they
| just use internet (decentralised network) to access it. What if I
| publish a newspaper here, someone takes it where the contents are
| illegal, am I accountable?
| afandian wrote:
| I think it's a conflict that was baked into the Internet at its
| conception. A non-geographic service overlaid on top of a world
| with a huge amount of geography and borders.
| josephg wrote:
| Yeah. We had a chance to invent our own governance on the
| internet. But we abdicated, and made the internet a free for
| all. As a result, national governments have stepped in to
| provide the governance we didn't program in. And they do it -
| of course - in an inconsistent, ad hoc way.
|
| There was a period a couple hundred years ago when it was all
| the rage internationally to write constitutions. Lots of
| countries got constitutions within a few decades, and almost
| no constitutions have been written since then. I wonder
| sometimes how the internet would be different if it were
| implemented in an era or culture in which people believed in
| that sort of thing.
| zerocrates wrote:
| I don't think it would make much difference; an internet
| constitution would be worth about as much as the paper it's
| not written on.
| wiether wrote:
| It appears that you are mixing things here.
|
| It's not about "hosting a website", it's about providing
| services.
|
| If you provide services, like selling a newspaper, in the UK,
| you need to respect their laws, or you will suffer the legal
| implications of not doing so.
|
| And regarding the accountability, it refers to the fact that
| imgur USED TO provide services in the UK:
|
| > We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an
| organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement
| of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing.
|
| Companies providing services outside the UK can infringe all
| the UK laws they want, the UK doesn't care.
|
| But as soon as you decide to provide services in the UK, you
| have to follow the law. And, as they explain in the article, if
| you break the law, stopping to provide services in the UK will
| not absolve you for your past wrongdoings.
| eduction wrote:
| It's you who are mixing things. Putting up a website outside
| the UK and "deciding to provide services in the UK" are two
| decidedly different things.
|
| UK legal imperialism is self centered and unrealistic and
| undermines speech the world over.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| I'm guessing that Imgur happily accepted the ad revenue
| from UK users while it served them images. If you genuinely
| were "not providing services" to UK users, you wouldn't do
| that.
|
| I'm not happy with extraterritorial assertions over
| internet services either, but you can't wish them away with
| sophistry about "we're not providing services to them!" if
| you're happy to take their money and serve them a page in
| exchange. That's the definition of a business providing a
| service to a customer.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Do they run their own ad network, or do the ad networks
| take the money from advertisers and cut Imgur a check?
| Maybe instead of trying to enforce your standards on
| every little site on the internet, you should just focus
| on the people who actually have a direct point of contact
| with money coming from UK businesses. (Yes, the ad
| networks.)
|
| It's completely absurd to say that some hobbyist would
| have nexus in the UK because they run a Google Adwords
| campaign to get some occasional pocket change from their
| project. Pre-Internet, it would be like going after a US
| magazine because someone brought home a copy from the US.
| Websites are not global entities by default, somehow
| responsible for obeying laws across nearly 200 national
| jurisdictions and many more state/provincial/local
| jurisdictions, across different languages and legal
| customs. Completely absurd! Who do you think you are to
| demand such a thing?
|
| On the other hand, I think it would be perfectly fine to
| say that UK domiciled ad networks cannot put their ads on
| sites that violate some arbitrary standard. (An anti-
| freedom law to be sure, but at least it's consistent with
| common international conventions.) This puts the onus on
| the ad network, rather than the site owner, who may not
| know or care who is visiting or from which country.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| The standard you are proposing here ultimately boils down
| to "you can do business in a country without being
| subject to its laws, as long as your commercial
| transactions with the customers in that country are
| laundered through a sufficiently convoluted network of
| international companies like payment processors and ad
| exchanges". I don't think it should be terribly
| surprising that states don't subscribe to this view of
| sovereignty and jurisdiction.
| iamnothere wrote:
| > I don't think it should be terribly surprising that
| states don't subscribe to this view of sovereignty and
| jurisdiction.
|
| Well they will have to put up with it, as they have done
| over the past few decades. Or, alternatively, they can
| engage in aggressive China-style site blocking. Only the
| US has significant extraterritorial legal reach.
|
| IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully
| alter the content policy of US companies. It's more about
| political influence than it is about "content safety" at
| home. (Unilateral site blocking, perhaps with an appeals
| process, would be a much more effective approach for
| this.) The UK will regret the consequences if they push
| too forcefully on this.
| josephg wrote:
| > IMHO, this policy is a transparent effort to forcefully
| alter the content policy of US companies.
|
| I don't see it that way. US companies have an atrocious
| record wrt user privacy and security. The Europeans don't
| want their citizens data being bought and sold by online
| providers. And that's a reasonable demand! Either clean
| up your act or leave Europe & the UK. If US companies
| don't want to obey UK laws, they can't do business in the
| UK. It's just like farmers can't sell produce in the UK
| if they don't meet British health standards.
|
| Consider the inverse: imagine if another country ran a
| porn site which blatantly hosted underage content (CSAM).
| Under your view of the world, would the us govt be
| ethically entitled to tell the site to clean up its act
| or it'll get blocked from the US? That sounds fine to me.
| I'd be shocked if they were even given a warning about
| that. But how do you square that circle? Wouldn't that be
| a "transparent effort to forcefully alter the content
| policy of another country"?
| iamnothere wrote:
| > tell the site to clean up its act or it'll get blocked
| from the US
|
| Yes, that would be fine, as it would be here.
|
| What I have a problem with is nations saying that a site
| built and hosted in a _totally different country_ with a
| different set of laws and norms is "illegal" globally.
| Yes, I don't like it when the US goes after people like
| The Pirate Bay abroad either, but that's a result of the
| US being able to bully other countries for whatever
| reason it wants to. (That also needs to change.)
|
| If Europe or the UK wants to protect its citizens, it
| should either block websites that it sees as a threat (as
| most of the EU does with RT) or it should come up with a
| scheme where ad networks with nexus in the EU must stop
| doing business with them. Attempting to reach across
| borders into the US to change US domestic norms is going
| to get them a well-deserved slap in the face.
