Would love to know Chris's thoughts on this post by Sebastian Gregor.
At first, I thought that Sebastian was misunderstanding the GDPR but as I read further I realized he had done considerably more research than I did. If his conclusions are correct we have a major problem. I don’t solicit comments from EU readers but I do have some regular visitors from Germany, Italy and the UK.
I am not as concerned with privacy. I don’t one can have any expectations of privacy when acting in public. But I don’t want laws written in any country other than the USA to apply to me. Ever!
So I’ve decided to be cautious. I have disabled Brid.gy. I will no longer back feed comments from Twitter, Instagram, et. al. My website has had a privacy statement for several years. I’ve kept the Webmentions feature enabled. If you are using Webmentions I will assume you know how and what it is. You’ve either intentionally sent a Webmention from your website or you have intentionally used the form on my website.
I am also considering blocking all access to my website from EU member countries. I think that would basically saying stay out.
I think this sort of thing is an example of the law of unintended consequences. It’s all very stupid when an independent website owner in the USA has to worry about a European law. It’s stupid that I have to remove the ability for commentary. It’s stupid that I have to worry about things that have nothing to do with writing. Stupid.
Copy to IndieWeb News.