Re: GDPR down the throat
Don't get me wrong, I want to see the US support better privacy and data handling. I'm just saying it totally makes sense for the way US sites are treating it now.
Even if the US gets better protection, to the extent the GDPR differs it might STILL make sense for US sites to block EU users, because the risk of running afoul of the letter of their law is still very significant.
If they were more reasonable about the fines, and fined based on a percentage of the EU derived revenue rather than overall revenue, it wouldn't be so scary. But if you make 5% of your revenue in the US and run the risk of being fined 5% of your revenue I hope you can see why many sites are taking the easy way out.
If the US did the same stupid thing then pretty soon a company would run the risk of being fined over 100% of their revenue, if they had an Equifax like breach that hit in a bunch of states/countries, all taking their own 5% cut...
If the goal is to make it painful, then fine them a higher percentage, but base it on their in region revenue only. It makes no sense that if you violate GDPR in both 2018 and 2019, and your EU revenue is flat but your US revenue doubles, that the EU should collect a bigger fine based on that increased US revenue.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
