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IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

prestonbyrne.com

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Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#271

Post by mike_hearn »

toyg wrote: post #48
themafia wrote: post #5

> They’re definitely not treating it like a public safety matter, where they know how to reach us and know that I generally respond within the hour. It's been exceedingly obvious but it's nice to know that Ofcom never thought that anyone would bother to fight back. This is clearly not about public safety but about controlling American corporations. Parliamentary forces seem to be directly suborning this corruption.

> This is clearly [...] about controlling American corporations Not exactly. On the surface, it's about kowtowing to pearl-clutching UK NGOs that are empowered by Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch's hysterical tabloids; and underneath, the real agenda is about restricting the influence of unsanctioned sites that could influence UK discourse - influence that established UK press barons (like the Murdochs, Lebedev, etc) want…

The people who are most responsive to NGO campaigning aren't overlapping much with people who read The Sun. Sorry but Murdoch can't be blamed for this one.

The OSA is mostly supported by people who read The Guardian or The Times and watch the BBC. It was originally the work of academics (not big tabloid readers usually) like Lorna Woods, who is supposedly a professor of "internet law", a guy who is the founder of Ofcom, and Baroness Beeban Kidron. If you search Google News for their names you will find lots of left leaning broadsheets and not tabloids.

https://news.google.com/search?q=Beeban%20Kidron&hl=en-GB&gl...

The first five news sites for that search are: Financial Times, The Guardian, BBC, The Times, The Guardian again. Zero tabloids.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#272

Post by Danjoe4 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #269
Danjoe4 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the current status quo. The UK can't sue you, extradite you, or really do anything. Assuming that your service providers are US based and you follow US law, they can pound sand. In practice, the US is the only country powerful enough to enforce its laws extraterritoriality. The UK trying to enforce its internet laws on me? An American citizen? Funny joke

As long as you don't set foot on British soil you'll be fine. But that's less simple than it sounds. Don't book a flight that connects in the UK, sure. But what if your NYC-to-Munich flight has engine trouble and needs to make an emergency landing in London? You are screwed: You'll be pulled off the plane and taken to jail. Will the US embassy get involved? Of course. Will they get you released? Maybe, but it's not g…

The UK knows their place. They could do that but they won't. Also, they'll have trouble even finding who the business operator is. The US allows pseudonymous business structures and their subpoena request will be thrown out on a 1st amendment defense.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#273

Post by toast0 »

nine_k wrote: post #216
Hizonner wrote: post #55

You shouldn't even be expected to geoblock. If I'm operating a Web site in country A, I should not have to care about country B's laws unless I am taking specific action intended to attract users in country B in particular . That's doesn't mean just to target the whole world, either. If you don't want your citizens to access something in another country, take it up with your citizens. It was obvious from the minute t…

If you operate a website outside UK and that's it, you may not care. But if you offer paid servies, collect money from UK citizens, you must have a business representation in the UK, which is bound by UK laws, can be fined, dragged to a court, etc. If you have this vulnerability, or you don't but your holding company has other web properties that do, the UK government has a way to make you listen and comply.

You ship me money, I ship you product. I don't need presence in your country, you don't need presence in mine. If your country doesn't like my product, they can enforce against you (or block it at the border).

I broadcast radio from my country, according to the rules of my country. If you tune in, and your country doesn't like it, they can enforce on you or broadcast something else on the same frequency if that's allowed by their rules.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#274

Post by hilbert42 »

Hizonner wrote: post #179
vessenes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preston talks about this in an earlier blog post. It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. "If Parliament says smoking in Paris is illegal, it is illegal." What's different today than when that doctrine was conceived of is: data goes everywhere, communications are decentralized, international cooperation around es…

> It's a matter of UK law and, I'd bet, many countries, that they have the sovereign right to legislate about matters in and outside their borders. Basically all countries take that position legally. But there are norms and customs about how often you exercise it (as well as practical questions of power). Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's…

"Extraterritorial regulation of Web sites is unfortunately in the process of being established as normal, but it's a bad norm."

