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from the what-you-see-depends-on-where-you-are dept.
Silicon Valley is a uniquely American creation, the product of an entrepreneurial spirit and no-holds-barred capitalism that now drives many aspects of modern life.
But the likes of Facebook, Google and Apple are increasingly facing an uncomfortable truth: it is Europe's culture of tougher oversight of companies, not America's laissez-faire attitude, which could soon rule their industry as governments seek to combat fake news and prevent extremists from using the internet to fan the flames of hatred.
While the U.S. has largely relied on market forces to regulate content in a country where free speech is revered, European officials have shown they are willing to act. Germany recently passed a law imposing fines of up to 50 million euros ($59 million) on websites that don't remove hate speech within 24 hours. British Prime Minister Theresa May wants companies to take down extremist material within two hours. And across the EU, Google has for years been obliged to remove search results if there is a legitimate complaint about the content's veracity or relevance.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by jmorris on Friday November 03 2017, @05:03PM (2 children)
Their problem is they do not only have users from every country, they are multi-national corporations so they can process in ads and sell user data in all those countries. Kinda hard to declare a countries laws do not apply to you when you have a state of the art data center and a big fancy skyscraper HQ.
Contrast to Gab, no ads no multi-national incorporation. So when media reported Germany intended to regulate Gab Torba could post that, basically, Mad Merkel could lick his nutsack. And there isn't anything they can do other than build a "Great Firewall of Germany" which would be hilarious.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday November 03 2017, @05:09PM (1 child)
Have there been any court cases or any precedents set about this sort of thing?
When you have a company like Google or some other MNC, then that company does need to follow the laws of any country that it as physical operations in. And companies like Google have physical locations in many nations.
But if you have some small company that's only located in one country, expecting them to adhere to laws in other countries is ridiculous. They can't keep users in other countries from going to their site, without setting up a geo-block, but I don't see how they're obligated to do that. (And geoblocks aren't perfect anyway.)
Have there been any cases where some company tried to prosecute a site in another country, which did not have any operations at all in the country of prosecution?
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday November 03 2017, @05:39PM
Plenty of legal precedent. A U.S. corporation is only subject to U.S. law unless it creates legal presence in another jurisdiction. There are a very few things you have to worry about. If you have a customer type relationship with a foreigner it is on the customer to obey local law with very rare exception. If you ship a physical product into a country that is illegal you could be liable, there are laws and treaties regulating common carrier shipping that would get you. You are liable if you do not correctly declare the contents for purposes of customs. But you are not responsible for any sales / use taxes. Heck, a U.S. based corp isn't even required to collect sales / use taxes in Interstate commerce. Streaming content across borders doesn't cause a problem for violating the other country's laws, it is the breaking of the regional distribution license here, although there also international copyright treaties to consider in edge cases. If you take a paid subscriber you probably are ok, plenty of U.S. publications with subscriptions to foreign addresses, for example, provide enough precedent to give cover.