5 ms·

Wouldn't every US based company be under the same laws in regards to sanctions?

by cobookman 8y ago

zzzcpan 8y ago
Laws don't dictate how companies behave.
- stingraycharles 8y ago
  Actually they do most of the time, but when there is room for interpretation, different companies with different incentives choose to interpret them in different ways.
smnrchrds 8y ago
The legal requirements are lower. They are not allowed to sell hosting to persons from sanctioned countries for example, and all companies follow that rule. But interpreting the law to mean you cannot show hosted sites to visitors from those countries (like Google) or that you cannot allow downloads of free software from your website (like Oracle JRE) is an over-reaction only some companies do. The real reason is that since they cannot extract money from these countries because of the sanctions, they don't care about their existence, or how much trouble people from those countries would face due to their decisions.
- miracle2k 8y ago
  I'm not sure if that is the reason. It is rather puzzling. A lot of Google Products work just fine, say Google Mail. On the other hand, the whole Google developers site is inaccessible (including everything from Android, to their Chrome/HTML5 information site etc). US law clearly requires no such action on their part. The don't earn money by letting packets from Iran route to their network; The people who could be losing money are their customers who's content is restricted.
- otterlicious 8y ago
  > cannot allow downloads of free software from your website (like Oracle JRE) The Oracle JRE contains strong cryptography which is illegal to export to certain sanctioned countries. It being free doesn't change anything about that. That one is actually legitimate.
  - smnrchrds 8y ago
    It's not just JRE. You cannot download any software from Oracle, period. Plus, is it really illegal to export cryptography software? If that is the case, why are Java downloads the only ones restricted? Shouldn't, for example, Visual Studio and .Net also be blocked? I don't think it is for any valid legal reason. Just that they cannot make money from these countries, so they can't be bothered to let them access their download servers.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      Yes[1], export is controlled. Oracle Java contains an implementation of cryptographic primitives, similar in scope and purpose to OpenSSL. Microsoft does not sell products to any sanctioned countries[2]. Note that [1] has a giant loophole for open source software, which requires notice but not permission - so builds of .NET Core, OpenJDK, OpenSSL itself, and so on, can be exported no problem. Also, programs built WITH the primitives are "mass market", so are exemptable that way. [1]: https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption [2]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/exporting/faq.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/exporting/faq.aspx
  - vbezhenar 8y ago
    Last time I checked, you couldn't even use strong cryptography in Java without tiny additional download. So forbidding JRE downloading seems a bit excessive.
    - freeone3000 8y ago
      As of 8, they integrated that portion into main tree because it was ridiculous and a bit of a pain for the 98% of the world who wasn't under US sanction to have to do that. It's "legitimate" again - so all the Iranians that want Java have to download it from the source tree.
- Adverblessly 8y ago
  > The real reason is that since they cannot extract money from these countries because of the sanctions, they don't care about their existence, or how much trouble people from those countries would face due to their decisions. That doesn't make sense to me, letting people from those countries access resources on GCP does make Google money, since presumably Google will be paid by the website owner (which doesn't live in any of these countries) for the extra bandwidth/resources used by their website.
  - dane-pgp 8y ago
    Ironically you might have inadvertently provided the answer to your own question. If Google make money from a website owner (in the EU, for example), and that website owner makes money (using their website) from someone in a restricted country, then an imaginative prosecutor could argue that Google are guilty of knowingly facilitating some sort of "money laundering", from the restricted country to Google themselves. This is not much more far-fetched than the idea that a site like The Pirate Bay is guilty of "conspiring" with its users to infringe copyright.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      This is not much more far-fetched than the idea that a site like The Pirate Bay is guilty of "conspiring" with its users to infringe copyright. "We're a piracy site, run by pirates, and we love piracy and pirates because of what piratical pirates we are, so we built a piracy site specially to cater to pirates and piracy! Also, we do not condone it in the slightest and built it for totally legitimate purposes, we promise!" Yeah, gonna go with "no" on that one. It does not take an "imaginative" prosecutor to find the incredibly unbelievably subtle and deeply-hidden links between the Pirate Bay and its intended purpose.
      - dane-pgp 8y ago
        I see what you're saying, and perhaps The Pirate Bay wasn't the best example I could have picked. Remember that the site IsoHunt was taken down as a result of a lawsuit, despite the name of the site literally suggesting it was a search engine for finding disk images of Linux distros. They also effectively complied with the DMCA, despite being based in Canada where the DMCA didn't apply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices Of course the "intent" of the accused is something that a legal process can consider, but I've always been unimpressed with the argument of "It's right in the name!" when considering whether to censor The Pirate Bay. If they had changed their name to the "I Rate Bay", and branded themselves as a site for people to discuss and rate the quality of certain hex strings (magnet links), then, by the "It's right in the name!" argument, the site should be perfectly legal. There were a number of factors which lead to the legal judgements against The Pirate Bay (across the multiple jurisdictions where the site is censored), but if the legality of a site were to come down to a single letter in its domain name, and not based at all on the actual functionality of the site, then I think that would put us in a very odd place in terms of freedom of speech and the enforceability of the law. We're back to the "wine bricks" of the Prohibition era, with their "warning" not to leave the contents dissolved in a gallon of water in the cool cupboard for 21 days, to prevent "accidentally" creating wine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ingenious-brick-helped-wine-industry-survive-prohibition-180956412/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ingenious-brick-he...

