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The US trade restrictions are pretty far reaching. They block companies trading with countries and companies on entity list . It also bans US companies from dea
by mugsie 7y ago
The US trade restrictions are pretty far reaching. They block companies trading with countries and companies on entity list . It also bans US companies from dealing with companies that deal with countries and companies on the list.
So let us look at this:
1. GitHub becomes a Maltese company.
2. GitHub allows Iranian users to use all features
3. No US company could buy a GitHub Enterprise licence, or a private org.
The export restrictions don't let them notify people that the ban is coming - once they identify the users that are under the Export Restrictions, allowing them to download (aka export) their repos is a breach. They did as much as they could to allow them to keep their accounts at all (and this is only due to export restrictions having exclusions that cover "publicly available source").
GitHub did what they had to do to avoid being censured by the US Gov, and did it better than a lot of other tech companies recently, by leaving some level of access.
If you don't like the ban, and you are in the US, contact your elected representatives, and let them know - it is the only way it changes.
- miracle2k 7y agoThat's not true. There are already many non-US companies who are providing services to Iran in the same sense that Github is providing services, and those companies are also having US clients, proving that it can be done. Now, if a Maltese-Github were specifically designated by OFAC, then sure. But that's fairly unlikely.
- mugsie 7y ago> and those companies are also having US clients, proving that it can be done. Proving they haven't been caught, or may not even know about the US Dept of Commerce entity list.
- miracle2k 7y agoYes, in a way they haven't been caught. However, I want to point out that only US companies and persons are obligated to follow the sanctions. The reason why foreign companies might also follow them is because they don't want to end up being designated themselves. And this is not realistically going to happen unless you are a large multinational, bank, or doing business in sensitive sectors. Not actively blocking accounts identified as Iranian is not even the same as specifically trading with Iran. Like many smaller US-based web-services who also do not actively block, Github might well have gotten away with it as well, like the did the last couple of years. A Maltese-based company not blocking Iranian users might be designated, but unless they are, and it is pretty unlikely that they would be, they are doing nothing wrong under US law.
- Operyl 7y agoLike a certain sized company, Microsoft? And that's why we're in this situation, because frankly Microsoft is big enough to get slapped hard if they didn't comply.
- mugsie 7y agoThe real risk is to their US end users - if a US company is found to have commercial dealings with a company that has commercial dealings with Iran / N. Korea etc, the US company is in breach of the regulations. So in this case, if Bank of America had a company subscription with this hypothetical Maltese GitHub, BoA would be in breach, and could face sanctions (and this would probably cause the Maltese GH to get on the entity list as well)
- formercoder 7y agoSo is it just a question of risk tolerance? Are the laws clear or are companies like GitHub in a grey area with out precedence?
- mugsie 7y agoThe law is pretty clear, apart from what "commercial activity" is - GitHub has decided that it is accounts, but allows public repos, as they are explicitly exempted from some of the regulations.