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Why would the US congress want Facebook to go out of their way to maximise their liability to a piece of legislation intended to cripple US corporations and sup
by sqdbps 8y ago
Why would the US congress want Facebook to go out of their way to maximise their liability to a piece of legislation intended to cripple US corporations and supplement EU budgets with US corporate profits?!
Congress should convene a hearing about how current and incoming EU laws are thinly veiled protectionism against US corporations and what should be done about it.
- stochastic_monk 8y agoAre you certain it’s protectionism and not simply believing human beings have a right to privacy?
- sqdbps 8y agoPrivacy rights are well protected as it is, despite what the technophobic anti-corporate maximalists would argue, this law is about limiting and controlling what american companies can do on their platforms, it limits research and puts a roadblock in front of every data point with the threat of unconscionable fines on worldwide revenue which shouldn't be allowed under international treaties.
- pwinnski 8y ago> Privacy rights are well protected as it is Yes, the US regulations protecting our privacy rights are well-known, which is why the current Cambridge Analytica scandal couldn't happen, and triggered all sorts of... what's that? In fact, we have no privacy protections whatsoever? Oh.
- sqdbps 8y agoThe cam-anal (tehe) thing is about the press hyping and exaggerating a nothing story to hurt a competitor i.e facebook.
- lovich 8y agoHow are you capable of saying that privacy rights are well protected with a straight face. There are breaches every week in US companies and no on goes to jail, and no company fixes their shit because there's no reason for them to. The only way I could see someone believeing that it's well protected is due to making money off of violating that privacy
- badsectoracula 8y ago> this law is about limiting and controlling what american companies can do on their platforms The law also applies to European companies.
- shifte 8y agoFacebook might be known as a US company, but they pay taxes in Ireland (amongst other low tax territories) and hold most of their assets there to avoid paying taxes in US.
- sqdbps 8y agoNot since the new tax code went into effect, but what does that has to do with anything?
- pwtweet 8y agoMore bollox. Just stop fucking lying, you're just showing yourself to be an ignorant ass.
- dang 8y agoPersonal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't post like this. You've unfortunately posted other uncivil comments in the past, too; could you please (re-)read the site rules at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use HN as intended from now on?
- krastanov 8y agoIt is not US corporate profits when it is from advertisements bought by Europeans for Europeans. Would you also suggest that the EU should not tax those profits?
- sqdbps 8y agoIt's US corporate profit since they are profits (revenue - expenses) made by a US corporation. This is not a tax law, what are you talking about?
- lovich 8y agoAre you serious? Do you really think nations don't have any right to tax economic activity happening in their borders because one of the entities involved has one of their numerous sub companies headquartered in another country?
- donohoe 8y agoI have to disagree. As someone who is grappling with the impact of these laws on US business I'm acutely aware of the non-existent privacy we all have and how our information is abused and resold. The GDPR, while a pain, are a response to decades of an industry that should have known better.
- sqdbps 8y agoI think you're understating how much of this law is about EU resentment of US tech companies' mindshare and marketshare.
- echelon 8y agoWe need a domestic version of GDPR with penalties just as severe. GDPR is a much-needed godsend for privacy.
- sqdbps 8y agoWe should protect our companies or at the very least not harm them.
- jacobolus 8y agoCompanies which abuse the public trust so severely and unethically should be forced to shape up or fined into the ground.
- ModernMech 8y agoRight, because it's the poor poor companies who are being abused and targeted. Oh will you just think of the companies! Companies are people too! What would we do without our exalted job creators?
- elefanten 8y agoSo when the EU does it, it's protectionism. But we get to "protect our companies" as a matter of policy. Cool.
- uabstraction 8y agoOh horseshit.
- pwtweet 8y ago"piece of legislation intended to cripple US corporations and supplement EU budgets with US corporate profits". The most ignorant fucking statement I have read on HN in a long time. The 2016 GDPR is an update to the 2002 EU Data Protection Regulation. It has nothing to do with taxes, profits or crippling any company. It is an enforcement of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
- sqdbps 8y agoBudget supplements come from potential fines which are set at an exuberant rate. "An update" as in adding new laws and regulations all of which are unneeded and all of which are targeting US companies.
- echelon 8y agoFines without teeth won't produce the desired effect. Privacy matters more than profit.
- Jedd 8y ago>... all of which are targeting US companies. Clearly not true, but exquisite in the context of the FB factory dodging tax via the Irish loopholes, and now moving away from Ireland as a base.
- sqdbps 8y agoI don't know what a "factory dodging tax" is but the new tax code removes the need for profit shifting so FB wouldn't take a tax hit and I guess you won't relish that as much. And on that note what's with all the commies here?!
- dmitriid 8y agoI've posted this before, I'll post it again: I wonder if you know that the US passed legislation a few weeks back that lets the US government request any data on any user of an American company even if that user and their data are not on American soil. (Possibly thanks to GDPR) companies may object to that request if it contradicts local laws. But yeah. Go on pretending that the EU lives to target American companies. From a European's point of view, American companies are not fined enough as they view privacy, data, sovereignty etc. as some abstract concepts that don't apply to them.
- tillr 8y agoI think GDPR will harm European companies and tax payers much more than any US company. Any European company processing personal data will be liable even as a subcontractor. US multinationals can easily avoid liability for non-Europeans as demonstrated. A European startup or even government organization (like also a European universities) will be bound and have much higher cost due to legal and thus monetary risk.