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Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

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Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#181

Post by CydeWeys »

ballooney wrote: post #168
lavezzi wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That coffee wasn't just hot, it was well beyond expected temperature and gave her third degree burns as a result. "Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her daughter's loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000. In…

I'd expect it to be up to 100 celcius at sea level pressure, because it had just been boiled. If it's hotter than that it wouldn't be a liquid. How can less-than-boiling be 'well beyond' the expected temperature of just-made tea or coffee? Your accusation is totally absurd. Maybe I'm just being too European.

You are being too European. Not serving scalding-hot coffee is a very reasonable safety precaution. Not only can it cause third-degree burns, but it can cause severe damage to the inside of your mouth. Note that McDonalds was heating up its coffee to be higher a higher temperature than it would be straight from brewing (during which a lot of heat energy is lost).

Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower temperature than what McDonald's was serving up. They were serving super-heated coffee that is hotter and thus more dangerous than what you would make at home. A typical temperature for coffee is 75C -- that's the temperature it'll come out as from your standard automatic drip coffee maker. McDonald's was serving it at 95C, which required serious post-brewing heating to achieve. They admitted that this was wrong and stopped doing it, and to really drive that point home, no one else serves coffee that dangerously hot. You could burn a layer off your tongue in one ill-conceived first sip. The only reason you think this isn't a big deal is because you haven't been exposed to it.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#182

Post by dragonwriter »

allendoerfer wrote: post #91
mike_hearn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, as an Irish company, you can open a subsidiary in France to do business in France. The whole point of the EU single market is that you do not have to do that. You can set up shop in Ireland and sell to the French market until the cows come home. You only owe Irish taxes (modulo the recent completely crazy VAT changes). Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a gro…

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

> Juries deciding whether murderers are guilty or not. Simply unthinkable over here.

Well, that might be unthinkable in Germany, but its clearly not in Europe as a whole, since we got that from a place in Europe that hasn't abandoned it in the time since their system migrated to North America.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#183

Post by Kell »

evgen wrote: post #103
_wmd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many locales by law businesses are required to maintain certain sets of documents at their registered address. For example in the UK this includes at least the company articles of incorporation, although the list is more extensive than that. It's one reason many small businesses have their accountant as their registered address. Private limited companies must keep some or all of their statutory records at their re…

There is really not much to sieze from an office like this, but I can assure you that the infosec and physical security teams test people on raid process and probably do such drills on at least a yearly basis. Basically how to hand over exactly as much as you are required to provide, shield the rest, and notify people upstream to start the internal side of the response process. If this was an engineering office then…

Sales office or not, the important aspect of this raid is to gather business data, not technical data. And emails are probably the most important thing they are after.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#184

Post by distances »

kbenson wrote: post #144
allendoerfer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Class actions have a very important place in the law, and they are a thing in parts of Europe[1], and are becoming more so, because they serve a very important need[2]. It gets abused, but so does everything in the legal system, that doesn't mean it's inherently a bad idea. My view on it is a way for lawyers to make big money by recruiting clients not the other way around. It gives the impression, that it is all abo…

> My view on it is a way for lawyers to make big money by recruiting clients not the other way around. It started out as a way to hold companies responsible for small amounts of harm that are spread out to many individuals. Is it worth it for any one individual to sue a company for a $5 product that purposefully misleads consumers? Is it okay for a company to take advantage of consumers in this way purely because the…

The European view of ridiculous US class-action suits is probably mostly thanks to cases where there's a huge number of people in the suit, the lawyer gets free hands, and the result is $5 compensation and a movie ticket (upon written request accompanied by proof of purchase). The lawyer's cut is $3 million in legal fees, paid by the company to avoid a larger settlement.

This was probably an exaggeration, but that's the image one gets.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#186

Post by allendoerfer »

landryraccoon wrote: post #178
allendoerfer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

> Remembered one more: Juries deciding whether murderers are guilty or not. Simply unthinkable over here. Can you clarify? A jury trial is supposed to benefit the defendant.

