The Chrome extension Unpaywall does exactly that.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unpaywall/iplffkdp...

It doesn't bat 1.000, of course, but it is successful often enough to be useful.

I was thinking of creating something similar for all of those US news sites that have blocked EU-based readers from accessing their sites out of a mostly unfounded panic. (PS: love your HN username.)

So all those US sites are just ignorant? They didn’t have lawyers actually advising them? They just unilaterally shut off access to millions of people out of an abundance of caution? “Unfounded panic” isn’t a business strategy and any non-trivial business is going to operate from legal advice. Obviously, the risk is real enough: the threat of 5% of global earnings is a pretty big incentive to be extremely cautious when dealing with an EU that has a huge financial incentive to go after large American companies.

I wouldn’t run my business with the “hope” that regulators are benevolent. If the media publishes a story critical of a country’s government, what’s to stop them from using GDPR as the basis for a very expensive witchhunt? Even if you have done everything correctly, there is still a significant compliance risk.

It isn’t the compliance itself that is problematic — it’s the compliance risk you subject yourself to when serving Europe. Given most news organizations are hanging by a thread financially, one bit of back luck from an aggressive regulator could destroy the business.

It’s the same reason many European banks have refused to service American customers: the FATCA compliance risk.

> They didn’t have lawyers actually advising them? They just unilaterally shut off access to millions of people out of an abundance of caution?

Those two statements are not mutually exclusive. I think they did have lawyers who advised them. They concluded that the potential risk is larger than the gain (in ads - europeans love their privacy and adblockers; and ad rates are comparatively quite low outside of the UK).

One, I think they should have hired european lawyers for this.

Two, comparing with the FATCA risk is amusing.

How do the writers of the articles get paid if everyone bypasses paywalls? They aren’t like musicians that make most of their money touring and their recorded music is more of a show-marketing tool. Most writers are almost anonymous.

I’m just having a hard time understanding the ethics of this.

Well, if a particular news site blocks europeans I would guess they are not expecting any kind of revenue from there.

I find it hard argue against a service that unblocks this kind of news site for europeans from an ethical POV. Copyright law is of course different, but it was you who introduced the ethics aspect.