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That's one of the biggest things that lawmakers here couldn't seem to understand - tech companies have high mobility across borders. Even if a law has no teeth,

by jjcm 8y ago

That's one of the biggest things that lawmakers here couldn't seem to understand - tech companies have high mobility across borders. Even if a law has no teeth, why would Microsoft store data in Australia when the next country over can still serve data for the region? It just creates too much risk, from a privacy and PR standpoint. Startups will be more adverse to founding in Australia as well. It just creates a black mark on their record from the start. These data laws were very poorly planned by the Australian Government.

magduf 8y ago
Australia's lawmakers just need to amend the law so that it doesn't matter where the data is stored, as long as the company operates within their nation's borders. I'd like to see how the Australian government handles things when MS cancels all their Windows and Office licenses.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  What? Microsoft intentionally reducing their licence revenue?
  - berbec 8y ago
    Oh, they won't issue refunds. Just canceling licenses.
mc32 8y ago
They can do what Russia does and some of Europe do and require AU citizen data remain in AU.
- chupasaurus 8y ago
  Heard of FAANG minus Amazon (they don't work here) datacenters in Russia? There is none, as well as data storages here. Everyone gives 0f about this law, only huge targets have fines of ~$1M yearly.
  - otabdeveloper1 8y ago
    The law is about personal data, not about any old 'data storage'.
  - coolspot 8y ago
    Apple - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/apple-filing-details-user-data-the-company-is-storing-in-russia https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/apple-fil... Twitter - https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/twitter-is-reviewing-whether-to-store-some-user-data-in-russia/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/twitter-is-reviewing-wheth... Netflix doesn't operate in Russia. Google, Facebook, Twitter will eventually comply, as they do in China.
mcbain 8y ago
Some customers demand to know which jurisdiction their data is stored in, so it isn't as simple as "move it somewhere friendlier". You have control if you are running your own services on top of the main cloud providers, but if it is in O365 or GMail/GApps it used to be a different story, and this precluded their use by a bunch of .au organisations (universities, Govt departments) early on. So now some of these orgs that need to have data stored in .au for privacy reasons (among other reasons) are subject to these new badly formed laws in some kind of twisted catch-22.
yingw787 8y ago
I think that "high mobility across borders" is an assumption based on existing trade regulations. From recent developments it's clear countries can and do force companies to do things they don't want, and companies will do it because they can't or won't lose access to consumers in those markets. For example, Apple has begun storing Russian user data in Russia in compliance with Russian data storage laws (https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/01/apple-will-reportedly-store-russian-user-data-locally-possibly-decrypt-on-request/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/01/apple-will-reportedly-sto...), and Google is still working on its censored search engine in China. Of course, if nobody else does this, this means you may have older software on your systems or less priority in development roadmaps or whatever as your country is an edge case, and you can probably say goodbye to market leadership and have to coast on your existing advantages. However, if everybody begins to cartelize the Internet, you may not lose as much in comparison to everybody else, since you will no longer be the edge case but the common case, and it will be a bad time to start a company or store data anywhere you go at any time. Companies will simply have to live with the geopolitical reality. In this sense, the Internet devolves into a suboptimal Nash equilibrium, where everybody has data localization laws and nobody will want to loosen up because storing your citizen's information on servers in another country will leave your citizens vulnerable. If this happens, the large homogeneous markets with a single language, government, and economy (U.S/China) may have an advantage. This is sad, and I hope they reverse this law. An open Internet is good for economic and societal dynamism (and as a civilization is tautological to organized chaos, slowing that down weakens said civilization), and I wouldn't know how to work backwards to where the Internet should be. In the meantime, maybe this will lift some open source, decentralized communications means past some threshold of viability.
- lsiebert 8y ago
  The Trump Administration also passed a law that affects companies that store data overseas so that they can get that data, after big companies fought such subpoenas.
  - coolspot 8y ago
    The case[0] started on Obama watch though. What happens now is that after many appeals it goes to the supreme court. [0] - https://mashable.com/2014/06/12/microsoft-u-s-government-data-foreign-servers/#qYJesfHDogqd https://mashable.com/2014/06/12/microsoft-u-s-government-dat...
talaketu 8y ago
Technologists need to understand that governments do not form policies, legislate and operate in isolation. There is cooperation. Tax and trade treaties are another example. See [1] for commentary about the international agenda in this case. [1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/disruptors-disrupted-australia-new-encryption-law https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/disruptors-dis...
incompatible 8y ago
My understanding of the law is that the Australian government can demand assistance from Microsoft as long as Microsoft provides services to Australians. The location of the data is actually irrelevant.
brokenmachine 8y ago
They clearly don't give a fuck about the tech industry. They sell coal and talk about stopping boats, throwing the word "pedophile" in there every now and then. That's what passes for leadership these days.

