Friendica Social Network

Ret 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

If you're hosting or planning to host a web service in the UK: Don't.

Put it somewhere else. Stick it behind Cloudflare or AWS CloudFront. Don't pay UK businesses. Punish them (us) for our stupidity.

Don't register as a company in the UK if you can avoid it.

Geoblock UK users entirely if you must.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/online-safety-act-explainer/online-safety-act-explainer

Online Safety Act: explainer

^{Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (GOV.UK)}

This entry was edited (4 months ago)

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Ret 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

So... if you don't mention UK users anywhere, or specifically target them; and you don't collect any data on where your users are based... how can this possibly be enforced?

1. Does your online service have links with the UK? Your online service has links with the UK if:

- UK users are a target market for your service; or
- It has a significant number of UK users

UK users could include anyone based in the UK who visits or interacts with your website, app, or other kind of online service. You may refer to them in a variety of ways such as your customers, clients, subscribers, visitors or similar terms. UK users can be individual people or entities (e.g. organisations) in the UK. They include both those who register with you (e.g. create an account) and those who don’t. Does your online service have links with the UK?

Emil 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

likely in the same way that the EU GDPR can/cannot be enforced if you’re smart about not collecting user data

Ret 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

Thought: does this actually *compel* you to collect that information? And then risk being in contravention of the GDPR?

Intaglio Whitegraven 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

I suspect that a lot of the security risks associated with data collection and storage (including data breaches) would be eliminated if these companies simply didn't collect the information in the first place. "Ounce of prevention, pound of cure" and whatnot.

Most of the time, it seems like the information collected is in excess of what the company/website actually needs to provide its services. Am I just getting more cynical as I get older, or are most companies just stockpiling this data to sell to third parties for an added revenue stream?

ENG. Tretron 🐲 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

this and in combination with the UK AI use of copyright rules change they want to implement...i think i gonna geoblock the UK

Ret 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

@tretron that would be wise, it'd also entirely protect you from this horrendous bit of legislation.

@ENG. Tretron 🐲

ENG. Tretron 🐲 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

I just dislike that the internet becomes a walled guardian, I already block Russia, china, India, Saudi Arabia, United emerates and such for bot activity and horrible anti queer policies that might cause me trouble, don't really wanna add another country but this leaves me no choice

Poki 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

Talk about legislation written by morons. They are really just punishing end users cause the only logical thing someone can do is geoblock the whole country.

Cardboard! 4 months ago • mastodon (AP)

can someone please explain this to me like one would when explaining things on SImple English Wikipedia?

Pippin 4 months ago friendica

So basically, my business should fail. Gotcha. :(

Pippin 4 months ago friendica

To clarify, it is a big piece of shit, yes. It's a horrible situation, and it's hard to tell if there's anything I actually need to do to comply (although my usual method is to be a small enough fish that no one would ever bother checking). (As far as I can tell it only applies to search and user-to-user services so most if not all of what I (or rather in most cases my clients) host wouldn't be affected anyway. Most sites wouldn't be as far as I can tell.)