| lurk2 wrote:
| The standard you're proposing would allow Afghanistan to
| shut down Hacker News on the basis that it provided
| services to at least one Afghan and the content here
| violates sharia law.
| foldr wrote:
| Afghanistan can do that. You're protected by
| Afghanistan's lack of any realistic ability to enforce
| laws far outside its borders, not by some general
| principle of international law saying that countries
| can't make laws about websites.
| Vespasian wrote:
| As Afghanistan has recently disconnected their Internet
| they seem to have done exactly that within their sphere
| of influence (which is limited to their borders).
|
| So you are entirely right any country can do that at any
| time. Most countries don't have a way to enforce it on
| you or your users.
| philwelch wrote:
| If Britain or Europe want a censored, state-controlled
| internet, they're just going to have to block overseas
| traffic like Iran and China do. That is completely within
| their power.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > if you're happy to take their money and serve them a
| page in exchange.
|
| How about the fact Imgur just ceased service to millions
| of users from which they took no money?
| pjc50 wrote:
| The US does exactly the same thing, including at the state
| level. See e.g.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg
| eduction wrote:
| And you're suggesting that if the US does it it is ipso
| facto a good idea? Strange reasoning.
|
| This is also apples and oranges. Running credit cards
| involves knowing exactly where people are located. You do
| in a real sense "decide" to do business with people in a
| given country.
|
| Not every website does that. Some just serve posts to all
| comers. Some allow people to upload an image. Deducing
| where those people are from is non trivial. When I blog
| something I'm not "deciding" in any meaningful sense to
| "serve" people in country X.
| notarget137 wrote:
| Does every single website that exists and is available in UK
| automatically provides services in UK? Isn't it just simpler
| to completely block every request from UK by default to "not
| provide services"?
| afandian wrote:
| Transactional services (I don't know if that's the right
| word), where you have a known user, is different from
| passively providing web pages that people can read and you
| don't track them or ask them to register for an account.
|
| But I think that distinction was pretty moot when web 2.0
| came along.
|
| Imgur's entire purpose is clearly to host user generated
| content though, so you can't argue it's not "providing
| services".
| chrisjj wrote:
| > Imgur's entire purpose is clearly to host user
| generated content
|
| Not at all. Imgur does the passive side too. And by
| number of operations, it is by far the biggest one.
| afandian wrote:
| Without user-generated content there is nothing to host.
| And in any case they long ago turned from an image
| hosting site into a social media site. There's reactions
| and commenting as a core part of the service now.
| elAhmo wrote:
| What service is Imgur providing in the UK specifically?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Memes.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| OFCOM: You are are hiding illegal Pepe menes underneath
| your floorboards aren't you?
|
| - UK 2025
| Jenk wrote:
| Advertisement.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > that imgur USED TO provide services in the UK
|
| Meaning that the servers were located in the UK, or that the
| users were, or both?
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's so ambiguous. Let's say I'm a citizen of country A,
| currently residing in country B. I'm using a VPN
| headquartered in country C to make my traffic appear to
| originate from country D. I access a web site with servers
| physically located in country E, that uses a load balancer
| / cache hosted in country F. The company that runs the web
| site is headquartered in country G but has employees in
| countries H, I, and J.
|
| Whose laws need to be followed?
| Spivak wrote:
| Seems like B and G. Then if you do business with A (what
| the GPDR calls "UK Establishment") and A has laws
| governing its citizens abroad like the UK GPDR then also
| A.
| shagie wrote:
| But the traffic is coming from country D rather than
| country B. There's no way for the company to know that
| the person and their interactions is subject to the laws
| of B rather than D.
| josephg wrote:
| Most sales aren't that complicated. Usually UK law
| targets anything sold to people who are physically in the
| UK, paying in GBP. Which from the sounds of things, was
| something imgur did.
|
| Does it also count for people in the UK using a vpn? What
| about people in the UK paying using American money? It's
| not clear, but it doesn't really matter. These laws
| target the service providers, not the customers. If you
| website says "this product isn't available to UK
| residents" and you IP block and don't take GBP as a
| payment method, nobody will get too angry if a spattering
| of tech savvy people get around the block using a VPN.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Whose laws need to be followed?
|
| The ones where you reasonably believe your customers are
| based, and where your employees are based.
|
| Lets be honest, 1% of your customer base using a VPN is
| not going to cause you issues, unless those people are
| uploading something that would cause the state to act (ie
| CSAM, fraud, drugs, terrorism, you know the big four.)
| Given that this is the ICO, and nor OFCOM, we know its to
| do with GDPR violations, not moderation.
|
| its not like the ICO just sent an email saying "lol
| you're being fined, bye". They will have had a series of
| communications, warnings asking for reasonable changes,
| time lines for change.
|
| The ICO has discovered that Imgur are breaking GDPR in a
| fairly big way _and_ in a way that can be easily detected
| by an understaffed and over worked semi-independent
| organisation.
|
| _moreover_ breaking GDPR in a way that is obvious enough
| in a court of law[1], bearing in mind that the UK, just
| about has a working independent and largely neutral
| judiciary that isn 't easily intimated into doing the
| governments whipping.
|
| [1] the ICO doesn't tend to be showy.
| seanhunter wrote:
| You already need to care depending on what you are serving, and
| this has been the case for at least 20 years to my knowledge.
|
| The most obvious example of this is websites from the UK or
| Europe which operate any kind of gambling. [1] This may well be
| legal (based on licensing) in their jurisdiction, but they
| still need to restrict access to prevent US people from
| accessing the service or they will be breaching the US's
| gambling laws.
|
| Likewise many US firm geofence access for EU residents out of
| fear of GDPR.
|
| People hosting news sites have often had to geofence to prevent
| UK residents from accessing their site if they are hosting any
| kind of reporting of UK court cases that are under embargo or
| matters that are subject to one of the UK's famous "Super
| injunctions" [2]
|
| [1] eg this guy was on the board of a listed UK company
| operating as far as they were concerned entirely legally who
| was arrested in NYC
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/sep/14/gambling.mo...
|
| [2] eg In the "Ryan Giggs" super injunction case
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_British_privacy_injunctio...
