GDPR forced these 3 companies out of the EU

When residents of the EU wake up tomorrow, they’ll wake up in a world that’s (presumably) more private than ever before.

Thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into effect at the stroke of midnight, businesses are working harder to protect your data going forward – and will give you the right to demand to be forgotten.

However, as residents of the EU, you too will have to bid adieu and forget a few of the companies and services you’ve used in the recent past.

Goodbye Unroll.me, Instapaper, and StreetLend

Unroll.me and Pinterest’s Instapaper, for example, are services that you’ll have to do without. With immediate effect.

Yesterday, Unroll.me shut down its service for EU residents. Daily from Unroll.me said:

“The EU is implementing new data privacy rules, known as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While we fully support and are working diligently toward meeting all GDPR requirements, we have determined that we will not complete this effort by the regulation’s start date later this month. As a result, we will temporarily stop providing our service and delete the accounts of all EU residents on May 23.”

Today, Instapaper will stop working as well.

Holy crap, Instapaper is basically going dark in Europe with <24 hours notice because GDPR. 🙅‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/JNQzzxOsiE

— ⚡️ Owen (@ow) May 23, 2018

Even Streetlend, the website that allowed neighbors and friends to lend items like ladders and drills to each other, has shut down.

Chris Beach, the company’s founder, put up a notice on the website explaining the circumstances:

“Unfortunately the European Union’s new GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), introduced on 25th May 2018, creates uncertainty and risk that I can’t justify taking.

“GDPR threatens website owners with fines of 4 percent of turnover or EUR20 million (US$23.41 million) if they do not jump through a number of ambiguously-defined hoops.

“The law, combined with parasitic no-win-no-fee legal firms, puts website owners at risk of vindictive reporting. Young websites and non-profits cannot afford legal teams. Therefore the risk posed by GDPR is unacceptably high.”

But it doesn’t end there, and these aren’t the only companies that are turning away EU-based customers. So far, there are quite a few businesses that have either blocked EU traffic or just shut shop.

Ragnarok Online, Drawbridge, Klout are other examples.

The fact is, a lot of businesses across the world, are struggling to comply with the GDPR and they’re resorting to terminating their relationship with EU-based customers to keep out of trouble.

What about America and the rest of the world?

Well, American businesses won’t be affected – plain and simple. They can make a choice to protect customer data and keep it safe, but they don’t have to.

Earlier this year, before the congressional hearing, Facebook said it wouldn’t extend the same checks and balances it would use to safeguard the data of its EU-residents. However. after the hearing, Zuckerberg said that they’ve reconsidered and will enforce the rule anyway.