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Comment by BrandoElFollito | Hacker News Reader

I never understood these concerns in the US, for US web sites. What do they even care about our laws?

If there was a US law stating something similar for people connecting connecting to my French site from the US I would just smile and live on. I do not expect the CIA to kidnap me and bring me in front of a US court.

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They may do business in the EU, want to have that option at a later point, or may want to make it easy to be acquired by a multinational company.

Or it’s just a low-effort CYA move recommended by a lawyer.

> They may do business in the EU, want to have that option at a later point, or may want to make it easy to be acquired by a multinational company.

This is a possibility though I have usually seen these blocking pages on small, local web sites.

Specifically, only on "independent local" news sites. I have to wonder if they, or the entity who operates the website on their behalf, all belong to the same multinational. Like the "independent local" TV stations that are all owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

I can't think of any other reason that so many local news sites would be affected, and so few other sites.

Most of these local news sites with the same corporate owner all have the same site reskined for locality. So it would make sense they all behave the same way.

If the CIA were to kidnap you, I doubt it would be so they could bring you in to face a US court. It would be some site totally not on the map in a country with a higher tolerance to see if you can breath with water in your lungs.

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