The title is a little bit misleading, it’s mostly about Imgur not adding the age checking that the UK’s infamously disliked new law requires on possibly mature content.
Age verification is a notoriously difficult problem to solve in a privacy-respecting way, and Imgur is literally about image embeds so I doubt they could even make.this work.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 2 days ago
Wow :
“We have been clear that exiting the UK does not allow an organisation to avoid responsibility for any prior infringement of data protection law, and our investigation remains ongoing.”
It’s insane. They could be fined even after entirely leaving the country ?
oce@jlai.lu 2 days ago
If it’s like GDPR, it applies to the citizens currently residing in the country, the location of the company or servers do not matter. Now if Imgur doesn’t have anyone there, no business happening and the website is already blocked, I don’t think they have much leverage.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 2 days ago
What I’m understanding is imgur could get fine even if they dont offer their service anymore in the UK.
They could go back to just after the law passed and tell them “hey you were infringing on this extremely disrupting law that would completely change your business in the UK so pay up”.
I mean if a business just decides to not serve UK customer they should leave them alone… Especially such a complex law for something like Imgur…
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Well technically, yeah
Practically: good luck getting that money.
On the other side, does the UK now require age of for every website out there, including the millions of semi amateur porn sites?
Because; good luck with that too, that ain’t never going to happen
echodot@feddit.uk 2 days ago
This law was thought up by idiots they actually got consultants in who all told them that this wouldn’t work but they decided to ignore the consultants because they wanted to implement the law anyway.
So yeah genuine idiots.
FishFace@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ignore for a second the law in question. Suppose Temu started importing harmful goods into your country in the knowledge that they were going to poison kids. (This doesn’t seem too much of a stretch…) Should it be OK for Temu to just say, “OK, we’ll just stop importing to the UK then”? Shouldn’t they face the consequences for breaking the law?
I think this take is motivated by disagreement with the law in question (although it’s not actually clear exactly what they’re alleged to have done - the ICO released a statement saying it relates to an investigation from March, so before the age verification requirement).
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Technically Temu doesn’t import anything. They’re allowed to sell toxic or otherwise dangerous goods because the customer’s the one importing them, and there are plenty of things you’re allowed to import for personal use that you wouldn’t be allowed to import for retail. The EU’s working on closing this loophole, but the UK isn’t in the EU anymore.
teft@piefed.social 2 days ago
How would they enforce that fine even if they decided to give one? Unless imgur banks in the UK i think they’d just tell the UK to pound sand.
echodot@feddit.uk 2 days ago
If you already have already committed a violation then yeah.