This company that sells clothing says it had to stop selling to EU because of GDPR. This image IS their site now, it says: "Blame your government (no, really)".
Really though? It's that hard to sell me clothes while respecting my privacy? You only have to blame yourself on this one 😂
@kingannoy If only it were that simple...most of my clients chose to work toward compliance, but some took this tack. They weren't (and aren't) crazy, and there's nothing wrong with blaming the EU for making this choice. It has consequences - some they'll like (fewer cookies) and some they won't (further neutering the possibility of a European Silicon Valley). This one falls somewhere in between.
@FlyingLawyer
I could understand your argument if we were talking about a company has a reason for handling private data, like say, Fit Bit. And if they said something like: "We got caught with our pants down, we'll be back with you as soon as we figured it out".
Instead it's a company with no excuse for gathering anything but your address, low-key insulting our government. They aren't crazy, they are the target of this law and I love their precious little snowflake response.
@kingannoy I think that's a fair distinction, but I'm not sure it necessarily supports that side of the argument. There's something inherently fair about expecting fitbit or google or facebook to handle personal data in a sophisticated, accountable manner. Should we treat a clothing company the same way? That raises one of GDPR's other unintended consequences; the parties it benefits most are the ones it seeks to constrain (by disproportionately affecting less sophisticated competitors).
@kingannoy In actual dollars-and-cents terms, putting up a blocker like this is a net gain compared to spending the resources to achieve full GDPR compliance for many US companies. They just don't sell enough of their products/services in Europe to justify the transaction cost and additional risk.
@FlyingLawyer
So I understand that it's in this companies best interest to just not do business in the EU. In dollars-and-cents terms it's better for them if they can keep being as un-responsible with their customers' data as they want. They prefer it if those possible negative externalities don't get connected to them.
Totally reasonable free market response.
@FlyingLawyer
That is because the negative externalities are never connected to the companies. If companies were held accountable for the damage all this stored data does when (not if) it leaks, they would think twice about hoarding it.
I really like @doctorow comparison to a oily rag business. It is inherently dangerous to hold on to all this data. These companies can only profit from it because those dangers will never hit them but only their customers.