[ghaff]

The relevant language is in recital 24. “Factors such as the use of a language or a currency generally used in one or more Member States with the possibility of ordering goods and services in that other language, or the mentioning of customers or users who are in the Union, may make it apparent that the controller envisages offering goods or services to data subjects in the Union.”

If the Chicago Tribune doesn't envisage offering goods or services to EU residents, it's not covered. And geofencing out EU residents is a pretty good indicator it's not. (Frankly, it probably doesn't have to--it's unclear why someone would think the Chicago Tribune was actively marketing to EU residents anyway--but geofencing them out certainly eliminates any ambiguity.)Someone can't find their way to a site, fake being outside the EU, yell gotcha, and expect European regulators to do anything about it whatever people may wish.

[roel_v]

Sure, that's a criterion for art 3 para 2 sub a. What I am talking about is sub b, for which the question whether one offers goods and services is irrelevant (that's what I meant when I said 'a and b are alternative, not cumulative').

So the question is - does the Chicago Tribune 'monitor user behavior'. The recitals say about that

In order to determine whether a processing activity can be considered to monitor the behaviour of data subjects, it should be ascertained whether natural persons are tracked on the internet including potential subsequent use of personal data processing techniques which consist of profiling a natural person, particularly in order to take decisions concerning her or him or for analysing or predicting her or his personal preferences, behaviours and attitudes.

If I look at the list of tracking scripts, it's rather obvious that this is what their 'data processors' are doing. Hence, the territorial scope extends to them.

[chopin]

I've been served ads on US outlets for products which clearly target my home market (Germany). This will make a hard time arguing that you are not targeting that audience. In my opinion, if you serve ads on your site which target EU consumers, you're doing business here. I don't think it matters whether you do that through a third party.

By blocking EU ip-ranges, that may change, I admit that. However, if by other measures like finger-printing the browser you serve EU-specific ads to vpn'd users you may be up to problems.

[runako]

>> "offering goods or services"

IANAL but it would seem pretty obvious that any content a visitor might seek on a website would fall under the rubric of "services." It seems like a tough position to argue that since e.g. the Chicago Tribune doesn't offer subscriptions denominated in Euros, that it isn't offering services ("news") globally.

The only thing that today makes clear is that this law is a mess, and it will take a lot of litigation before anybody really knows what it means.