Some U.S. News Sites Now Unavailable to E.U. Over GDPR

[engine]

Some well-known U.S. news sites have pulled access to E.U. citizens as a result of the E.U.'s GDPR being introduced today. Sites affected include: New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel and Baltimore Sun.

For example, the LA Times has a banner stating..

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

[tronc.com...]

[lucy24]

Some well-known U.S. news sites have pulled access to E.U. citizens

And this benefits residents of EU member countries ... how, exactly? Or is the idea to make EU citizens rise up in protest and make the law go away?

It would admittedly be more fun if those “I’m awfully sorry, but you can’t view this site” messages included a long list of links to non-EU proxies.

[LifeinAsia]

Or is the idea to make EU citizens rise up in protest and make the law go away?

One can hope. :)

[QuaterPan]

Or is the idea to make EU citizens rise up in protest and make the law go away?

I am sure Internet Giants, Google first, are trying something like that. I am sure they are gambling on the increasing anger of some EU who are annoyed by all the popup messages, or/and no longer able to access sites they used to as well as the menace over small web publishers. Using all this against the EU regulators.

[Samizdata]

Some well-known U.S. news sites have pulled access to E.U. citizens as a result of the E.U.'s GDPR

No, some local US news outlets have pulled access to "people currently located in the EU".

Most of the traffic they get from EU countries is likely to be American expats, servicemen and tourists.

The number of EU citizens lost will probably be statistically insignificant to advertisers.

...

[lucy24]

some local US news outlets

What are you saying, exactly? That tronc dot com is lying about the LA Times message (pretty impressive, since they own the Times), or that the LA Times is just a “local news outlet”?

[keyplyr]

This may be an indicator who had such a deep rooted personal data mining model, that they could not easily comply with these new privacy standards.

[TorontoBoy]

This may be an indicator who had such a deep rooted personal data mining model, that they could not easily comply with these new privacy standards.

My thoughts as well, but they have had since 2016 to fix this. They need more time, or they wanted to data mine right up to the GDPR deadline?

As yet China's Tencent, which runs QQ and Wechat messengers, have done nothing as yet but a statement last month that QQ will be ending service in Europe, or whenever they get around to an updated QQ international version. This may never come to pass. QQ and Wechat are still running for the EUers.

[Samizdata]

What are you saying, exactly?

I am saying exactly that the number of EU citizens who read the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel or Baltimore Sun online is likely to be statistically insignificant to advertisers.

That tronc dot com is lying about the LA Times message

I have not suggested that anyone is lying. This is what the LA Times message actually says:

Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.

I doubt that any EU citizens will rise up in protest.

...

[lgn1]

For those EU citizens, who want to preview this blocked US content, defeating Geoblocking is child's play, but would also probably release the companies from GDPR liabilities.

[tangor]

I suspect these US publishers have discovered just how little EU readers they have, after killing off a continent and their bots. :)

[tangor]

VC guy: How much converting traffic have your lost?

News guys: Uh.... virtually none...