I live in Connecticut, but often find myself in Europe. Just this morning, I tried to access my local Connecticut newspaper from a European server, but was denied access. I received the following error message:
451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons
Sorry, this content is not available in your region.
My small town Connecticut newspaper is no longer accessible from Europe. Last week I could get it and this week I cannot. What happened? GDPR.
Is this a trend? Certainly, other US-focused sites have "turned off" Europe, or created new pay walls for visitors logging in from European servers.
It may be too early to tell if this is a major consequence of GDPR, or just the response of isolated websites. It is something worth monitoring, as "turning off" Europe may be a good way for some to minimize GDPR-related risks. It is certainly a lot less expensive than trying to comply with GDPR, especially for US-based companies for which European conceptions of privacy are very foreign.
