Sketchy services like gdpr-shield.io appear overnight to block EU users from visiting websites around the world

GDPR is on it’s way, and as a result websites must follow basic privacy and data retention rules. To make sure websites and services follow the new rules that come into effect there are strict fines. But it looks like some sites and services have chosen to block access to the content and services directly if the user is from the EU.

GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation. A set of laws to help protect EU users from having there data collected and abused by services.

The one problem is that services like gdpr-shield.io that appeared overnight and then went offline actually break GDPR by still allowing access to the service so that users still get in logs and analytics but just changes the content after to a message so that the user cant use the service.

This is a bad way to react to GDPR and causes users in some of the largest markets to just disappear and not be able to use the service. The good thing is it appears that the services are going offline fast. The service gdpr-shield.io we mentioned before is now offline with a server error message. The service was offering a $600 a year javascript tag that you can embed into your site.

https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/992239977923723265