Wouldn't every US based company be under the same laws in regards to sanctions?

zzzcpan 8y ago

Laws don't dictate how companies behave.

stingraycharles 8y ago
Actually they do most of the time, but when there is room for interpretation, different companies with different incentives choose to interpret them in different ways.

smnrchrds 8y ago

The legal requirements are lower. They are not allowed to sell hosting to persons from sanctioned countries for example, and all companies follow that rule. But interpreting the law to mean you cannot show hosted sites to visitors from those countries (like Google) or that you cannot allow downloads of free software from your website (like Oracle JRE) is an over-reaction only some companies do. The real reason is that since they cannot extract money from these countries because of the sanctions, they don't care about their existence, or how much trouble people from those countries would face due to their decisions.

miracle2k 8y ago
I'm not sure if that is the reason. It is rather puzzling. A lot of Google Products work just fine, say Google Mail. On the other hand, the whole Google developers site is inaccessible (including everything from Android, to their Chrome/HTML5 information site etc). US law clearly requires no such action on their part. The don't earn money by letting packets from Iran route to their network; The people who could be losing money are their customers who's content is restricted.
otterlicious 8y ago
> cannot allow downloads of free software from your website (like Oracle JRE) The Oracle JRE contains strong cryptography which is illegal to export to certain sanctioned countries. It being free doesn't change anything about that. That one is actually legitimate.
- smnrchrds 8y ago
  It's not just JRE. You cannot download any software from Oracle, period. Plus, is it really illegal to export cryptography software? If that is the case, why are Java downloads the only ones restricted? Shouldn't, for example, Visual Studio and .Net also be blocked? I don't think it is for any valid legal reason. Just that they cannot make money from these countries, so they can't be bothered to let them access their download servers.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    Yes[1], export is controlled. Oracle Java contains an implementation of cryptographic primitives, similar in scope and purpose to OpenSSL. Microsoft does not sell products to any sanctioned countries[2]. Note that [1] has a giant loophole for open source software, which requires notice but not permission - so builds of .NET Core, OpenJDK, OpenSSL itself, and so on, can be exported no problem. Also, programs built WITH the primitives are "mass market", so are exemptable that way. [1]: https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/policy-guidance/encryption [2]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/exporting/faq.aspx https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/exporting/faq.aspx
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Last time I checked, you couldn't even use strong cryptography in Java without tiny additional download. So forbidding JRE downloading seems a bit excessive.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    As of 8, they integrated that portion into main tree because it was ridiculous and a bit of a pain for the 98% of the world who wasn't under US sanction to have to do that. It's "legitimate" again - so all the Iranians that want Java have to download it from the source tree.
Adverblessly 8y ago
> The real reason is that since they cannot extract money from these countries because of the sanctions, they don't care about their existence, or how much trouble people from those countries would face due to their decisions. That doesn't make sense to me, letting people from those countries access resources on GCP does make Google money, since presumably Google will be paid by the website owner (which doesn't live in any of these countries) for the extra bandwidth/resources used by their website.
- dane-pgp 8y ago
  Ironically you might have inadvertently provided the answer to your own question. If Google make money from a website owner (in the EU, for example), and that website owner makes money (using their website) from someone in a restricted country, then an imaginative prosecutor could argue that Google are guilty of knowingly facilitating some sort of "money laundering", from the restricted country to Google themselves. This is not much more far-fetched than the idea that a site like The Pirate Bay is guilty of "conspiring" with its users to infringe copyright.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    This is not much more far-fetched than the idea that a site like The Pirate Bay is guilty of "conspiring" with its users to infringe copyright. "We're a piracy site, run by pirates, and we love piracy and pirates because of what piratical pirates we are, so we built a piracy site specially to cater to pirates and piracy! Also, we do not condone it in the slightest and built it for totally legitimate purposes, we promise!" Yeah, gonna go with "no" on that one. It does not take an "imaginative" prosecutor to find the incredibly unbelievably subtle and deeply-hidden links between the Pirate Bay and its intended purpose.
    - dane-pgp 8y ago
      I see what you're saying, and perhaps The Pirate Bay wasn't the best example I could have picked. Remember that the site IsoHunt was taken down as a result of a lawsuit, despite the name of the site literally suggesting it was a search engine for finding disk images of Linux distros. They also effectively complied with the DMCA, despite being based in Canada where the DMCA didn't apply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsoHunt#DMCA_takedown_notices Of course the "intent" of the accused is something that a legal process can consider, but I've always been unimpressed with the argument of "It's right in the name!" when considering whether to censor The Pirate Bay. If they had changed their name to the "I Rate Bay", and branded themselves as a site for people to discuss and rate the quality of certain hex strings (magnet links), then, by the "It's right in the name!" argument, the site should be perfectly legal. There were a number of factors which lead to the legal judgements against The Pirate Bay (across the multiple jurisdictions where the site is censored), but if the legality of a site were to come down to a single letter in its domain name, and not based at all on the actual functionality of the site, then I think that would put us in a very odd place in terms of freedom of speech and the enforceability of the law. We're back to the "wine bricks" of the Prohibition era, with their "warning" not to leave the contents dissolved in a gallon of water in the cool cupboard for 21 days, to prevent "accidentally" creating wine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ingenious-brick-helped-wine-industry-survive-prohibition-180956412/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ingenious-brick-he...