this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
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GDPR is international now? Do I need to break out Nelson Muntz when some Euro type thinks European law is extraterritorial?
Don't make me break out Nelson Muntz, please.
It's mostly important for when you wanna do business in the European markets.
The alternative is to be blocked by most of Europe entirely. Happens usually to tabloid news sites as they are often in violation of anti misinformation and hate speech laws. It's also why they could sue Facebook so easily as otherwise Facebook would be non-GDRP compliant and be blocked there.
Lemmy however isn't exactly for profit, so sees much less scrutiny. This is primarily for business after all. Lemmy doesn't have ads, doesn't take users money, nor does it sell products. It also does not actively distribute illegal media either.
(it should be noted that it's usually not the EU doing the blocking but rather so websites choosing to block viewership from the EU because they'd rather do that than get sued to hell)
"Lemmy" doesn't do ANYTHING. Lemmy is server software. It has no agency whatsoever.
Individual Lemmy sites might be beholden to the GDPR (or not, if individually run). But any site hosted outside of the EU can wave its ass in the faces of EU officials trying to enforce the GDPR.
India? China? Japan? Vanuatu? ...
Know what? I think I'll just link instead of list because I can't be arsed to type out all the names.
So it's "international" as a technicality, but the context he was using it in implied he meant "universal". And it barely qualifies even as international against the sheer weight of non-EU, non-US states.
I have a ridiculous judgement against me in Germany. (Complicated shenanigans around an inheritance where the authorities' legal representatives did shady shit specifically to unload an estate that would have cost them.) Technically I owe the city of Frankfurt something like 50,000€ in fines.
I'm comfortable with this.
Why?
Because good fucking luck enforcing a European fine on a Canadian citizen resident in China. Even if they catch me out when I visit Germany (which I have done a couple of times without incident since the judgement was levied against me), watch the judge make grumpy-faces at attorneys who sent legal documents in German to a Canadian in China whose repeated requests for translated versions was denied. Their case will vanish in a puff of legal sanctions and I'll make fucking sure on top of it that it becomes a press circus.
EU types are almost as bad as American types for thinking their laws are extraterritorial. I love rubbing the fact that they aren't in their faces.
It's not really as simple as that. Businesses in countries outside the EU have to follow the gdpr rules if they have or want customers from the EU because the EU can hit them financially in their EU operations.
Normal people offering a free service that are not based in the EU probably cannot be pursued at all. I doubt the EU considered people that might not be some business wanting to profit from EU citizens.