by jjcm 8y ago

magduf 8y ago

Australia's lawmakers just need to amend the law so that it doesn't matter where the data is stored, as long as the company operates within their nation's borders. I'd like to see how the Australian government handles things when MS cancels all their Windows and Office licenses.

quickthrower2 8y ago
What? Microsoft intentionally reducing their licence revenue?
- berbec 8y ago
  Oh, they won't issue refunds. Just canceling licenses.

mc32 8y ago

They can do what Russia does and some of Europe do and require AU citizen data remain in AU.

chupasaurus 8y ago
Heard of FAANG minus Amazon (they don't work here) datacenters in Russia? There is none, as well as data storages here. Everyone gives 0f about this law, only huge targets have fines of ~$1M yearly.
- otabdeveloper1 8y ago
  The law is about personal data, not about any old 'data storage'.
- coolspot 8y ago
  Apple - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/apple-filing-details-user-data-the-company-is-storing-in-russia https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-04/apple-fil... Twitter - https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/twitter-is-reviewing-whether-to-store-some-user-data-in-russia/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/twitter-is-reviewing-wheth... Netflix doesn't operate in Russia. Google, Facebook, Twitter will eventually comply, as they do in China.

mcbain 8y ago

Some customers demand to know which jurisdiction their data is stored in, so it isn't as simple as "move it somewhere friendlier". You have control if you are running your own services on top of the main cloud providers, but if it is in O365 or GMail/GApps it used to be a different story, and this precluded their use by a bunch of .au organisations (universities, Govt departments) early on. So now some of these orgs that need to have data stored in .au for privacy reasons (among other reasons) are subject to these new badly formed laws in some kind of twisted catch-22.

yingw787 8y ago

I think that "high mobility across borders" is an assumption based on existing trade regulations. From recent developments it's clear countries can and do force companies to do things they don't want, and companies will do it because they can't or won't lose access to consumers in those markets. For example, Apple has begun storing Russian user data in Russia in compliance with Russian data storage laws (https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/01/apple-will-reportedly-store-russian-user-data-locally-possibly-decrypt-on-request/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/01/apple-will-reportedly-sto...), and Google is still working on its censored search engine in China. Of course, if nobody else does this, this means you may have older software on your systems or less priority in development roadmaps or whatever as your country is an edge case, and you can probably say goodbye to market leadership and have to coast on your existing advantages. However, if everybody begins to cartelize the Internet, you may not lose as much in comparison to everybody else, since you will no longer be the edge case but the common case, and it will be a bad time to start a company or store data anywhere you go at any time. Companies will simply have to live with the geopolitical reality. In this sense, the Internet devolves into a suboptimal Nash equilibrium, where everybody has data localization laws and nobody will want to loosen up because storing your citizen's information on servers in another country will leave your citizens vulnerable. If this happens, the large homogeneous markets with a single language, government, and economy (U.S/China) may have an advantage. This is sad, and I hope they reverse this law. An open Internet is good for economic and societal dynamism (and as a civilization is tautological to organized chaos, slowing that down weakens said civilization), and I wouldn't know how to work backwards to where the Internet should be. In the meantime, maybe this will lift some open source, decentralized communications means past some threshold of viability.

lsiebert 8y ago
The Trump Administration also passed a law that affects companies that store data overseas so that they can get that data, after big companies fought such subpoenas.
- coolspot 8y ago
  The case[0] started on Obama watch though. What happens now is that after many appeals it goes to the supreme court. [0] - https://mashable.com/2014/06/12/microsoft-u-s-government-data-foreign-servers/#qYJesfHDogqd https://mashable.com/2014/06/12/microsoft-u-s-government-dat...

talaketu 8y ago

Technologists need to understand that governments do not form policies, legislate and operate in isolation. There is cooperation. Tax and trade treaties are another example. See [1] for commentary about the international agenda in this case. [1] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/disruptors-disrupted-australia-new-encryption-law https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/disruptors-dis...

incompatible 8y ago

My understanding of the law is that the Australian government can demand assistance from Microsoft as long as Microsoft provides services to Australians. The location of the data is actually irrelevant.

brokenmachine 8y ago

They clearly don't give a fuck about the tech industry. They sell coal and talk about stopping boats, throwing the word "pedophile" in there every now and then. That's what passes for leadership these days.