Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better. Lots of laws allow people to protect themselves from digital exploitation.

I agree that there is a ton of bullshit as well though. Gotta dox myself with imprints for example, so I cant share my work with people without also doxing myself. Also as a hobbyist you pretty much need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore. Also gotta make sure that data of European citizens never leaves Europe and and and... Lots of things to remember.

And before anyone asks, yes I know an imprint usually is only required for businesses, but nowadays pretty much everything could have business intent.

▲ 9dev 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Well, as a German consumer, I gotta say it's pretty darn great to be able to pinpoint a website to an actual business. It's a good way to judge how legitimate an online shop is before ordering, for example; and if anything goes wrong, I know there is someone I can hold accountable.

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sevenzero 17 minutes ago | parent [-]

Yea from a consumers perspective its neat. From a hobbyist dev perspective not so much.

	▲	9dev 8 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		As a hobbyist dev you don't need an imprint - unless you're selling software, at which point you're a business and your customers should be able to hold you accountable for it.

▲ MetaWhirledPeas 18 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Most digital things in Europe are in fact much better.

I'm see a lot of "worse" in your comment and not seeing any "better". Can you give some examples of that?

▲ wolvoleo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd never heard of that imprint stuff but that's pretty Draconian yeah. If it will start being required for foreign sites I'll block all German IPs.

I avoid doing any business in Germany these days. I tried to get a VPS from Hetzner but they demanded a copy of my ID and didn't accept that I blanked out my citizen number. Which is actually recommended by our national police for identify theft risk.

I moved to Scaleway instead. Much better company.

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sevenzero 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yea that was my bad, its Germany specific. I sometimes forget Europe usually isnt as tight as Germany when it gets to these kinda things.

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FpUser an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I am from Canada and when renting from Hetzner was never asked about personal ID. Maybe because I started few years ago. Never knew about Scaleway. Looked at their website - prices for bare metal seem to be higher than in Hetzner

	▲	sevenzero an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The ID checks are random. When I registered a while back I had to provide mine, so I aborted the registration. I tried again recently and was not asked for one.

▲ auggierose 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Imprint is not needed everywhere in Europe. You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK.

	▲	sevenzero 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		True, I guess Germany has a lot of extra layers to all this. It's really not easy to actually publish anything without being in risk of some bored lawyer making your life hell.
	▲	traceroute66 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> You need it in Germany, but you don't in the UK Erm, dude.... `- Companies Act 2006 - Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 - Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002` Applies to business letters, order forms, websites, emails .... Might not be called "imprint" in UK-speak, but its basically the same thing.

▲ traceroute66 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> need all the business documents as well, like a privacy policy even if its just a small public app on the playstore

And this is a bad thing why exactly ?!?!?!

If you respect your users data and right to privacy then you've got nothing to hide by publishing an EU compliant privacy policy.

It might be "just a small app", but I and many other people still very much still "do give a damn" about what the hell you do with my data, where you store it, how long you store it and how I can exercise my GDPR rights.

	▲	sevenzero an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Because if I want to provide an app to like 5 people I know personally, I am soon forced to do so via the Playstore due to Google disabling sideloading on Android. So now I am forced to inform myself about all the bullshit documents I never cared for beforehand. Yes I know what I am allowed to do with my users data, no I don't send it to some data brokers, yes I already comply to privacy laws and whatnot. Just requiring some official document that you have to let a lawyer take a look at is beyond me.