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Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

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Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#11
So Google didn't just buy Lenovo shares: http://recode.net/2014/02/06/no-google-didnt-just-buy-750-mi...

Devices in Sochi don't get hacked 'before you drink your coffee': http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudul...

And this blog post is also bunk, way to keep that going:

Google is maintaining they haven't done wrong and are appealing the decision, so they've asked the court to stay any penalties until the appeals process is resolved. End Of Story.

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#12
post #2

Actually, the Conseil d'État just released its decision a few minutes ago: Google have to pay. See http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction... (in French).

Le Conseil d'État is a French institution whose decisions can be broken (sadly) by European courts. I think Google is not fighting for its reputation, but if they pay now they will open the door to more fines from over countries.

They would have had argued to the Conseil d'État in order to get the sentence suspended while the European court decide on the matter. Its not enough to just send in an appeal to the European court, as sovereignty still matters.

This chain of events happened during the pirate bay trial, in which Swedish courts did not approve of suspending sentences while waiting for an European court decision. The suspects still sent in their request, but any decision the European could had made would be after the fact.

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#13
> accepting the fine would have also involved making a public admission of guilt (...) and the company feels this would have "irreparably damaged" its reputation.

It probably would've. But if they don't want that loss of reputation, perhaps they should have followed the appropriate laws in the first place? Seems like this is kind of the point of a punishment.

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#14

Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

So then I suppose Google should have just given in to the Chinese government's demands for censorship, or the US government's demands for access to private data?

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they are perfectly happy to admit liability and pay up, as long as they aren't forced to publicise that admission to the people that the court case itself was on behalf of.

This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€. But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).

American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#16

Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

Don't worry, (US) corporations will be able to sue (EU) states soon when they don't like their laws [1] . Line of argumentation: "Europe has an unreasonably high standard [in it's protective laws], and not one based on science" [2]

[1] http://www.euractiv.com/specialreport-eu-us-trade-talks/liti...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoue-mlQxw&t=58

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#17

Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

> When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

These days, I'm rather afraid that we've already reached that point - at least in the western world, most governments seem to have just become the corporations, infiltrated to the point of indistinguishability. I hope there's a way back, but I'm not particularly optimistic about it.

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€. But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).

American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)

Like I said, 1 billion €, so a "European billion". Yes it is a lot of money. But even more so is the amount of money that Google earned in France and managed not to declare to the fisc (the French tax administration).

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#19

> accepting the fine would have also involved making a public admission of guilt (...) and the company feels this would have "irreparably damaged" its reputation. It probably would've. But if they don't want that loss of reputation, perhaps they should have followed the appropriate laws in the first place? Seems like this is kind of the point of a punishment.

I think the feeling is that the "appropriate" laws were not, in fact, appropriate.

Re: Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

#20
post #16

Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

Don't worry, (US) corporations will be able to sue (EU) states soon when they don't like their laws [1] . Line of argumentation: "Europe has an unreasonably high standard [in it's protective laws], and not one based on science" [2] [1] http://www.euractiv.com/specialreport-eu-us-trade-talks/liti... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcoue-mlQxw&t=58

Even so, this issue has nothing to do with a corp suiting a state. Any one can sue a state if its under some larger (eg. federal) umbrella.

Google are suing France because they conform to EU Law rather than French law, and would like European courts to resolve the issue.

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