With less than a day until the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect, a growing number of companies are taking the nuclear option to ensure compliance: blocking all European users from their servers.

Instapaper, a read-later service owned by the US firm Pinterest, became the latest to disconnect European customers on Thursday. It said the cutoff was temporary while it made the required changes, and told users: “We apologise for any inconvenience, and we intend to restore access as soon as possible.” Pinterest did not respond to a request for comment. Other companies have taken a more permanent approach. Unroll.me, an inbox management firm, announced it was withdrawing services for EU companies due to an inability to offer its product – which is monetised by selling insights gleaned from reading users’ emails – in a way that was compatible with EU law. “We are truly sorry that we are unable to offer our service to you,” the company told EU users.(theguardian)…[+]