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Comment by slackoverflower | Hacker News Reader

I'm convinced this is the start where EU citizens become second class Internet users. Many businesses just don't want to go through the troubles of GDPR regulatory hoops. For most businesses, there's enough customers to sustain their business in the US, Canada, rest of the world that they can ignore all EU customers.

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If a business blocks EU citizens what will happens is that either another one who cares about GDPR will pop up and be able to work with both EU and non-EU citizens, or the business in question wont be that important in the first place. In either case, nothing will change for most people.

Maybe, but imagine if Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc. had decided to pull out of the EU. Not that any of them aren't replaceable, but providing the suite of functionality that any one of them does to their customers would not be a simple feat.

"Second class citizens" might not be the right term, but would "segregation" be an appropriate term?

Except that Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon have been at the table when GDPR was written and will be compliant with it. So it's a completely bogus argument.

What would most likely happen is that companies that act as "middle men" would pop up that provide the functionality those sites do. But TBH i doubt that would ever happen in the first place, even with much stricter rules. There are way too big of an audience to be lost.

It's "viral". If you ignore privacy while processing data, you are not only excluding EU customers. You are also excluding US/Canada/rest-of-world companies that want to operate in the EU market.

> I'm convinced this is the start where EU citizens become second class Internet users.

This is free market with 550 mil potential users/citizens, void will be filled pretty quickly by other companies/developers that actually spent some time reading about what GDPR is.

You sure? Europe doesn’t have a stellar record when it comes to high tech startups. For many reasons. And I am afraid GDPR has just added another one.

> Europe doesn’t have a stellar record when it comes to high tech startups. For many reasons.

For many reasons indeed, this is broad topic and GDPR doesn't change anything if we are talking about big US players and their domination. None of them is getting out of EU.

> And I am afraid GDPR has just added another one.

I disagree, it's the other way around. Small single person companies/developers that will get out from EU market will could only strengthen local market. Any other US/EU/outside EU startup/developer can fill that void.

I fail to see how adding another onerous regulation makes the EU founder more likely to succeed where the US founder decided to give up.

You wrote:

> Europe doesn’t have a stellar record when it comes to high tech startups

Which automatically implies that you were talking about non-EU tech companies leaving EU because of GDPR and EU startups filling their space. And now you fail to see how this will make more likely succeed EU companies? What?

I think you fail to understand what the point of my argument was. It doesn't matter if this will be EU founder or US founder or XX founder, if there is a void it will be filled, doesn't matter who will fill it. This is an axiom describing the free market.

> onerous regulation

I am conducting online business in EU handling personal data and I don't find it onerous at all. Adding to that as EU citizen I am happy that this regulation was introduced in EU law system.

How is knowing and writing down what your actually do with user data (and employee data, btw) and who is responsible an onerous regulation?

In a world where lots of small shitty businesses (and some bigger ones) don't care what happens to your personal data it's long overdue for this being finally regulated.

Yes, the void will be filled by megacorps like Google who were practically GDPR compliant 5 years ago because they have armies of developers and lawyers dedicated to data management and legal compliance.

The internet of today is pretty crappy.

Being a first class citizen means being tracked like an animal with an implanted chip.

And let's face it, 99% of web sites and tools aren't really needed, more like a waste of time.

This might actually be a good thing, as it will open the opportunity for European companies to step up and fill the gaps.

Are you preparing to start such a company? I know zero funders excited about regulation. About technology and platforms, sure. But never about regulation. Only lawyers get excited about that.

I'm guessing they would be interested in 550m unserved users in a single-market for a validated business idea, regardless of GDPR.

Maybe, but GDPR is not the only business-hostile regulation EU has. Together they make an environment in which even 550m users may not be worth it for the small startup. They will simply pivot to the more competitive, but freer, US market.

That wasn't the premise though. The premise was:

- US company A controls the market for idea B

- EU creates GDPR which scares away company A

In that case where there is a proven market demand for idea B you can either compete with company A (which presumably has more resources than you), or enter into a market that company A has willingly forfeited.

I think the second option will have plenty of takers if it turns out that US companies are that scared of GDPR.

It doesn't have to be European companies, an American (or Japanese or any other place) company can go and fill the role as long as they follow GDPR.

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