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

engadget.com

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

#51

Post by throwaway_yy2Di »

This is partly about the insane European cookie directive [0] (cf. [1]). A problem with forced apologies is, when the crimes you're apologizing for are actually controversial political issues, it takes on the character of political speech.

"I'm sorry I stole from that guy" is an apology. "I'm sorry I hacked your computer without your consent, in violation of privacy law" -- meaning you set a browser cookie -- that's something else.

[0] "According to the watchdog, Google didn't adequately inform users about its data collection processes, nor did it obtain consent or tell users how long cookies would be installed on their machine."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/google-privacy-cnil-fine/

[1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=eu+cookie&sort...

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

#52

Post by nraynaud »

hatred wrote: post #35
chris_wot wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. They should stop trading in such countries if they don't like the laws.

It's a bigger problem then that. Laws are not exactly straight white strings which you know everything about when you set foot on some country to begin operations. If some country takes you to task on some ridiculous convoluted third world laws ( may be I am exaggerating here ) , a company has every right to present its views in court rather then just suck it up for the sake of abiding by the law. Also, once you have…

Yeah, a third world law asking them to tell their users exactly what they will do with personal data they will send to a country that has notoriously no legal protection for them and a very active market in personal data and identity theft.

In this case, having google comply to the most restrictive law of the countries they are operating in would benefit the rest of the world. They are not asked to come to work naked. They are asked to explain their users who will be able to know of their secret homosexuality or the brand of their car.

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

#53

Post by Zarel »

p4bl0 wrote: post #18
RBerenguel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

To clarify, a European billion is an American trillion [1] (an American billion is a European milliard), which is why RBerenguel said "the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

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

#54

Post by camus2 »

jmnicolas wrote: post #4
p4bl0 wrote: 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.

> 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.

that's more like it, if they cave now, there is a huge list of states that dream about taxing Google very hard. Google wont pay.

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

#55

Post by chris_wot »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #34
chris_wot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If you feel that you cannot obey those laws, you should cease doing business in that country.

What if that is the sole country you do business in and you are legally forbidden from closing your business (as can happen to a business that produces essential war materials)? The problem that is that companies are not above the law, but they are even less above ethics. The primary reason that we argue that companies should follow the law is ethics and when ethics and the law are in conflict ethics always trumps th…

That's an extreme situation. I would disobey this law.

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

#56

Post by wavefunction »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #34
chris_wot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If you feel that you cannot obey those laws, you should cease doing business in that country.

What if that is the sole country you do business in and you are legally forbidden from closing your business (as can happen to a business that produces essential war materials)? The problem that is that companies are not above the law, but they are even less above ethics. The primary reason that we argue that companies should follow the law is ethics and when ethics and the law are in conflict ethics always trumps th…

You're running a hypothetical munitions factory whose sole client is the government and you're worrying about the ethics and morality of having to comply with the laws of that country?

Let's worry about the morals and ethics of operating that munitions factory before we get concerned with "unjust" laws.

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

#57

Post by wavefunction »

yawz wrote: post #41

> ...its sorrows in a bottle of beaujolais... You'll have more sorrows after drinking some Beaujolais. It's incredible that this is one of the best known wine regions in France. At most barely-drinkable, Beaujolais is inferior to most French wine.

What would you recommend? I don't drink a lot of wine so I tend to just buy $14ish bottles of American Pinot Noir or Reislings.

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

#58

Post by dkuntz2 »

aragot wrote: post #48
chris_wot wrote: post #10

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.

What happens if they don't pay and have no physical business in France? France to sue them in Ireland? French police to ask Ireland police for seizure? Are they really in a position of power to do that, and can they really recover a billion just by seizing an office?

Google has offices in Paris.

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

#59

Post by masklinn »

ldng wrote: post #43
mjburgess wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well I am not sure what the result would be. The problem is that Americans see EU Directives as if they were Federal US law. They're not. The EU can issue Directive, that laws that represent the strict minimum to comply. Then the individual state has to actually pass a national law that implements the directive. Three options here. The state does not want to implement the law and get fined. The state implements the l…

> But I don't see how it could happen since AFAIK the French privacy laws predate the Directive by a quite large amount.

And more importantly goes further than the directive in protecting citizen's rights. By comparison the french "garde à vue" — a form of police custody — is also ancient but it restricts citizen's defence rights far below the mandatory minimum and has gotten repeatedly hammered by the ECHR both indirectly (via similar turkic cases e.g. Salduz v Turkey and Dayanan v Turkey) and directly (e.g. Brusco v France, Vassis v France) as France (incorrectly) refused to consider the turkic cases applicable.

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

#60

Post by masklinn »

p4bl0 wrote: post #40
jmnicolas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Le Conseil d'État is a French institution whose decisions can be broken (sadly) by European courts. It's not as simple as that. From what I have understood, there is a precise hierarchy of courts and the Conseil d'État is at the top of the administrative courts hierarchy. The only way to appeal their decision is to go one step higher which would be the European Court of Human Rights, and I don't see how Google coul…

With piles of money involved it's possible that the ECHR would find for a reduction of citizen's rights, but AFAIK that'd be a first. Usually they go the other way around, and pretty seriously so.
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