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Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#121
post #86
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically what happened when they tried (twice I think ?) to raid Uber offices in France, their boss pressed a kill switch and everything went down in seconds. It completely blocked the investigation. Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Edit: Some sources in below replies for infos o…

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

If you are a little person in the USA, I believe that would be spoliation of evidence.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#122
post #69

I wonder how these "office raids" would work for remote first companies that don't have much of an office presence and with little or no physical documents and everything being stored in the cloud somewhere.

That's basically what happened when they tried (twice I think ?) to raid Uber offices in France, their boss pressed a kill switch and everything went down in seconds. It completely blocked the investigation. Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Edit: Some sources in below replies for infos o…

That’s so interesting, probably a good move for them, it’s not their job to make governments lives easier

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#123
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

The alternative, giving them a password that gives them read/write access to sensitive systems, would be insane. Subpoena for particular data.

You can give them read access tokens that expire every couple of hours....

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be destruction of evidence, which is illegal.

Unless it wasn’t destroyed, in which case it might be interring with an investigation, which is probably also illegal in France.

It's definitely interference/obstruction at least of the raid itself yeah, but looking at the text and not being a lawyer I have a feeling it may be extremely hard to prosecute for something more substantial than a fine low enough for a french exec have it a as a guaranteed expense (bn€ in tax fraud vs a few k€ in fine). The law does also mention prison but it's not the kind of stuff that ever end up being applied for fiscal related cases.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How the hell can any of what you just described be legal? Do you have any articles about this? Because this is insane if true.

Why should it be illegal? Isn't it akin to "right to remain silent"? Why the need to present any information to police unless it is asked by court. Assuming that they didn't delete the data, just moved it to somewhere safe where it couldn't directly be taken away. We had a raid in one of my previous company due to copyright violation due to a user uploaded content. Authorities came in to take in all the codebase, rep…

I assume when the office was raided there was a warrant that would give police the right to inspect and seize property...

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#126
post #84
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's basically what happened when they tried (twice I think ?) to raid Uber offices in France, their boss pressed a kill switch and everything went down in seconds. It completely blocked the investigation. Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Edit: Some sources in below replies for infos o…

> Afterward Uber helped Macron campaign who then ordered National Financial Prosecutor's office to "stop bothering them" so I don't think anything new happened since. Isn’t that kinda definiton of corruption?

I do need to correct myself, look like "friendship" started before his election: https://www.euronews.com/2023/07/18/a-privileged-relationshi...

Pretty crazy to support a business designed to never pay tax. This bring nothing beside "precarious employment".

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#127
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everything being stored in the cloud somewhere Sounds like it would make it easier for law enforcement. They no longer need a warrant against/for the company they're investigating, just the place where their data is stored. Get the warrant, raid the place and grab the drives, then continue the investigation. Done the right way, the company under investigation wouldn't even notice it.

Grab the drives from the cloud? Isn't most data in the cloud heavily distributed and broken into shards across many racks and drives and such? And encrypted so is useless outside of the custom block storage system employed by the cloud provider? They would need to decrypt and assemble the shards to get usable data out. I have no clue how they would even know which drives out the tens of thousands to grab, and they wo…

It's simple, just grab all of S3.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#128
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

The alternative, giving them a password that gives them read/write access to sensitive systems, would be insane. Subpoena for particular data.

Yeah it's hard to see how any French official would have authority to conduct searches 10 meters beyond French borders, let alone over all of Uber's computers located in dozens of other countries.

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#129
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be destruction of evidence, which is illegal.

Denying access to data that could still be specifically subpoenaed isn't destruction of evidence, it's a normal security measure. They still have the warrant to search everything in the office , but not the right to use those computers to access uber's entire worldwide infrastructure. I have no idea what french law says about it but I think it's morally fine and don't care that uber did it.

I think this is an example of law lagging technology. A warrant gives the police the right to inspect and seize contents of a safe inside a house. Similarly, the law should be updated so that a warrant gives the police the right to inspect and seize contents of local computers. Local computers surely have valid certificates that allow the computers to connect to the mothership, right?

Re: Netflix Europe offices raided in tax fraud probe

#130
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so illegal, it's crazy there aren't consequences for that. EDIT: Article on the kills switch https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-bosses-tol...

If you are a little person in the USA, I believe that would be spoliation of evidence.

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