Mike Masnick, editor of the Techdirt blog, says the scramble of companies to comply with GDPR could lead to a large number of lawsuits in the coming years. “While some consultants have cleaned up in helping companies become what they hope is ‘compliant,’ some companies have realized it’s just too much of a hassle and decided to block all access to EU users,” he says.
Masnick is concerned about the new regulation’s potential to splinter the internet “in a way that we’re not entirely prepared for.” Security and Privacy expert Mikko Hypponen is using Twitter to track companies that have blocked their EU users. It would be interesting to know how nonprofits in different jurisdictions react — will the GDPR “split” nonprofits, also?
“The GDPR has significant problems — even if it does also have some good stuff,” says Masnick. “The fact that it feels like supporters of the GDPR refuse to fix the problems seems troubling.”
Learn more about GDPR and sign up to receive updates at digitalimpact.org/gdpr.
Image by Moritz Schumacher via Unsplash (CC BY 2.0)