Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#21

Post by javagram » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

Just block your website from being accessed in any country where you aren’t sure you can comply with their laws.

A lot of sites are doing that for GDPR.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#22

Post by clay_the_ripper » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

mitchdoogle wrote: post #10

rdlecler1 wrote: post #3

So the author would rather see each state/country implement it’s own laws so that a small startup needs to ensure they comply with hundreds of regulatory jurisdictions... awesome.

The gist of these laws are all the same. Just respect ALL users' data from the start, and you shouldn't have any difficulty with compliance.

Totally disagree. Complicate is not the same thing as following the spirit of the rules. Compliance is proving you followed the rules. Totally different. Also, you have to define what you mean by “respecting privacy”. Something that I do on my website, like basic retargeting marketing for abandoned shopping carts doesn’t feel to me like an invasion of privacy. To you, it might. The rules have to be defined clearly.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#23

Post by FussyZeus » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

> We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast.

You know if you turn that around and say "How come we have to respect the laws of every country we do business in?" it sounds a lot more self serving.

Nobody said your website had to serve Californians. Nobody said your iPhone game has to be accessible in North Korea. Nobody said your movie has to be viewable in China.

If you're intending to serve any product to an entire planet composed of nations, states, societies all pulling from different experiences, different cultural attitudes, I think expecting a completely friction-free experience in doing so is more than a little unreasonable.

And more to the point that this particular discussion is about, these are principles that pretty much every society could reasonably get behind. Sorry that means mining data isn't a solid business model anymore, but I'm also not even remotely sorry. Adtech should die. It's a blight on our society.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#24

Post by dantheman » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:12 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #21

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

Just block your website from being accessed in any country where you aren’t sure you can comply with their laws. A lot of sites are doing that for GDPR.

The country can choose the block the website. Why should you have to do it?

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#25

Post by exar0815 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

This is manifestly bullshit. When I as an Engineer build a physical product, I have to take care that it fulfills the legal and normative requirements of every place I plan to sell it. The product of a software company is said software. The "storefront" is their website. When I cater to a global audience, I have to make sure I fulfill all requirements. Period. No matter what I sell.

Now, there are ways around it. Either agree on a supernational legal frame , for example a car which is certified in one EU-Country is deemed certified everywhere (something Tesla used to great effect) or have one reliable entity for certification (like the FAA was in Aerospace, which is most likely bound to change).

But putting the onus on the customer to find the legalities in the origin country of the software/website provider is not the solution. Especially for large providers. Just an example question: Where is the website "legally" located? The company's HQ? The local office? The office of the developers? The main database? The CDN-Server for your location?

edit:formatting/typos

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#26

Post by criddell » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

> Can you imagine owning a grocery store and having to ask every customer their nationality

For privacy matters it's easy though. The UN has declared that privacy is a human right for all humans in all countries.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#27

Post by ohduran » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

FussyZeus wrote: post #23

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

> We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. You know if you turn that around and say "How come we have to respect the laws of every country we do business in?" it sounds a lot more self servi…

This. Imagine if you said the same thing with taxes. "Gee, why do I have to pay taxes differently in every country?" Well, because that's what you have to do if you want to do business there. You're not forced to do anything in here if you don't want to; if the opportunity is worthy, others will take your place.

Same with the laws, especially those that remove agency from the users.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#28

Post by bcheung » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

rdlecler1 wrote: post #3

So the author would rather see each state/country implement it’s own laws so that a small startup needs to ensure they comply with hundreds of regulatory jurisdictions... awesome.

Essentially, yes. And don't forget all the other ones from other countries as well.

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#29

Post by ssivark » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

A natural consequence of your suggestion would be the legislative/EULA analogue of "tax inversion", whereby major companies would move "physical presence" (for some technical definition) to a legislatively lax state/country, and states would have a race to the bottom to attract companies (like with tax benefits).

While I understand your point about the impediments to unfettered interaction, this seems to me to be a fundamental problem with "globalized" interactions where the different parties to a transaction expect to be governed by different laws.

> Can you imagine owning a grocery store and having to ask every customer their nationality to check which law you must follow to do business with them?

It is, unfortunately, a little too easy, to implement filters based on whitelists/blacklists at the DNS level, since those are largely organized geographically (proximity by packet travel time, and what not)

Re: Silicon Valley is terrified of California’s privacy law

#30

Post by ohduran » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #26

throawayuk55po wrote: post #16

We need to have a conversation about jurisdictions in the digital age. The way governments have decided that having a website accessible in a country makes you liable to respect the law of this country is a convulted and hacky notion that has been accepted way too fast. The physical establishment rule was the only sound approach. The fact that some countries started to lose shouldn't have allowed them to rewrite the…

> Can you imagine owning a grocery store and having to ask every customer their nationality For privacy matters it's easy though. The UN has declared that privacy is a human right for all humans in all countries.

The UN has no way to enforce anything. It comes down to individual countries in the end, and sometimes that's too general.