4 ms·

With gdpr, I came to realize that (for better or worse) the internet is transitioning from a place outside of the law to a place subject to the union of all law

With gdpr, I came to realize that (for better or worse) the internet is transitioning from a place outside of the law to a place subject to the union of all laws.

nitwit005 8y ago
This sort of issue has cropped up since there started being commercial activity on the internet. If you try to start a company like ebay, you'll learn that means complying with every relevant local, national, and international law, for any item it's possible to sell, and updating the rules every times they change.
- candiodari 8y ago
  What do you mean ? Ebay isn't even subject to normal sales tax in Australia yet (will happen this July). I mean it's changing, but these multinational companies have "bypassed" (ignored and gotten away with) normal sale laws for various reasons in so many ways.
  - eru 8y ago
    For a company a large part of being subject to laws is to hire lawyers to help you navigate them. Similar to physical laws and hiring engineers.
    - candiodari 8y ago
      Not in this case. 99% of what you find on ebay should be subject to import compliance rules, import tax, and sales tax for the place where the buyer lives. Same for Amazon. They are slowly giving in on 1 of those 3. Ebay and Amazon have always claimed that any transaction happening on their systems was akin to selling your grasmower to your neighbor. Because, as far as they knew, that was what's happening. They only introduce buyer and seller and have nothing to do with what happens next. Perhaps this was a semi-reasonable assumption before ebay got into accepting payments (and created several billion dollar companies with that act). For Amazon, I don't understand how this was ever accepted, but I'd bet a great deal of money Jeff Bezos somehow had assurances this interpretation was going to stick. It would have been very, very painful otherwise. I'm pretty sure no lawyer in 1995 (or now) would have advised you in writing that this is a reasonable approach to take.
  - nitwit005 8y ago
    It's true that they've bypassed some taxes in some locales, but they still have ended up with a giant list of rules about the sale of sports memorabilia, weapons, human bodyparts, and so on. Their help actually links to some international laws if you take a peek.
fouc 8y ago
The Internet transitioned from a place that felt very 'underground' in the 80s/90s to this advertiser/data driven retain-every-piece-of-user-data world. It has moved from something that was sort of decentralized to something that is very centralized, particularly in the hands of large companies, so now we need laws to constrain those companies.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kodablah 8y ago
  While that may be true in theory, in practice your last sentence should say "constrain all companies".

With gdpr, I came to realize that (for better or worse) the internet is transitioning from a place outside of the law to a place subject to the union of all laws.

nitwit005 8y ago

This sort of issue has cropped up since there started being commercial activity on the internet. If you try to start a company like ebay, you'll learn that means complying with every relevant local, national, and international law, for any item it's possible to sell, and updating the rules every times they change.

candiodari 8y ago
What do you mean ? Ebay isn't even subject to normal sales tax in Australia yet (will happen this July). I mean it's changing, but these multinational companies have "bypassed" (ignored and gotten away with) normal sale laws for various reasons in so many ways.
- eru 8y ago
  For a company a large part of being subject to laws is to hire lawyers to help you navigate them. Similar to physical laws and hiring engineers.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    Not in this case. 99% of what you find on ebay should be subject to import compliance rules, import tax, and sales tax for the place where the buyer lives. Same for Amazon. They are slowly giving in on 1 of those 3. Ebay and Amazon have always claimed that any transaction happening on their systems was akin to selling your grasmower to your neighbor. Because, as far as they knew, that was what's happening. They only introduce buyer and seller and have nothing to do with what happens next. Perhaps this was a semi-reasonable assumption before ebay got into accepting payments (and created several billion dollar companies with that act). For Amazon, I don't understand how this was ever accepted, but I'd bet a great deal of money Jeff Bezos somehow had assurances this interpretation was going to stick. It would have been very, very painful otherwise. I'm pretty sure no lawyer in 1995 (or now) would have advised you in writing that this is a reasonable approach to take.
- nitwit005 8y ago
  It's true that they've bypassed some taxes in some locales, but they still have ended up with a giant list of rules about the sale of sports memorabilia, weapons, human bodyparts, and so on. Their help actually links to some international laws if you take a peek.

fouc 8y ago

The Internet transitioned from a place that felt very 'underground' in the 80s/90s to this advertiser/data driven retain-every-piece-of-user-data world. It has moved from something that was sort of decentralized to something that is very centralized, particularly in the hands of large companies, so now we need laws to constrain those companies.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kodablah 8y ago
While that may be true in theory, in practice your last sentence should say "constrain all companies".