There are many arguments against it. I think the main cultural difference is that in general Americans distrust the state more than Europeans do, which is often a good thing. Though, I think with jury trials it fosters a bad system.

I am not a lawyer and there are good articles discussing the system, I think lawsuits can often be highly complex and should be handled by professionals, not amateurs. I believe if you look guilty you are better of with professionals, who I imagine are more likely to judge you based on facts instead of sympathy.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#187

Post by thaumasiotes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #181
ballooney wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect it to be up to 100 celcius at sea level pressure, because it had just been boiled. If it's hotter than that it wouldn't be a liquid. How can less-than-boiling be 'well beyond' the expected temperature of just-made tea or coffee? Your accusation is totally absurd. Maybe I'm just being too European.

You are being too European. Not serving scalding-hot coffee is a very reasonable safety precaution. Not only can it cause third-degree burns, but it can cause severe damage to the inside of your mouth. Note that McDonalds was heating up its coffee to be higher a higher temperature than it would be straight from brewing (during which a lot of heat energy is lost). Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower…

> Every coffee you've ever had in your life was a lower temperature than what McDonald's was serving up.

This is a pretty sketchy assertion. Instant coffee is generally made from water you just boiled yourself.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#188

Post by fauigerzigerk »

gravypod wrote: post #133
allendoerfer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Laws that say "forget the law, anything we think is unreasonable is illegal" are a growing problem in Europe. It makes the EU look like fools Not trying to start a flamewar here, but the common German/European perspective on the US legal system consists of corporations owning it (because of huge costs), consumers abusing it ("cat in microwave/washing machine/toaster", unreasonable compensations, class action lawsuit…

We might have our kinks, but I don't think that most of the people in jail ended up in there because "Yea, what you were doing was allowed by the law, but you know we kind of didn't like it". When that finally starts to happen in the USA, you can count on me being in the streets protesting. Edit: You may also want to consider the current practices in Germany regarding frivolous law suits against websites. We aren't t…

>We might have our kinks, but I don't think that most of the people in jail ended up in there because "Yea, what you were doing was allowed by the law, but you know we kind of didn't like it

And it's not like that in France either. You have to take into account that some HN users are real experts on U.S legal matters, whereas most European legal matters are discussed on here without much if any professional legal expertise.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#189

Post by dsfyu404ed »

clort wrote: post #170
Natsu wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's against the letter of the law, rather than some vague interpretation thereof. I know there are problems with the application of three strikes, but it's not terribly unreasonable to say that we have little cause to believe that you will reform after, say, murdering or raping your third victim and therefore little reason to let you out of prison such that you can seek new ones. And it's your third felony that pu…

except that a 'felony' can be essentially a minimal possession of drugs http://www.drugtreatment.com/expose/marijuana-felony-amounts-by-state/ all those could be corrected by presidential pardons but I don't expect they will be. Here is one to start the ball rolling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_L._Tyler

I agree.

The absurdly low dollar value for felony theft or property damage doesn't help.

Heck, there's places where 15 over is a misdemeanor and any sort of misdemeanor is a pretty big roadblock to upward mobility if you're starting from a low point.

Re: Google's Paris HQ raided in tax probe

#190

Post by derekp7 »

ptaipale wrote: post #112
batmansmk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it is forbidden, as in France what matters is the spirit of the law and not the way it is expressed. It helps keeping common sense upfront; keeping readable and compact text laws.

That sounds somewhat scary. The law is not what is written, but what someone says is the "spirit" of it? The end result is going to depend on who gets to interpret the spirit, and this idea is frightening.

Isn't that almost how laws in the US actually work in practice? It isn't about what is written, but how it is interpreted by a judge, and possibly re-interpreted upon appeal(s)? So you have the written law, but also case law on top of it (so to figure out if you are breaking the law, you need to see how your situation compares to the possibly hundreds of somewhat similar but possibly subtly different cases that have already been decided).
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