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| > People hosting news sites have often had to geofence to
| prevent UK residents from accessing their site if they are
| hosting any kind of reporting of UK court cases that are
| under embargo or matters that are subject to one of the UK's
| famous "Super injunctions" [2]
|
| ...and if the site has no UK assets, how enforceable is the
| injunction?
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean, in the case of the US, you board a plane in country
| X going to country Z, it flies over country Y which is
| friends with the US. The US has country Y land the plane
| and has the plane boarded by armed men that drag you off
| kicking and screaming where you are put in a cage and then
| shipped to the US.
| morkalork wrote:
| Iirc this happened to a Russian man who operated an
| online gambling site when he went on vacation to the
| Caribbean. The plane he was on had an unscheduled landing
| in Florida for a mechanical issue and surprise, surprise,
| the FBI were waiting there to arrest him!
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| countries do it all the time
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair_Flight_4978
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_inc
| ide...
| hashim wrote:
| Or worse, shipped to Guantanamo Bay/Bagram Prison, where
| the US can do whatever they want even to US citizens
| because they're no longer in US jurisdiction.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > but they still need to restrict access to prevent US people
| from accessing the service or they will be breaching the US's
| gambling laws.
|
| Why not just avoid travel to the US?
| Vespasian wrote:
| The US has a huge reach in the western (and global) world
| and can impact you in a lot of creative and legal ways
| (e.g. prevent Google / Apple / Microsoft from offering
| services to you).
| lurk2 wrote:
| I remember this was an issue for The Pirate Bay but so
| far as I remember they were forced to go through the
| Swedish court system. It's been ages since I read about
| it though so I might be missing something.
| agedclock wrote:
| There is a huge number of countries that will comply with
| the US. All of Western Europe, a good portion of Asia and
| the Pacific and plenty of other places that I've forgotten
| about.
|
| If you are wanted in the Western world and the US wants
| you, you are likely to be got.
| buran77 wrote:
| The following paragraph might shed some light on what that
| means (emphasis mine):
|
| > We have been clear that _exiting the UK does not allow an
| organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior
| infringement_ of data protection law
|
| In that context it's completely fair to say "leaving doesn't
| absolve you of past transgressions".
|
| Edit. If Imgur made _any_ revenue from UK users then it becomes
| impossible to claim plausible deniability on any definition of
| "providing a service". If the UK can do something about this is
| a different matter. They could make CEOs/board personally or
| even criminally liable for the company's failure to pay a fine
| but probably won't.
| matt-p wrote:
| Definition of 'Revenue in the UK' is a bit debatable though
| isn't it?
|
| I sell a advertising package from my US HQ based self serve
| advertising portal to a British company who use the service
| to advertise to customers in the UK. Ok - kinda UK revenue.
| How about 'To advertise to customers in the US' well it's
| getting highly debatable.
|
| What about I sell advertising packages to a US company from
| my US HQ but someone in the UK views and advert on my site
| and therefore generates me 0.001C/ - debatable.
| rtpg wrote:
| None of your examples seem debatable to me. The premise
| that revenue has just one fixed location might feel right
| but doesn't hold up, and in each case you cited it's clear
| to me that those would be revenue in the UK
|
| And like yeah maybe you generated a tenth of a cent of
| revenue from someone in the UK. So you have revenue in the
| UK! You can go argue in a court that that is the only
| revenue that matters, I guess?
|
| "Oh no the internet is soooo complicated and I can't
| possibly keep track of these sales" is an argument that
| people make. There are plenty of very hard problems in the
| real world too.
|
| This is why accountants exist (and why lawyers exist). And
| while a universe that is legible and easy for people to
| navigate without having to pay "experts" a bunch of money
| is nice, and perhaps a thing to aim for, it is not going to
| be the reality on many issues.
|
| Something being complicated for a layman to parse does not
| rule it out as the actual answer to these questions!
| Something being logically inconsistent along certain
| hypotheticals also does not rule it out as the actual
| answer to these questions either!
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "The ICO also confirmed that companies could not avoid
| accountability by withdrawing their services in the UK.
|
| Mr Capel said: "We have been clear that exiting the UK does not
| allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior
| infringement of data protection law, and our investigation
| remains ongoing."
|
| When read in context, it's obvious the statement quoted in the
| HN conmment refers to only to accountability for "prior
| infringement", i.e., acts committed before withdrawing services
| in the UK
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| > am I accountable?
|
| If you travel to their jurisdiction, yes.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Many countries countries witch apply their laws outside there
| jurisdiction and borders
|
| USA (Kim dotcom)
|
| Russia (Skripals)
|
| China (Teng Bio)
|
| Israel (Mordechai Vanunu)
| jacquesm wrote:
| USA BetonSports /
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carruthers
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| He was in America then, if you go to America then you're
| going to get arrested - Skylarov found that out.
|
| The cases I listed the people were not in the country
| which performed the actions (dotcom in Nz but upset
| America, Skripal in UK but upset Russia, etc)
|
| If you break Thai law and insult their king it's
| generally good enough to simply not go to Thailand. Piss
| off the wrong country though and they will persue you to
| a third country
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In the example given the answer is "no" but that's not the
| same as Imgur's case.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| What they mean, and to take an example that it purposely
| extreme: If you kill someone in a country you cannot avoid
| accountability in law by fleeing that country.
|
| If they breached laws and regulations then withdrawing their
| service from the country afterwards does not change anything
| regarding those breaches (investigation still ongoing, though).
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| This is neither comparable nor a good example.
|
| It's not comparable because the "crime" has been committed in
| the hosting country (where it's arguably not even a crime)
| and it's a bad example because there are many incidents of
| murderers fleeing to non-extradition countries.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I did say it was extreme on purpose to make the point
| clear, or so I thought. Looks like it isn't clear to you...
|
| Whatever you think of my example, it is exactly the same
| legal reasoning at play here. If you broke the law then
| withdrawing does not change that and accountability.
|
| > _It 's not comparable because the "crime" has been
| committed in the hosting country_
|
| Obviously not, that's the whole point: They may
| (investigation ongoing) have breached UK law. So, to really
| labour the point, if you breach the law in one country then
| cutting links with that country afterwards does not change
| anything.
|
| Now, to be a bit more substantive than this tedious bike-
| shedding, I think the UK are just trying to send a message
| here even if enforcement may be difficult. The EU could do
| the same with the GDPR since it is the same type of law
| (global reach and applicability).
