Over 1,000 US news sites still unavailable in EU following GDPR

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Hundreds of news websites across the world are still failing to comply with the EU GDPR rules, over two months since the new regulation was brought in, research has found.

According to a report from researcher Joseph O'Connor, over a thousand US news sites are inaccessible in Europe due to lacking the proper data protection systems.

O'Connor, who describes himself as a "rouge archivist", started the project after being unable to read localised coverage of a shooting in Anapolis, Maryland that killed five staff members at the Capital Gazette newspaper, due to the GDPR block.

His research found that 1071 news sites are currently blocked in the EU, with the majority being US-based, although some are located in Canada.

Looking to circumvent the EU GDPR block? You can get around it by using a VPN service - here are some of our top choices

However it's not all bad news for EU users, as one of the biggest initial casualties of GDPR has returned.

Online curation app Instapaper has announced it is available in Europe again after a two-month hiatus in which it came up to scratch on GDPR, particularly rules around user consent and data privacy.

"Today we are bringing back Instapaper to European Union users," the company wrote in a blog post. "Over the past two months we have taken a number of actions to address the General Data Protection Regulation, and we are happy to announce our return to the European Union."

"We’ve updated our privacy policy to include the rights afforded to EU users under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Additionally, in the interest of transparency, we are posting our privacy policy to GitHub where you can view a versioned history of all the changes to our privacy policy."

Users looking to sign up to Instapaper will also now have the option of a new premium subscription model, paying $3 a month or $30 a year to access features such as full-text search, unlimited notes, and an ad-free web experience.

Anyone affected by the GDPR block will also be able to claim six months free membership.

What is GDPR? Everything you need to know

Mike Moore is Deputy Editor at TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a B2B and B2C tech journalist for nearly a decade, including at one of the UK's leading national newspapers and fellow Future title ITProPortal, and when he's not keeping track of all the latest enterprise and workplace trends, can most likely be found watching, following or taking part in some kind of sport.