I feel like I have a pretty clear idea of the rules in the cases you describe. For GDPR I have no such confidence.

It seems like the smart thing for US startups to do right now is ignore EU customers until they’ve validated the business idea enough to justify the engineering and legal expenses of taking this on.

The alternative is to not collect personal information from your customers.

> The alternative is to not collect personal information from your customers

If that worked I'd embrace GDPR. Problem with "any consumer can make a complaint which requires expensive follow-up" regimes is one doesn't have to do anything wrong to incur costs. Someone can mis-interpret something and make a complaint. Now you have to interface with a regulator, which tends to be risky, expensive and time consuming.

If you're not collecting any information "interfacing with the regulator" means replying to their email by saying "we're not collecting any information". (Assuming they even got that far, given that they'd likely take a look at your website and notice you aren't collecting any information.)

I'm not sure what's risky, expensive or time consuming about that.

Consumer says “I think you’re lying” and forwards to their national data regulator. (This is as simple as writing an e-mail.)

Data regulator now asks you questions. You must respond. Hopefully they agree with you. But maybe not! Twenty-eight regulators appointed by different political groups are a complex system. You will need to gain expertise on them or hire someone with it.

All I’m saying is that time and money might be better used elsewhere. Particularly by someone just making side projects.

> Twenty-eight regulators appointed by different political groups are a complex system. You will need to gain expertise on them or hire someone with it. All I’m saying is that time and money might be better used elsewhere. Particularly by someone just making side projects.

If you're not collecting data, then all of this is irrelevant. You just say "I'm not collecting data". There's no nuance here.

> If you're not collecting data, then all of this is irrelevant. You just say "I'm not collecting data". There's no nuance here.

How do you prove you are not collecting data?

If your use default configs of Apache, or Nginx, your access.log is probably infringing GDPR. It’s impossible to prove you’re not collecting this without an extensive audit.

> There's no nuance here

This is your interpretation. Many prominent lawyers disagree.

In any case, convincing a regulator that you are not, in fact, collecting data could be harrowing, distracting and expensive. The risk of incurring those costs probably isn’t a smart one to take for a hacker or very early-stage start-up.

> > There's no nuance here > This is your interpretation. Many prominent lawyers disagree.

I'd like to point out that it's in the interest of a proeminent lawyer to tell you that their services are needed...

So in this hypothetical scenario, for some reason the regulator looks at your website, which presumably has no personal information inputs, no tracking analytics etc. and which you have asserted collects no personal information, and they decide that you're still somehow collecting information, and for some reason hounding your low traffic website is the best use of their limited resources.

Taking that risk (of a regulator mis-interpreting something and needing clarifications, again and again, or worse, mis-interpreting something and getting hostile) across the EU’s twenty-eight members is a good one for Facebook. Probably not for a hobbyist.

What exactly is the risk to a hobbyist here?

Even if we assume a completely bizarre and pathologically incompetent regulator that somehow ends up zeroing in on some tiny website which exhibits no evidence of violation, the hobbyist might have to... delete their website?

> What exactly is the risk to a hobbyist here?

Have you ever responded to a regulatory enquiry?

If you have then perhaps you could share your experience more explicitly. It would be helpful to clarify your point of view.

So, we’re hoping bureaucray will save ourself from itself by its innefiency?

> Exercise some critical thinking please.

That breaks the site guidelines by crossing into incivility. Could you please not do that?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Isn't this true for literally all regulations and laws on the planet?

No, it’s not. Comparable statutes in the U.S. are HIPAA or the Securities Act is 1933. Most laws require, to kick off an expensive process, someone to (a) pony up to start a lawsuit or (b) convince a public prosecutor to take on the case. Dedicated regulators are established where (a) and (b) aren’t working.

Most dedicated regulators consider consumer complaints. But the response rates are reasonably low and not mandated by law. (The best complain-and-investigate regulatory regimes avoid their incumbency-promoting effects by limiting oversight of new entrants. This incumbency bias was not taken into account in the GDPR’s drafting.)

If GDPR looks identical to other laws, in the EU or U.S., to you, you may want to speak with your lawyer about it.

> I'm not sure what's risky, expensive or time consuming about that.

"replying to their email"

https://jacquesmattheij.com/so-your-start-up-receive-the-nig...

The article is about someone who is collecting data. If you're not collecting data, you can just reply saying you don't have any data about them.

> I feel like I have a pretty clear idea of the rules in the cases you describe. For GDPR I have no such confidence.

I seems reasonable, but I would argue it's due to the law being new, not to some intrinsic property of it, no?

> You can't sell guns and drugs online.

Don't care about that sphere of activity, never going to do any of theses.

> If you're taking money, you have to make sure you know your customer (KYC).

Can you be more precise? What are the laws about that and should'nt it be Paypal job to support that? Never wanted to compete with Paypal either..

Data is literally everywhere... that means GDPR apply to almost everything. Which is why you may see some people complains about being able to sell guns online but you will see much more people complains about GDPR.

> Don't care about that sphere of activity, never going to do any of theses.

> Can you be more precise? What are the laws about that and should'nt it be Paypal job to support that? Never wanted to compete with Paypal either..

So what you're saying is you couldn't care less unless it affects you. Got it.

This is part of my point though. You're a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Who the hell doesn't know about KYC? You just woke up to the world and realized "oh shit, regulations exist! Unacceptable!". Yes, regulations exist, and this is just another one.

> Data is literally everywhere... that means GDPR apply to almost everything.

This isn't about data, it's about PII. And PII isn't everywhere, unless you're collecting it.

> Which is why you may see some people complains about being able to sell guns online but you will see much more people complains about GDPR.

No, that's not why. The reason why is that one has been around for a long time and people got used to it.