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| I genuinely think your example is bad and the legal
| reasoning is bad. A better comparison would be AM Radio
| broadcasting something obscene into the UK from let's say
| belgium.
| silasdavis wrote:
| Doing that from Belgium would indeed be beyond the pale
| sammy2255 wrote:
| How do you "pull out" of the UK if you are not a UK company, you
| are a US company, hosted in the US, and proxied by Fastly.
| There's nothing to do? You do not need to abide by UK laws, even
| if your website is accessible from there.
| constantcrying wrote:
| The UK government does not care. The law applies no matter
| where you are hosted, where you are incorporated or who is
| proxiying you.
|
| >You do not need to abide by UK laws, even if your website is
| accessible from there.
|
| The UK government does not agree.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't
| respected many borders apart from their own so this really
| isn't anything new.
|
| Zing aside, I'd be thrilled to see whatever prosecutor or
| litigator or whatever they call them over there bring a case
| against a US based company for hosting content in the US,
| geoblocking the UK, a UK resident using a VPN to bypass that
| block, and making the case that that is somehow the US
| company's fault.
| mystraline wrote:
| The UK also is trying the same stunt against 4Chan.
|
| The article is from a month ago, but the gears of "justice"
| rotate slowly:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyjq40vjl7o
|
| One thing to note is that UK government officials also seem
| to be masquerading and submitting reports to try to ToS
| these websites.
| userbinator wrote:
| The response from 4chan's lawyers sums it up:
|
| _American citizens do not surrender our constitutional
| rights just because Ofcom sends us an e-mail_
| joe463369 wrote:
| > I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't
| respected many borders apart from their own so this really
| isn't anything new.
|
| Did the US respect the borders of Hawaii?
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| a) whataboutism isn't an argument
|
| b) if you expect me to defend in the slightest the US and
| it's own shady history regarding settler colonialism,
| rest assured, there is no risk of that.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| But its still not the UK government's decision. They don't
| have sovereignty over other nations, as much as they'd like
| to think they do.
|
| All they can legally do is bitch and moan and order UK ISPs
| to block. There's no action they can legally take against
| Imgur.
| weinzierl wrote:
| The US does exert its laws extraterritorially when there is
| a sufficient nexus to US interests too. Why wouldn't the UK
| be allowed to do so?
| tart-lemonade wrote:
| The US also has outsized influence in this arena due to
| the USD being the world reserve currency. Which isn't to
| say that might makes right, but it's easier to get your
| way when you can dictate the terms by which banks and
| nations can interface with the global economy. The
| British pound doesn't have quite the same level of soft
| power, so it must be wielded more strategically to avoid
| completely losing that which it still possesses.
|
| I don't imagine going after Imgur would be a worthwhile
| exercise of that soft power.
| iamnothere wrote:
| The UK? How many divisions do they have?
|
| Why shouldn't Russia be allowed to exert their laws
| extraterritorially? Or Mali? Or Sudan? Or the Iranians?
| Or China? Or Israel?
|
| What you're asking for is the end of the internet, full
| stop.
| phi0 wrote:
| They are! Russia has been fining Google increasingly
| insane amounts for blocking state media [1]. It's the
| company's prerogative of whether they want to have a
| legal entity falling under the country's jurisdiction and
| whether employees want to travel there and risk being
| held criminally liable.
|
| It's likely simpler to just block access to the country's
| IP ranges (or ignore!) and move on.
|
| [1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxvnwkl5kgo
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > It's the company's prerogative of whether they want to
| have a legal entity falling under the country's
| jurisdiction
|
| Except in this case, Imgur does not have a legal entity
| falling under the UK's jurisdiction. They are purely a US
| based company. It's not like Google, Apple, etc. that
| have offices in the UK.
|
| This particular fine is the UK trying to extend its
| jurisdiction to entities that it has no sovereign
| authority over.
|
| Just because some UK user might visit my website doesn't
| mean I now have to follow all UK laws if I don't actually
| do business there, and don't intend to.
|
| Blocking the traffic is how we end up with the
| balkanization of the internet.
| Ray20 wrote:
| > Just because some UK user might visit my website
| doesn't mean I now have to follow all UK laws if I don't
| actually do business there
|
| That's exactly what it means.
|
| On what basis should you be allowed to violate British
| law when interacting with a British resident? Because
| you're not under British jurisdiction? That would be
| incredibly illogical. Not only would it mean that people
| and companies under British jurisdiction are privileged
| by the British legal system over those in other
| jurisdictions, but it would also raise questions about
| the need for such legislation if the British legal system
| accepts that it's okay for people from other
| jurisdictions to violate it.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > On what basis should you be allowed to violate British
| law when interacting with a British resident?
|
| If all I do is host a website that serves images, and I'm
| not hosting nor operating out of the UK, why would I be
| subject to their laws? Just because it's accessible
| globally means I now have to factor in every possible
| regulation from around the world?
|
| The burden shouldn't fall on me, the website operator, to
| block UK traffic because they want to restrict content or
| enforce age verification. Nor should they be able to fine
| me. It's up to the UK to have UK based ISPs block my site
| then.
|
| Obviously a different story if I'm deliberately offering
| a paid service to UK citizens, or advertising to them,
| etc.
|
| But to suggest that every website owner now needs to be
| aware of, and follow, ever nation's unique regulations
| will spell the death of the internet as a global network.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >There's no action they can legally take against Imgur.
|
| This is a very, very dangerous game to play.
|
| This is how employees of your business on vacation in the
| UK end up in jail.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Imgur recently fired all of their employees, and no
| longer has any actual staff. No developers, no
| moderators, no IT guys.
|
| An ongoing protest over the state of Imgur has been going
| on since the first of this month.
|
| So, uh, _what_ employees on vacation?
| pixl97 wrote:
| So the company is owned by a mythical no one? Somewhere
| on a corporate charter there are names.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Its owned by worse than that. Its owned by MediaLab now.
| That's the same company that owns WorldStarHipHop, the
| website that encourages children to do dangerous acts to
| get viral stardom.
