I was really wondering that as well. Can we be held accountable?
It would be nice if the GDPR had a piece about “if a company refuses sales, even if they accidentally happen, the company isn’t liable” and/or “blocking EU IPs or redirecting to a no sale page is sufficient to avoid compliance”.
Probably they will not be - but there are cases of extradition of EU citizens to the US for various crimes like hacking. Who knows, maybe it will happen the other way around or some people will have to take holidays in the EU off the list.
The continued health and well-being of our fellow human beings take precedence over most other 'things'. If it's a choice between letting someone buy an extra boat and giving someone potentially life-saving preventative care, the choice is clear.
So in one world, Maine emails back "that report costs $750. Agree or disagree?" If you agree, you mail them a check, and two weeks later they process the payment and send the report. Apparently that's ok.
But it's kind of slow and tedious. They can expedite the process by just including the report. Open if you agree. Delete if you don't. Or even defer the decision until later, but there's an "instant unlock" option available at any time. That seems a lot better than the above alternative.
Maybe Maine flubbed the implementation, but it seems like a "for your consideration upon agreement" facility should exist that doesn't require multiple round trips. Certainly more convenient than the alternative.
While some jurisdictions have been able to block data requests on the argument that they contain private intellectual property -- the case that comes to mind is Ohio, which won a case against providing map data because somehow the ArcGIS software used to create/save the map was inextricable (yes, it's as absurd as it sounds -- this doesn't seem to be the case here.
According to MuckRock, Maine allows for fees of $15/hour for search and copying time. If they demanded $750 before sending the file or making it otherwise accessible, MuckRock could challenge them to provide the record showing 50 hours of billable work.
Pay with your PayPal account and we can refund your return shipping costs if you need to send anything back – up to $45 per return and 8 returns each year.