Belgium Tries to Fine Yahoo for Protecting US User Privacy 267
Techdirt is reporting that Belgium is trying to extract fines from Yahoo for not producing user data that was recently demanded of the US company. Instead of following normal diplomatic channels Belgian officials apparently made the data demands directly to Yahoo's US headquarters and then took the company to criminal court, where a judge issued the fine. "The implications of this ruling are profound and far-reaching. Following the court's logic would subject user data associated with any service generally available online to the jurisdiction of all countries. It would also subject all companies that offer services generally available on the global Internet to the laws of all jurisdictions, potentially exposing individual employees to a variety of criminal sanctions."
How do they enforce the ruling? (Score:4, Informative)
This is about as laughable as a Brazilian judge ordering YouTube shut down because a incriminating video of two Brazilian celebrities kept getting posted on that site. Needless to say, YouTube is still up and running.
This isn't the first strange internet ruling coming out of Belgium. There was the row between Copiepresse and Google over Google linking to Copiepresse's newspapers. Google was fined and promptly stopped linking to the newspaper's sites.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Response (Score:1, Informative)
Step 3) Cut belgium off from the services you offer.
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:2, Informative)
There is a wider variety of higher quality beer brewed in the United States than any other country. You just have to buy beer somewhere other than Big-Box-Mart. Buy from a micro-brewery. I wish people would stop this lie that the best beer comes from Europe, when it no longer does. Our microbreweries are as wonderful as our macrobreweries suck -- a whole lot. DFH ftw.
Individuals affected already (Score:5, Informative)
I am getting the suspicion that this story pretends this to be a bigger issue because it affects an American company.
However, this kind of "which laws are affecting what I do" has already got individuals. See for example the case of Hew Raymond Griffiths,
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hew_Raymond_Griffiths [wikipedia.org]
* http://www.ibls.com/internet_law_news_portal_view.aspx?id=1778&s=latestnews [ibls.com]
Griffiths was extradited from Australia to the U.S., a country he had never visited, for some "Intellectual Property" crimes.
For a company it is a mere money issue, but when individuals are extradited it becomes extremely problematic.
Stephan
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:4, Informative)
There is a wider variety of higher quality beer brewed in the United States than any other country. You just have to buy beer somewhere other than Big-Box-Mart. Buy from a micro-brewery. I wish people would stop this lie that the best beer comes from Europe, when it no longer does. Our microbreweries are as wonderful as our macrobreweries suck -- a whole lot. DFH ftw.
I'm not a big fan of generalizations like this, but parent is right that there are some truly spectacular microbrews in the US. Worth pointing out, even if it is a bit off topic.
Re:Let's Put the USA to sleep (Score:5, Informative)
Then you haven't been paying attention. The USA has pursued actions against foreign-based Internet gambling sites, [74.125.93.132] including Partypoker.com. [guardian.co.uk] Also, forbidding credit card payments is against WTO treaties, which are (per the constitution), the law of the land.
Re:Let's Put the USA to sleep (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, the waffles in Belgium are incredible. They sell them from carts, like hot dogs in NY, and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. They are nothing like what they sell in IHOP or the diy machines in the hotel buffet.
Their french fries are also about the best in the world. They have some mutant growth gene that creates ginormous potatoes and horses.
Re:How do they enforce the ruling? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Catch 22 (sorta) (Score:3, Informative)
The library community faced this years ago, and the results are embedded in library software to this day.
Records are kept of who has a book until such time as they have returned it undamaged, after which that item is destroyed. Records of how many fines a customer paid are kept for longer, and records of how many books circulated are kept for substantially longer.
In effect, it's horses for courses. Privacy-sensitive information has a short life, billing longer, but not forever, and totals, which are needed for the grants process and planning, are kept for long times.
Because this is clearly sane, as well as an honest effort to meet legal requirements re privacy, most jurisdictions in the world accept it. They could object, but then they'd have to pay for a "belgium only" system to provide to their libraries.
--dave
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:2, Informative)
Technically, the best french fries are made in horse fat.
But to my knowledge, only 1, perhaps 2, shop still do so.
Good places use beef fat.
bad places use vegetable oil.
celjabba