|
| You can look up who owns MediaLab, and the things they
| have done. I don't think the UK is going to kidnap them
| if they go there. They have money.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > This is how employees of your business on vacation in
| the UK end up in jail.
|
| I mean its not. Because this is data protection laws, the
| _company_ is liable, not its employees.
| (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-
| and-re...)
|
| Even in cases where a company causes death, or
| destruction and the company is found liable, employees
| are not allowed to be used as standins, employees need to
| be convicted as well. a conviction isn't fungible, that
| kinda the point of common law.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I mean yes, if you have a large well funded company that
| brings profit to said country that is how common law
| works.
|
| In the US for example if you happen to bring gambling
| funds to some other country from us citizens you _will_
| be arrested in very creative ways while not even getting
| close to the US.
|
| At the end of the day all law is what the government
| wants to do and can get away with. When it comes to not
| actual citizens of the country they tend to get away with
| a whole lot more. Or another more simple way to put it,
| "You can beat the wrap, but you can't beat the ride".
| layer8 wrote:
| You are sending data into the UK, hence you have to abide by
| their laws regarding said data.
| patrickmay wrote:
| As the owner of a U.S. based website, I am not sending data
| anywhere. Some people in the U.K. might request data and
| download it from my site. I'm not forcing it on them.
| layer8 wrote:
| HTTP responses (website contents) are data that the web
| servers you are paying for are sending. People can't
| download anything from your site without your servers
| sending the data. Nothing forces you to send that data when
| you receive an HTTP request. Indeed, geoblocking is a
| common way to prevent sending data to jurisdictions whose
| laws the sending of the data might be in violation of.
| betaby wrote:
| HTTP GET is pull, not push. The user is pulling data, not
| the server is pushing data. Government doesn't care
| though. It intentionally have chosen not to understand
| that detail.
| layer8 wrote:
| It's the server's choice to send or not to send the data.
| The fact that the server is receiving a request for the
| data in no way implies that it has to obey it. If someone
| places an order for a product whose distribution violates
| a law, the distributor is still responsible for sending
| it. Someone selling drugs is still responsible even if
| the buyer requested the drug. Someone distributing
| unlicensed material is still responsible even when that
| material was specifically requested.
| Vespasian wrote:
| You can absolutely take that stance and be fine as long as
| you never get into the sphere of influence of UK law
| enforcement for potentially a very long time.
|
| If they get hold of you your interpretation of who sent
| what doesn't matter but theirs does. They can absolutely
| hold you until your fine is paid or you spend and
| equivalent amount of time in prison.
|
| Many people like to vacation in the UK or Europe (one
| diverted flight away) and they might decide that it's
| better to just block users and be done with it. Some people
| may even happily pay a small fine incurred before the
| block.
| baobun wrote:
| It means to stop doing business there. For example selling ads
| targeting UK users to UK advertisers. London banking.
| Integrating with UK-based data-milking peers.
| noir_lord wrote:
| As a Brit.
|
| Good - cause the maximum amount of pain, start pulling services
| across the board - the more it happens the more painful it
| becomes for the government to defend it.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Likewise, as a Brit, I hope more mainstream sites do this until
| people realise how stupid or authoritarian (but I repeat
| myself) the UK's Online Safety Act is. VPN companies must be
| enjoying these shenanigans.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| It would be more effective if this was about the online
| saftey act. Ironically Imgur is probably already compliant
| with it (they already have moderation policies that go above
| what the OSA requires)
|
| This is about a GDPR violation. I'm not sure that cheering
| for our right to have our privacy respected by companies
| revoked is really what we want.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| Following this logic, I suppose that, in the future, cars that
| cannot automatically detect the presence of a child in a
| wheelchair and prevent the engine from starting will be banned.
| constantcrying wrote:
| Why are you being sarcastic about this. Obviously that will be
| a legal requirement at some point, just like constantly
| supervising the driver for tiredness is.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| I'm not being sarcastic. I'm predicting a trajectory of
| never-ending increase of regulatory requirements for any
| human activity which I don't like. Only big players have deep
| pocket for lobbyists and lawyers to avoid them or resources
| to implement them.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Complexity increases in every system till it fails.
| Avoiding this entropy may be impossible.
| oldjim798 wrote:
| >Following this logic, I suppose that, in the future, cars that
| cannot automatically detect the presence of a child in a
| wheelchair and prevent the engine from starting will be banned.
|
| You said this like it is a bad thing, which is baffling?
| Obviously cars should do this. One of the best things about
| adding self-driving features is we can add features like this
| (and speed governors) to make cars a lot safer for everyone.
| physarum_salad wrote:
| Hopefully many more companies do this and British internet users
| migrate to use of VPNs. This will apply maximum pressure on the
| government to reverse these parochial laws.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| I'm not a fan of the law but the idea of foreign businesses
| pressuring the government still puts a bad taste in my mouth.
| chrisjj wrote:
| ... or to ban VPNs.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| its not the online safety act, its basic data protection, which
| means they are probably breeching the Californian equivalent
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >This will apply maximum pressure on the government to reverse
| these parochial laws
|
| Whatever the annual revenue of imgur was is now up for grabs
| for any British entrepreneur willing to build an image hosting
| site and unless British people have an innate preference for
| exporting their data to the US they'll likely stick with that.
| In other words, it's a good opportunity for the domestic tech
| sector, that's what happens in most cases when foreign
| companies tend to be blocked.
| qwoppos wrote:
| The value of imgur isn't really in being able to upload
| images there, it's access to all the images uploaded from the
| rest of the world. Especially historical uploads, say, a
| turorial or a travel log using imgur as reliable image host.
| Locally created and operated british website aimed at brits
| makes sense when it's local news or local services or
| whatever. Local image hosting site that serves only
| (primarily?) brits seems of very questionable utility unless
| you somehow become a big hub for outsiders... at least until
| $other_country demands UK stop tracking their children or
| whatever excuse they'll use.
| physarum_salad wrote:
| Yeah let us find random ways, that we never used to care
| about, to ban all foreign websites so a "brit" can take over
| haha. This is quite authoritarian and corporatist and worthy
| of some criticism from more libertarian minded onlookers.
| mcrmonkey wrote:
| Outrage! Now where am I going to get my cat pictures from ?!
