You're out of touch.

Compliance just isn't as simple as you think it is no matter how much you double down in these comments. Laws aren't black and white. Do you not use an accountant, either?

Frankly, your advice is terrible.

But that's just trying to stretch what we are discussing here: that it is possible to comply with the law in principle. That some overzealous prosecutor with a grudge could nail you might happen - in Russia, maybe even the USA. But frankly where I live I have not yet seen a case like that. We probably have them but not frequently enough to make the news and in general the legal system here works quite well.

Or for that matter, someone running a social platform that allows socially "undesirable" speech, speech that is openly critical of government policy, or speech that exposes the wrongdoing of powerful people.

For about 20 years, yes.

And I’m saying that’s bullshit. You’re breaking laws left and right, but you just don’t get caught because enforcement of those laws is so inconsistent. And the GDPR is so much worse; I’m sure you’re not compliant with GDPR given how vague and over-reaching the law is, but you’re probably mostly compliant and you’re too small for anyone to care.

Well, you know my business better than I do I guess.

> And the GDPR is so much worse; I’m sure you’re not compliant with GDPR given how vague and over-reaching the law is, but you’re probably mostly compliant and you’re too small for anyone to care.

And my business is about 100x the size of the one of the person writing the article. And I'm not worried. So I see the article writer as someone who uses the opportunity to make a whole bunch of fuss over something that (1) most likely would never impact him and (2) has indicated clearly that despite his opening sentence he probably doesn't give a damn about his users privacy.

So as far as I can see the law is working as intended.

You might be from Europe and to you it may just seem sensible but 1-5 person companies often have to make tradeoffs like this. It is not right to say just comply with the law - it is so easy! The company, here, has decided that the cost is too high and that they are out.

I also have to be compliant with US laws if I deal with US citizens. What's the difference?

> You might be from Europe and to you it may just seem sensible but 1-5 person companies often have to make tradeoffs like this.

Not the ones that want to stay in business.

> It is not right to say just comply with the law - it is so easy!

But it is easy, he's just making it seem as though it isn't. There is so much factually wrong in that blog post that if that's the level of thinking that goes into the decision making then there most likely are other issues.

> The company, here, has decided that the cost is too high and that they are out.

Probably good riddance. But for all the wrong reasons.

OP can just rely on "legitimate interests", and describe the data they're processing and why.

Also you are responsible for downstream guarantees of legitimate interest.

He is right that open P2P protocols like XMPP, such as NNTP, IRC, bitcoin, ethereum, etc are not handled clearly.

It is a headache for him I can sympathize.

Are you expecting GDPR (or any law for that matter) to define an exhaustive list of every definition, that holds true now as well as for the future? Have a rethink about that statement...

Just as companies need to be specific about how they use data now the legal-judicial system needs to be specific about what it means and intends.

It is a double standard because the legislators are not interested in the commercial impact.

It's easier just to say "this tool blocks Europeans" and problem avoided.

All the laws, worldwide?

Are you in compliance with anti-blasphemy laws? Laws that forbid insulting the monarch? The tax regime of every country in the world?

The creator of Monal has decided the easiest way to be compliant with another country's laws is simply not to do business there, and I think you're underestimating the difficulty of the alternative (trying to comply with every country's laws).

And as for the 'don't insult the monarch' law, we have that law here in NL and I purposefully broke it as a private individual to make a point.

The tax regime of every country in the world has no impact on me, I reside in NL, my businesses are here as well. But when I had several businesses in Canada and one in the USA I complied with the tax laws there too.

> The creator of Monal has decided the easiest way to be compliant with another country's laws is simply not to do business there, and I think you're underestimating the difficulty of the alternative (trying to comply with every country's laws).

He's taking the easy way out because there never was a real business behind this. This is my conclusion because he feels that his holidays are more important than the rights of his users.

Why should the creator of free software spend their own money to support users in a region that imposes extra regulations?

If I create free software that concretely and demonstrably aids in worldwide human trafficking and has negligible utility elsewhere, would you still consider my refusal to comply with regulation reasonable because my software was free?

How free the software is not a determining factor, either morally or legally, in determining whether or not the GDPR is or should be applicable.

You can hardly complain that someone who gave you something for free wasn't willing to spend their time or money to comply with additional demands.

But why would someone who is literally giving something away accept that liability, or even any perceived risk of liability, if they have an easier option?

There are professionals who spend their entire careers just "knowing" very specific parts of the law, and who are still frequently found to have misinterpreted it when tested in court.

Is doing your company's annual financial returns also stupidly easy, because you just have to know accountancy?

What about security? Just write all the software you use yourself based on your expert knowledge of cracking and cryptography?

Incidentally: not knowing you are breaking a law is no excuse for breaking the law, ignorance is not a valid defense.

This is possibly the greatest conceit in the history of legal systems. No human being in any Western nation could even read every word of law that applies to them in an entire lifetime, never mind fully understand the implications and the motivations behind those words that might be relevant to interpretation. Ignorance may not be a legal defence, but not being magically aware of the sum of all human knowledge about every legal system that you interact with is certainly a reasonable excuse for doing something illegal but otherwise apparently ethical and sensible.