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."
Catch 22 (Score:5, Interesting)
If this was true, then talk about your dammed if you do, dammed if you don't moment. Some countries require this data to only be kept for a small amount of time, others require it for a long amount of time. They demand data.. do you face trouble for not turning over the data that the foreign folks require, or fufill the data request and take it in the shorts from your home nation?
sovereignty (Score:3, Interesting)
This is appears to be a threat to our sovereignty. Time to bring in the State Department.
Can't have foreign governments pushing their laws on US companies operating on our own soil. If this were data collected in their country by a company operating in their country then that is a different story. Otherwise this would be like a foreign government demanding the contents of my underwear drawer just because someone they were interested in had called me on the phone.
Practically speaking, if Google has any finances or offices in that country then they have to make a value judgement because the local government has the ability to impose their penalties, but pulling out of this country rather than complying should also be their option. And if a US company is forced to pull out of the EU, then the US should retaliate in kind.
Yahoo should tell Belgium to get bent (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:How do they enforce the ruling? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
At which point, IIRC, Copiepresse sued Google to force them to link to Copiepresse, and have Google pay for said "privilege".
Oh, wonderful internet, horrible internet (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it that only our generation understands the truly public and universal nature of the internet? Nobody owns the internet, and nobody ever will. You can claim to own the wires, the equipment, the computers, the software, and every other component, but you still won't own the internet. The internet has given birth to an idea -- that we're all interconnected and nobody owns the spaces in between. This idea recurs generation after generation, only to die because society can't find a place for it.
Oh, but they'll try. They will cast their books down on our heads, scream a million epitaths of criminal, deviant, terrorists, and invent new terms to express their disgust. They'll arrest us, punish us, and wage massive campaigns of fear. But they'll never get the idea out of our heads that maybe, just maybe, we don't have to pay their tax to touch the life of another person.
Re:How do they enforce the ruling? (Score:2, Interesting)
At which point, IIRC, Copiepresse sued Google to force them to link to Copiepresse, and have Google pay for said "privilege".
I searched for this, but I wasn't able to find any references to the story. Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a link?
Re:Catch 22 (Score:5, Interesting)
Until we (people) get our act together, I'd rather have the option to move to a place where things are run differently. That way, I'm stuck if and when system in my home country goes completely crazy.
One bloated and mismanaged government is not better than lots of smaller bloated and mismanaged governments. They might all suck, but at least they suck in different ways, giving us choices. Hey, it's kind of like Linux.
Okay, so I'll get modded down for that last sentence, but the rest needs to be said. It's worth the karma hit.
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:3, Interesting)
Moreover, it's not as if Europe doesn't have several independent city-states (Monaco, Vatican City, Liechtenstein, etc.) already anyway!
Nobody saw this coming? (Score:4, Interesting)
Somewhere along the line, everyone assumes that technology changes making something easy will automatically cause the legal landscape to fall in line so there are no repercussions when you do it.
The Internet has made it so easy to "act" simultaniously in, and interact simultaniously with the citizens of, every country on Earth, that even a small business potentially does it without even thinking about it; and even if you made the conscious decision not to, that would be hard.
So we say the Internet erases boundaries, but we don't really comprehend what that means. One thing we should realize it doesn't mean: it doesn't mean the whole world is suddenly one big USA.
The approach Belgium is taking here isn't one I want to see take hold, but I can't say I'm surprised to see it tried. A lot of the more "reasonable" approaches we could land on are not, in a lot of ways, "better".
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course Brussels is virtually french-speaking (80%) and richer than both. If the country broke up, it would join the Walloons (if you let people choose, that is). But Flemish don't like to be reminded of that.
As someone living in Switzerland, where everything is in three languages (yes, all the food items you buy in the supermarket are multiply-labelled, and administration is possible in all languages), I have no sympathy for people trying to force other people to speak another language when they already speak a language of the country the live in.
Having more than one language is a good thing. Embrace the other language, support multiple language labels. Support administration in multiple language, and people, feeling more relaxed, will maybe learn Dutch. But forced? You'll get nowhere.
And Flemish "territorial integrity" ?! Who the _fuck_ are you to decide where your fellow countrymen can reside?
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:5, Interesting)
For all I care Belgium can disintegrate. If wallonia wants to join France, so be it. If Eupen want to join Germany, so be it. If both want to stay independent, so be it. I don't care.
But Flanders will become an independent republic. It would never join the Netherlands. You would have to pry Brussel from our cold dead hands, before we would let it join Wallonia. Or it could go to the EU as the DC capital of europe, which is also fine. Fighting over Brussel costs too much money, and we are a peaceful people anyway. But sending billions of euros to wallonia, while they spit on our culture and threaten our territorial integrity, has to stop.
Bonus point if you guess which side I am from.
Oh, come on! The Netherlands really isn't that bad. We love our southern neighbours, their chocolate, their beer, their friendly demeanor... And you might enjoy our liberal drug-policies and cheap, fast internet. When you join, we will (as a bonus) finally get around to fixing the access to the Antwerp harbor, as well as the railway to Germany that you have been craving for such a long time.
On the other hand, we wouldn't want to share a border with France, so I'm in favor of keeping at least something of a buffer zone...
The Only Logical Outcome... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:3, Interesting)
I knew you were a Fleming when I read your first sentence. So am I FYI, and I fully support Flemish independance, but could you *please* get your history right?
For starters, the was a ruling class that *spoke* French. But they were not French or Walloons. I hate to break it to you but if the elite in Flanders were French-speaking Flemings! They only spoke French because it was fashionable to do so. Just like the lower-classes in Wallonia spoke... Walloon (not French).
Now, once again, I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but those who fought for independence were mostly Flemish-speaking inhabitants of Brussels. Who was *opposed* to independance? The French-speaking (Flemish) upper-classes in Antwerp and Ghent, because they derived their wealth from trade with the Dutch and Indonesia.
As for the current political situation, what business of mine is it what language my neighbors speak? For all that matters, they can speak Chinese, I don't care!
Re:Let's Put Belgium To Sleep (Score:3, Interesting)
A large part of the country is french speaking, the other part is dutch speaking. When the Flemish move to Wallonia, they adapt and learn French. When the Walloons move to Flanders (mostly in the area around Brussels), they continue to speak French and expect the locals to adapt to them. After a few decades of refusing to adapt and learn the local language, the french speaking population has become the majority. Now they demand that the original Dutch-speaking village should no longer be part of the Flemish territory but part of Brussels. In my opinion, that is annexing. I don't care where they live, but they should have the decency to adapt and learn the local language. Until 50 years or so ago, Dutch was looked upon as the language of peasants and French was the defacto language. The Flemish are embracing their language and culture and taking control of their own future.