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grahamburger

There's a few here: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2020/11/28/utahs-desert-obelisk-...

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https://web.archive.org/web/20201129061555/https://www.sltri...

(sltrib.com blocks visitors from Europe)

> The Salt Lake Tribune's web site, sltrib.com, is unavailable in the European Union.

Looks like it's difficult to remove trackers for some companies.

If The Salt Lake Tribune sells subscriptions on their website, I think they're actually violating EU law again, geoblocking is illegal...

I doubt it, given they are not targeting the European market. As a Utah firm clearly without an EU nexus, why would they need to care about EU law (or any other country besides their own?)

They clearly do, otherwise the site wouldn't be blocked.

And traffic is traffic. It's not that unusual for Rest of World to want to look at an obscure US site.

Of course the same does not apply in reverse, if you run afoul of the DMCA you’ll just be extradited into the US jurisdiction.

That's not true, geoblocking of digital goods is only illegal in the EU if you differentiate between different member states. Blocking all of the EU is fine.

If you want to read the whole regulation, it's here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:...

News flash! The EU has no jurisdiction in SLC.

Your assertion only makes sense if you assume the only people accessing the site live in SLC.

No. If my company, my employees, my offices, and my web server are in SLC, I can let you access it from anywhere in the world without worrying about the laws anywhere else. I didn't follow the EU directive? So? What are they going to do, send assassins? Sue me in EU court? What levers of power over me do they have that have any relevance whatsoever?

FWIW, The Salt Lake Tribune is a non-profit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21446317

I dislike tracking on the web as much as the next HN reader, but I can also understand how a small/cash-strapped local newspaper would be hard pressed to spend literally any time or resources making sure that they are compliant with regulations in countries on the other side of the planet.

Fair enough. Though, they spent the time and money to implement the geo blocking and to consult lawyers.

Pretty sure that geoblocking is what you do when you don't have the cash to hire lawyers to make sure you did your compliance right.

Implementing geoblocking is trivial.

Removing the trackers too.

But what if those trackers is what make them financially viable?

Thanks to the geo blocking, we know that they do not rely on this source of income from European visitors.

So you want them to maintain two versions of their sites + testing + different cache settings, CDNs etc... because of legal requitements from countries an ocean away and people who are unlikely to visit the site anyway?

Is it too much to ask?

Yes. Why would they put any those resources in when it will not increase revenue?

Geoblocking takes less than a day to implement and shields them from legal issues, what you are asking is several weeks of work initially + continuous maintenance work.

Looks like it is difficult for some Europeans to acknowledge that not everyone on earth lives under the rule of unelected EU technocrats.

You haven't heard of the European elections?

As opposed to being ruled by technocrats elected by someone else(Americans)?

> Looks like it is difficult for some Europeans to acknowledge that not everyone on earth lives under the rule of unelected EU technocrats.

Your comment reads as a textbook example of the expression "cut off the nose to spite the face".

Do you honestly believe that abusive tracking is in anyway in your best interests?

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