So over the past few months a bunch of sites have stopped working with archive.is and I finally figured out why.
Apparently a couple of years ago the EU passed something called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It's an attempt to protect personal data from being mined by web companies. This was like two years ago, but it only took affect this past May. I think they had Facebook & Google in mind specifically but it's apparently affecting media sites as well. Business Insider, Science Daily, Chicago Tribune, LA Times are just the ones off the top of my head but there are more. In addition,within the past couple weeks, I've come across local affiliate news sites that are blocking Europe as well.
So rather than change their business model, they've chosen to just block Europe (and subsequently archive.is) entirely.
I'm honestly not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, the EU's attempt at personal data protection seems noble, but on the other hand archive.is is becoming useless. It's also unsettling that such a wide range of media outlets could so quickly be blocked from a bunch of western nations.
I'm not sure how many folks already knew this or if people even realized there was a problem with archive.is. I'd brought it up at least once here a few weeks ago and nobody had an answer then so I figured I'd share now.
http://archive.is/AXNE3 - BBC article from June
So over the past few months a bunch of sites have stopped working with archive.is and I finally figured out why.
Apparently a couple of years ago the EU passed something called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It's an attempt to protect personal data from being mined by web companies. This was like two years ago, but it only took affect this past May. I think they had Facebook & Google in mind specifically but it's apparently affecting media sites as well. Business Insider, Science Daily, Chicago Tribune, LA Times are just the ones off the top of my head but there are more. In addition,within the past couple weeks, I've come across local affiliate news sites that are blocking Europe as well.
So rather than change their business model, they've chosen to just block Europe (and subsequently archive.is) entirely.
I'm honestly not sure how to feel about it. On the one hand, the EU's attempt at personal data protection seems noble, but on the other hand archive.is is becoming useless. It's also unsettling that such a wide range of media outlets could so quickly be blocked from a bunch of western nations.
I'm not sure how many folks already knew this or if people even realized there was a problem with archive.is. I'd brought it up at least once here a few weeks ago and nobody had an answer then so I figured I'd share now.
http://archive.is/AXNE3 - BBC article from June
(post is archived)