Perhaps "Extraterritorial regulation" is bad wording. A country can regulate whether an extraterritorial website is distributed and or viewed within its borders but it has no legal authority force another country to close down a website that's operating legally within its jurisdiction.

The only remaining options are diplomatic action—request the site be taken down or war/by force. Whether we like it or not the only practical action is for a country to geoblock offensive websites at its borders.

Sadly, given the current state of world affairs, it seems to me geoblocking will become the norm almost everywhere.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#276

Post by hunterpayne »

mike_hearn wrote: post #255
hunterpayne wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but I feel like the UK government hasn't thought this matter through. Think about what happens if the US decides it can enforce US law on UK soil against UK citizens. The main industry of the UK is questionable international finance using legal fictions on various islands. What happens when the US decides that that shouldn't be happening anymore? Its the same logic OfCom is using here. And unlike the UK governmen…

> PPS I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners. The USA does this quite regularly. Look at FATCA as one example.

That law only covers US citizens (that are living abroad). So no, that's not a counter example.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#277

Post by jalapenos »

dgroshev wrote: post #159
jalapenos wrote: post #143

Why is it that every mention of the UK government I hear in the news, I think "wow, those guys are absolute scum !". They should just hand it back to the king, the democracy experiment has failed there.

That's how filter bubbles and propaganda work. Take this case: the law was enacted two years ago by a different government, the regulator follows the law as enacted, and yet no one cares about this little nuance. In reality, it's a decent technocratic government trying to reverse a decade of mismanagement and fighting about five hundred fires at the same time. It's OK to good.

Funny how that works, when the government I voted for is in, they're a good government and all problems are caused because the previous one was terrible.

Democracy: everyone's somehow smarter than everyone else.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#278

Post by Hizonner »

hunterpayne wrote: post #276
mike_hearn wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PPS I know of no government that thinks it can enforce their law outside of their borders against foreigners. The USA does this quite regularly. Look at FATCA as one example.

That law only covers US citizens (that are living abroad). So no, that's not a counter example.

Um, no, it attempts to compel foreign banks, which may not even have a presence in the US, to disclose information about US citizens, using various threats. It doesn't threaten to throw foreigners in jail, but it does threaten to use US government "clout" against them... and the actors it's trying to put obligations on are absolutely not US citizens.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#279

Post by jmward01 »

Let's start with a bang. Passports and strictly enforced borders are dumb and this is a clear example of exactly why. Increasingly the digital world -is- the world and arbitrary geographical boundaries are causing nothing but problems. We are taking the ideas of physical borders and passports and, badly, applying that broken idea to a virtual space with typical results. It blows me away that the real problem with strictly enforced borders, virtual or physical, is that they almost always are used to enforce political ideology and rarely do they actually afford protection in any other way. Strict boarders should be looked at highly skeptically and always viewed as a temporary solution that should be solved diplomatically and/or socially. We don't need things like this going from city to city, county to county, state to state but wherever we see an entity that puts a strict boarder in place, virtual or physical, we suddenly see conflict and political games. There are real issues to consider here but the UK is definitely wrong, and creating more long term problems, with this 'solution'.

Re: IP blocking the UK is not enough to comply with the Online Safety Act

#280

Post by sometimes_all »

hbrav wrote: post #229
nine_k wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you operate a website outside UK and that's it, you may not care. But if you offer paid servies, collect money from UK citizens, you must have a business representation in the UK, which is bound by UK laws, can be fined, dragged to a court, etc. If you have this vulnerability, or you don't but your holding company has other web properties that do, the UK government has a way to make you listen and comply.

> But if you offer paid servies, collect money from UK citizens, you must have a business representation in the UK I don't think that's true at all. You be taking payment by credit card, which doesn't require you to have any local presence. I think your bigger risk is that you get a judgement made against you by a UK court, which a court that has jurisdiction over you is willing to enforce. I'm not sure under what ci…

> You be taking payment by credit card, which doesn't require you to have any local presence.

But you're offering an online product, plus you are taking money from people from all over the world, whose governments have different regulations and points of view, your own business charges differently for different countries, and credit card providers are bound to different fees and/or extra charges for international transactions.

It's not a simple solution.

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