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| gertrunde wrote:
| I do wonder if this is in any way linked to the ongoing
| enshittification of imgur, and the recent associated user revolt
| (link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45102905 ).
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Good for the UK IMHO. Just seeing with how many 3rd party sites
| Imgur shares data with is disgusting.
| etchalon wrote:
| The global internet sure was fun for a bit.
| oldjim798 wrote:
| Was it? It did a tremendous amount of harm as well. Future
| historians may judge us very harshly for how cavalier and
| flippant we were in unleashing this technology onto the public.
| deadbabe wrote:
| The internet has been around for decades. _We_ are the future
| historians.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Yes, and if you can't see that you are a joyless human who
| will find misery in anything
| squigz wrote:
| Can you give us some examples of harm it's done?
| nadermx wrote:
| The UK has been doing this sort of stuff for at least a decade.
| For example they have the PIPCU which under the guise of
| copyright threatens 10 years in prison for sites not even in
| their jurisdiction.
|
| https://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-launch-campaign-to-shut-d...
|
| And with that, they have at the least gotten registrars not
| located in their jurisdicrion to transfer domains
|
| https://easydns.com/blog/2013/10/08/whatever-happened-to-due...
| matt-p wrote:
| So has alot of Europe to be fair, I think it's a cultural thing
| honestly.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Wait, so you can host a torrent site in the USA and not get
| your domain ceased by the FBI?
| nadermx wrote:
| If you follow the DMCA I don't see why not.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The category of civil liability for which the compliance
| with the DMCA notice and takedown rules offers a safe
| harbor, first of all, doesn't overlap with the conduct
| which constitutes criminal infringement but, more
| importantly, _even if it did_ the DMCA safe harbor only
| applies to civil and not criminal liability in the first
| place.
|
| "Following the DMCA" is irrelevant to anything the FBI
| would be involved in.
| nadermx wrote:
| The DMCA absolutely applies. If you follow it, which
| includes no induction or willfull infrigment, you never
| rise out of civil liability to criminal. The FBI gets
| involved once you're past that.
| matt-p wrote:
| No because torrenting is anti-capitalism and that's not
| tolerated culturally (Communist behaviour). However I doubt
| they'll be blocking WhatsApp and iMessage any time soon, or
| making people upload their ID to watch "adult content".
| happymellon wrote:
| > However I doubt they'll be [...] making people upload
| their ID to watch "adult content".
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=texas%20porn%20law
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| They just forced TikTok US to be sold to a US company
| with a US commissar as a board member.
| kimixa wrote:
| The US has always claimed jurisdiction on foreign-hosted but
| US-accessible content.
|
| Do people forget the owner of Megaupload being extradited? In
| many ways this is just catching up to the current US state.
|
| And there's a lot of confusion here between basic consumer data
| protection laws and (IMHO _massively_ overreaching) "Online
| Safety" laws. This isn't Imgur making a stand for free speech,
| this is Imgur wanting to track and sell user data - to which
| minors cannot consent. Putting on my tinfoil hat you could
| argue that many of these companies are trying to encourage this
| misunderstanding intentionally.
| nadermx wrote:
| Megaupload is a weird one. He hosted in it the USA, giving
| USA jurisidction. Also it's still going through the courts in
| New Zeland and USA and hasn't been proven hes guilty. And if
| I recall he did alledge he followed the DMCA, which if he
| ever is extradited might save him if it is in fact true.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > And if I recall he did alledge he followed the DMCA,
| which if he ever is extradited might save him if it is in
| fact true.
|
| It 100% won't; there is no DMCA safe harbor for _criminal_
| conduct, only for a narrow category of civil liability.
| nadermx wrote:
| You are misapropriating. Copyright infrigment can become
| criminal if you willfully violate it. If you then take
| earnings from the willful infrigment and launder them, it
| becomes other crimes. But if you follow the DMCA and
| qualify for safe harbor, what copyright crime have you
| commited that would go to criminal?
|
| Or to give you another example in backpage the founders
| where aquitted since the judge could not trace that the
| money came from a "criminal source"
| https://www.courthousenews.com/backpage-executives-
| acquitted...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > But if you follow the DMCA and qualify for safe harbor
|
| Yes, it is only possible to _qualify_ for the safe
| harbor, if you haven't committed criminal infringement.
|
| But, as criminal infringement is not part of the DMCA,
| _following_ the DMCA has no probative value against
| accusations of criminal infringement. Criminal
| infringement means you aren't qualified for DMCA safe
| harbor regardless of whether you follow the DMCA, but
| following the DMCA doesn't mean you aren't guilty of
| criminal infringement.
|
| > Or to give you another example in backpage the founders
| where aquitted since the judge could not trace that the
| money came from a "criminal source"
|
| Backpage has no relevance to criminal copyright
| infringement. About the only connection between this case
| and that is that Backpage was also a nexus for a lot of
| misinformation about a (completely different, Section 230
| rather than DMCA) safe harbor provision.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| The notion that a 17 year old cannot consent to user tracking
| is absurd
| fao_ wrote:
| No, what is absurd is everyone having their data tracked
| and sold, including minors.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| And the notion that if you reject all tracking, these
| scummy companies will not actually track you
| lokar wrote:
| Don't nations have some right to enforce their copyright laws
| (civil and criminal) outside their own territory, via treaty?
