US News website denies access "due to legal reasons"

[Palinurus]

Today I spotted a news item in US Google News' Spotlight area entitled: "3-year-old saves father's life with phone" from the news-outlet The Winchester Star.

Clicking the item gave the following result:

451: Unavailable due to legal reasons

We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time.

For any issues, contact webeditor-at-winchesterstar.com or call XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Clicking the GDPR link leads one to an overview of said regulation (Eleven Chapters with 99 articles in total; 88 pages PDF):

General Data Protection Regulation GDPR

Welcome to gdpr-info.eu. Here you can find the official PDF of the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation) in the current version of the OJ L 119, 04.05.2016; cor. OJ L 127, 23.5.2018 as a neatly arranged website. All Articles of the GDPR are linked with suitable recitals. The European Data Protection Regulation is applicable as of May 25th, 2018 in all member states to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe. If you find the page useful, feel free to support us by sharing the project.

I've never heard anything about this regulation before and was quite astonished to see it having the reported result of access denied.

Thought I would report this here just in case anyone has any additional info about this, and as a general warning.

 

[luc]

There is no malicious intent here, it's just that people everywhere are terrified of the EU's new Data Protection Law. You can read about it here for example: Opinion | Europe’s Data Protection Law Is a Big, Confusing Mess

IMHO, this whole mess is a good example of how well-intentioned bureaucrats and lawmakers ("those evil data-collecting corporations! We must do something!") create tons of confusion and new problems while solving very little (maybe even nothing at all). Small and medium businesses everywhere are really freaking out because the law is incredibly complicated and demanding and nobody (including lawyers) seems to have a clue. As the NYT article says, it almost seems impossible to comply with this law, and most likely the courts will have to figure this out over the next decade or so.

Core to it is the protection of personal data, which can be everything from an IP address to a birthday calendar. For example, technically I'm not allowed to send a former client an email wishing him happy birthday without letting him sign a contract beforehand. Hairdressers can't keep notes about how their clients wanted them to cut their hair last time they visited. Wedding photographers are wondering whether their whole profession suddenly became illegal unless they sign contracts with every wedding guest :) Design agencies are required to delete everything after a project is done, even though clients often come back later and ask for data they misplaced. Everyone currently goes into a frenzy of signing weird contracts with everyone. In other words: this EU law micromanages stuff nobody ever cared about. And do they seriously believe they will stop Google and facebook and their army of lawyers (not to mention intel agencies) with such regulatory confusion? Do they believe they can stop the world from spinning? It's ridiculous.

Not that I like everything corporations do with our data. But I think all that regulators can do is taking small, reasonable and practical steps to perhaps make the situation a tiny bit better, which is already hard enough. Don't know, at least that's how it looks to me.

 

[loreta]

They are crackpots, crazy, zin zin. The other day they make me sign this type of sheet at M&S when putting points to their card. It is a card that gives you points everytime you buy something. then after a certain volume of points you have a discount of 4 euros. Ok, what I bought that day was 2 chocolates for 2 euros and 50 cents. They make me sign a paper for this crazy stuff! This absolute surrealistic idea that someone invented in an office because he was bored. That gives more work for the girls at the cashier. More paper, more signatures.

 

[Palinurus]

Thank you both for your reactions which were quite informative, each in its own way.

Come to think about it a bit more, I distinctly remember some sort of local (Dutch) frenzy around 'privacy issues on the internet' a couple of months back but I didn't associate that fuzz with this GDRP stuff and its obviously weird consequences.

Thanks to both of you, now I know better.