![](https://blog.lewman.com/media/posts/715/screen-shot-2019-05-28-at-19.14.48.png)
Welcome to the GDPR Internet
A recent trip to Prague gave me first hand experience with the full power of the GDPR when on the Internet. I've used a VPN to fake a presence in Europe in the past, however coming from a native IP on a native EU SIM card was an experience. I'm not sure if this experience is due to T-Mobile Czech or just being in Europe. Either way, it's about what I pessimistically expected. About 75% of the sites popped up a site-blocking overlay asking me to allow cookies, data storage, and to opt-in to their data tracking. The other 25% simply blocked access from Europe. Fun times.
![Screen Shot 2019-05-28 at 05.35.28](https://blog.lewman.com/media/posts/715/screen-shot-2019-05-28-at-05.35.28.png)
When clicking on "Configure Preferences", I was shown this window:
![Screen Shot 2019-05-28 at 05.35.47](https://blog.lewman.com/media/posts/715/screen-shot-2019-05-28-at-05.35.47.png)
So much for configuring preferences!
For those sites which didn't want to bother with GDPR compliance, this was the typical pop-up message:
![Screen Shot 2019-05-28 at 19.14.48](https://blog.lewman.com/media/posts/715/screen-shot-2019-05-28-at-19.14.48.png)
It didn't matter if I disabled javascript, it seems the site flat-out blocks access from European IP networks. I had to get on a VPN terminating in the USA or Canada to view the sites which were blocked.