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Im sorry, if you run a site some where not in the UK. It doesn't
| give the country jurisdiction over the entire internet.
|
| If a country wants to enforce some kind of rules, they will have
| to apply them to the countries residents, because its the
| resident that go out on the net and conduct the behavior, not the
| other way around.
|
| This has been common sense for a long time now. Everybody is
| going crazy/mad. Must be some seriously narcissistic people
| running the UK.
| SXX wrote:
| Just a few months ago games built by US-based developers, sold
| on US-based platform with payments processors also US-based
| were censored by actions of Australian christian activist
| group.
|
| Simply by sending some threating letters to payment processor
| management. It was done by few hundred fanatics who want to
| censor what content everyone is allowed to access.
|
| Since this is possible, there not enough resistance and UK
| government have much more resources we'll all have to live with
| this.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Im not sure how they can enforce this?
| flumpcakes wrote:
| If you are serving the UK market, you follow UK laws. It's that
| simple. In this case they are misusing UK children's
| information, that's a no-no in a country that has actual
| consumer protection laws. I'll wait for the EU to catch up on
| this too.
|
| While the UK and EU (and US) like to pass stupid laws, in this
| case it's just an American company misusing citizen's data and
| not giving a crap. Good riddance.
| andai wrote:
| WhatsApp, Telegram and everyone else should pull out of EU in
| protest of Chat Control. Then EU will be forced to make its own
| chat app, UX will be terrible, and citizens will finally feel
| enough pain to contact their representatives ;)
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| People who write this stuff still don't understand that big
| tech IS THE ENEMY. They are quite happy to implement this, even
| up into the OS Level. It's called Regulatory capture. Now your
| legal Moat to a true European Alternative has become even
| bigger.
| abtinf wrote:
| Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant the premise "big
| tech IS THE ENEMY", it does not necessarily follow that the
| vast mass surveillance national security apparatus is our
| friend.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| I would never argue that and i hope that doesn't follow
| from my comment. To be absolutely clear: Any service that
| doesn't actively work for your privacy against any outside
| actor to the fullest extend of the law and technical
| possibility is to be considered an enemy of freedom.
| cwillu wrote:
| It's the same coin.
| josephg wrote:
| Personally I hate both surveillance systems. I hate the
| American big tech surveillance system - under which
| companies like imgur sell the personal data of its users to
| anyone who comes knocking. And I hate the European chat
| control proposal, where the government wants to take that
| data by force.
|
| Privacy is a human right.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Then EU will be forced to make its own chat app
|
| When did the US government make a chat app? Signal?
| psychoslave wrote:
| I did contacted them. All of them who didn't yet have a
| referenced public position on fight chat control for France. By
| phone. Only two responded with a clear alignment. Good that I
| did it by phone, because apparently for some of them getting
| several thousand emails per day can only mean they are victim
| of a spam attack.
|
| Not only they don't represent anything but there own little
| interests, but they won't even have the decency to express
| clearly what they are standing for. Even lip service is not
| assured anymore.
| xenophonf wrote:
| > _getting several thousand emails per day can only mean they
| are victim of a spam attack_
|
| I think of calling my representative as being like proof of
| work. It takes a modicum of effort to look up their phone
| number, compose some spiel, and make the call, compared to
| delivering spam by the truckload.
| lores wrote:
| Was it a Green and a Nazi?
| downrightmike wrote:
| > Sending message...
|
| > Sending to your local police dept... OK
|
| > Sending to intended recipient... Failed
| bapak wrote:
| > This phone is now locked
|
| > Please open the door
| ben_w wrote:
| Chat apps were already so oversupplied as to be free even
| before AI could vibe code them. Or, indeed, before the US
| relented on export bans for remotely adequate HTTPS
| implementations.
|
| In other words: What pain?
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| Good luck with that!
| blibble wrote:
| signal is open source, so they'll just download the source,
| build it, add a backdoor and push it to the app store
|
| same as that weird official USgov version hosted by israel
| missedthecue wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder who builds this stuff. I appreciate at the
| end of the day that everyone has bills, but I feel like I'd
| rather apply for public housing before I work on that.
| They're not even getting rich, just a wagie. I have never met
| someone in the tech industry that was ideologically anti-
| privacy. It's always the lawyers and politicians. But someone
| builds it.
| blibble wrote:
| > Sometimes I wonder who builds this stuff.
|
| the "secure" chat app supplied by some rando israeli
| company to the US government?
|
| have a guess
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Signal is AGPL licensed, so they would have to publish
| whatever crude hack they insert in order to install that back
| door. (not the keys, of course, but if they're this
| incompetent about tech legislation, I don't trust their QA
| competence to be top notch)
| drnick1 wrote:
| This 100%. There would be a lot more pushback in the EU against
| this nonsense if, overnight, EU users found the majority of
| their apps no longer work.
| paganel wrote:
| > feel enough pain to contact their representatives
|
| It doesn't work like that because the European "Parliament" is
| a joke. For starters, they can't initiate anything, they can
| only approve or reject (of course that it's almost always
| approve) stuff that is being passed to them from higher up,
| most of the times from the European Commission, if I'm not
| mistaken. Ah, they can pass/generate "resolutions", which are
| basically empty words put on a piece of paper.
|
| Second, the people there don't "represent" anyone, at most they
| represent the political parties that have put them on the lists
| that got them into the European Parliament, but that's it.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Second, the people there don't "represent" anyone,
|
| I think that's largely down to people not taking EU elections
| as seriously as national elections.
|
| The ones elected by my country are always largely the most
| doldrum people from the main parties that aren't charismatic
| enough to win in national elections (The b-squad basically)
|
| ... and a handful of the kind of people that think windfarms
| generate wind and that we need to leave NATO.. even though we
| haven't joined NATO. The kind of people you vote to send to
| the EU so that you don't have to see them.
|
| There was an election in 2024 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2
| 024_European_Parliament_elect...
|
| For people unfamiliar with it https://elections.europa.eu/en/
|
| The parliament is elected by people in each country, those
| elected them elect the commission. So a form of indirect
| elections.
| bluecalm wrote:
| We (in most EU countries) don't have representatives. Parties
| have representatives. To be listed on a ballot you need to be
| with good standings with your party and get chosen by them.
| Then various method ensure that you can't be elected if you are
| not a member of a party (anyone from a party below 5% is not
| getting in for example).
|
| This means officials only care about what their party leaders
| tell them to do, not what voters think because voters matter
| very little to them. That's why American "contact your
| representatives" does very little here - they are not your
| representatives, they are representatives of party leaders.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > Then EU will be forced to make its own chat app, UX will be
| terrible,
|
| Why? EU can just tell an LLM to build an alternative app, they
| can just tell it to make it user friendly and make no mistakes.
| That's the primary use case of Trillions of dollars of
| investment in GPUs and electricity to power them.
|
| JK(or am I?), a protest will be a boon for EU, which is growing
| Anti-American each and every day. The EU alternatives don't
| exist not because Europeans can't code but because EU market is
| open to US companies and there's no reason for duplicate effort
| as winner takes it all thanks to network effects. EU capital
| just invests in USA based companies that operate in EU. It's
| much easier, lower taxes lower worker protection standards etc.
| Also, US has much more capital to burn to corner the markets,
| they also just go ahead and buy anything European i.e. Skype.
| and not risk competition.
| harvey9 wrote:
| If you think that's a lot of electricity, you're going to be
| amazed how much they can spend on bureaucracy before they
| even start building anything.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Electricity bureaucracy, whatever doesn't matter. Huge
| money is invested into making programmers obsolete and they
| are claiming that it already happens. If the tech is real,
| Europeans can just tell it to make them all these apps that
| American companies may choose to deprive EU to teach them a
| lesson.
|
| If the AI tech is real then Europeans get their apps no
| need for American companies anymore. If the tech isn't real
| then the chat app makers(in Europe that's all Meta,
| WhatsApp + Messenger. Apple is a no go due to low market
| share) lose half of their revenue to teach Europeans a
| lesson. Europeans them switch to Signal, Telegram(Popular
| all over the place) or Viber(this one popular in Eastern
| Europe).
|
| If they all decide to boycott, there you have opportunity
| to hit a 400M market. Let's say Europeans can make AAA
| games but can't code a chat app, give visa to US developers
| that were laid off for the last many years to come over.
| Maybe it's politically unpopular? Maybe they are not the
| best? That's fine, EU is an open market - anyone who is
| interested in making billions can just make a chat app and
| take over the EU market. Indians, Chinese, Turks, Africans,
| Americans that earn less than billions of dollars. It's a
| huge opportunity. Instantly.
|
| Meta made $38.4 billion USD revenue in EU last year. It's
| very unlikely that no one will be interested in taking
| that. US companies aren't doing charity to EU, it's always
| their second largest revenue stream after USA.
| bapak wrote:
| I hate this so bad. You know that the solution will be that
| EU will block US companies (who do not comply) so EU users
| will eventually get their own WhatsApp called MsgMeNow. The
| result is that nobody can talk to people outside their own
| jurisdiction.
|
| This is effectively what we see in China. They only use
| WeChat, I was unable to register because it says I need
| someone to verify my account when I try to do it (this has
| been happening since 2018)
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Maybe that's a good thing. Have you read Snowcrash?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Yes, that's the only way for EU to have a tech industry.
| That's also how any non-US tech industry exists.
| MammaMia2025 wrote:
| No worries! Trump will call Den Von Deleten, whatever her
| name is -- and she will just do what she is told whatever
| is the thing she is told to do. Exactly like it already
| happened with EU buying $700B of natural gas. We paid just
| a bit over $100B to Russians for the same thing... but you
| know... Trump told, so here we go!
| bee_rider wrote:
| This article is about an existing UK law and Imgur, an image
| hosting site (although, it does have some social features).
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Why are we talking about the EU in this thread? I don't see how
| draconian UK laws relate to a _proposed_ chat control law in
| the EU that hasn 't even been drafted and would likely not
| survive a judicial challenge if it were to be approved.
| bapak wrote:
| Well, it relates in that the UK also hates encryption and is
| extremely likely to get their own Chat Control anytime this
| decade.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| The same could be said for the US as well though looking at
| the EARN IT Act that is reintroduced every couple of years
| just like Chat Control in the EU with both having failed
| multiple times so far.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The source is this statement from the ICO (Information
| Commissioner's Office, who enforce data privacy rules, GDPR etc).
|
| https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs...
| fifticon wrote:
| imgur itself is an empty husk of its former self. Last time I
| visited their site, they had fired all their moderators and
| replaced them with AI. They were bought at some point by .. media
| labs? I don't recall their name, but I recall that they are
| moneygrubbing bastards, to phrase it in neutral terms. I don't
| intend to visit their site again. Instead, I have made an AI
| agent that can do it for me.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah I think no other sites have done this because
| fundamentally they like money. Imgur have probably only done
| this because they're making less money from the UK than it
| would cost to deal with this law.
| gusfoo wrote:
| FWIW, on old.reddit.com it still shows the cached image view, so
| no actual need to visit Imgur.com - a site that has had some
| quite interesting drama for the last few months.
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| What are they actually accused of? That article doesn't mention
| any specifics.
| rpns wrote:
| There is a bit more detail on these pages:
|
| https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs...
|
| https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...
|
| No full detail though. Having said that, the second link is
| particularly interesting as it goes though various companies
| with comments about each.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| There's an opportunity for a service like CloudFlare here give
| people a simple toggle that manages geoblocks on legal liability
| factors. It's way too much for every organisation to individually
| track every country's laws day by day in case just by being
| accessible there you incur a liability. And it sounds like the UK
| would have just self-selected out of the list of "safe"
| countries.
|
| If something like this was in widespread use it would have much
| more impact since countries would see whole swathes of the
| internet immediately go dark when they make stupid laws.
| bstsb wrote:
| https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/:zone/security/sec...
| (ip.src.country eq "GB")
|
| then take action "Block". i know what you mean by a simpler
| option though
| ljm wrote:
| So a service like CloudFlare is the Great firewall of the world
| and CloudFlare can shut you down if you go against their
| interests as a supranational gatekeeper.
|
| Smart thinking Batman.
| flir wrote:
| I wish Wikipedia would take one for the team, and go dark in
| the UK. (And I'm in the UK).
|
| Wouldn't work with somewhere like China, but the UK might still
| be capable of being shamed.
| system2 wrote:
| I remember Imgur as a small project of a Redditor because we
| needed to share images. It is remarkable how a small project like
| that can still generate an international news headline more than
| a decade later.
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| Pretty soon the only websites accessible from the UK will be
| phishing sites asking for all your personal info to access the
| "real internet". Real smart guys making the laws there these
| days.
| protocolture wrote:
| We desperately need an Antarctica/Moon style extraterritoriality
| for the internet.
|
| Just tell your citizens that the internet is fair game? Why
| restrict it to this level and make using the internet the same as
| having to understand the law in 200 odd countries.
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