11 ms·

This is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable futu

This is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable future for all technology companies, big and small: Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it.

Krasnol 6y ago
It's been over for quite some time. I'd explain more but this content is not available in your country.
est31 6y ago
I wouldn't really call it balkanization. Most services still operate across borders. Thanks to the internet I have contact to peers from all over the world. Some aspects of the internet will become more localized in the future, but generally inter border communication is still growing I think. And in fact on an EU level, rules are unified instead of balkanized. The digital single market project brought things like the GDPR or the abolishment of EU roaming charges, allowing you to travel around the EU without having to pay extra to your phone provider.
- Sargos 6y ago
  EU is still pretty balkanized when it comes to rules and is a headache for businesses especially when compared to the US.
  - oblio 6y ago
    They're trying to improve that but it impinges on member state sovereignty so it has to be delegated by them. It will take time.
  - kazen44 6y ago
    is this really the case though? it seems state law results in a ton of balkanization in the USA aswell. bigger barriers to doing business is probably cultural moreso then rules themselves.
  - hugi 6y ago
    The EU as a whole is much more consistent than individual countries, in fact, standardization is one of it's biggest strengths. I used to work for the national vehicle registry in my country. European vehicles were easily registered using standard European "Whole Vehicle Type Approvals". Each new European car came with a type approval number linked to it's info, no problem. American cars were a nightmare. Every new vehicle type came with it's own adventure of Googling or otherwise gathering information about the vehicle (number of doors, engine size etc...). Just no standards whatsoever. Horrible.
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    That is not true. Each state has different regulations, that's why the article says "moved to California" and not just "moved to the USA". It's possible that UK law is incompatible with other states. The USA has as many or more different regulations than the EU, as lobbying is very strong in America.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    Everyone remembers that "balkanization" refers to chopping up a nation into pieces (Balkans), right? So it's funny to see nations and multi-nations groups, who often sign treaties to "rationalize" rules, referred to as Balkanizing.
Sargos 6y ago
We seem to be nearing peak big tech which does conflict a bit with the nation state system but looking at technology today it does seem to be a temporary phenomenon with light at the end of the tunnel. Decentralized protocols that operate at the internet layer above the interference of nation states are being built and deployed today and while they are still in their infancy they have a clear path to providing a neutral, private, and reliable platform for people from around the world to work together, build together, and coordinate more easily without any big corporations or authoritarian governments corrupting the systems. Facebook/Twitter will be turned into a protocol within 10 years that anyone can use. Permissionless systems like the internet always win over centralized systems over time. Big tech will eventually be remembered the same way as we remember AOL. The future is bright and I'm fairly optimistic. I will enjoy living in a post-nation state driven world where humanity works together as a whole towards our common goals.
- cle 6y ago
  Could you elaborate on what those protocols are, how they help, what their weaknesses are, and what work remains? I'm really curious to learn more about this area. (Even just a link summarizing this would be awesome.)
  - parasubvert 6y ago
    The closest thing to this currently is Mastodon. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... There are a lot of open hard technology and business problems to make decentralized systems act as good as centralized systems. In short, The web architecture (HTTP, HTML, URI, MIME) inherently is decentralized for consumption but encourages centralized updates. Many years ago I wrote about these technical challenges and some ideas for solutions on “the Write Side of the Web”. https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...
    - bilbo0s 6y ago
vrperson 6y ago
It's the EU moving towards socialism.
hugi 6y ago
American companies can also just stop raping their users and adhere to the GDPR. Facebook seems to have no problem doing that where it's required.
FactolSarin 6y ago
For social networking companies like Facebook, is that bad? Shouldn't each county be able to enforce the things that are important to them (ie, outlawing Holocaust denial or allowing more nudity) rather than the entire world bowing to US mores and customs? Nothing really changes for the rest of the web. You're allowed to stand up your own webserver if you want.
Traster 6y ago
This is absolutely not what's happening here though. Facebook absolutely could keep the data within the EU, they just think it's more profitable to move UK user data to California. Now, it's a valid question as to why the UK would allow their constituents most personal data to be transferred out of their jurisdiction, but that's up to the UK government. Facebook exists in hundreds of jurisdictions, it's not rare for them to move user data out of a jurisdiction or intio a jurisdiction. It's almost unique that a govenrment encourages that by reducing regulation though.
- ku-man 6y ago
  The UK can't and won't fight US (in any matter)
- dheera 6y ago
  Would it be possible to store data in a cryptographically decentralized way to stop giving meaning to "where" a data is stored? Or maybe even just XOR it with a random key, put the result in the UK and put the key in the US. That way neither US nor UK has "personal data" -- independently each country just got a pile of white noise -- but the two countries together do have it, and they wouldn't be able to say who "really" has it.
  - 8note 6y ago
    The government can just hold the locals in prison until the decrypted data is provided
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - azalemeth 6y ago
      This is literally the law in the UK at the moment: https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_power/ https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_...
  - mfer 6y ago
jrochkind1 6y ago
Obviously the EU is a force against that, standardizing regulations across the whole EU. Facebook is changing how it relates to UK users because they have left the EU, of course. At the moment there aren't really any significant contradictory laws/regulations I am aware of. Facebook could just choose to treat everyone as if they were protected by EU laws, but they choose not to. They didn't have to change how they relate to UK users, but they legally could and they chose to.
- Fl8ixIDN 6y ago
  I don’t think this is correct. EU is pretty strong in favour of data localisation, UK is not. Moving customers to California doesn’t mean they are no longer under UK privacy rules, which of course are identical to EU privacy rules (for the foreseeable future, could change of course).
  - avianlyric 6y ago
    While I agree with the theory of what your saying, I'm not so sure it matches the reality. If it did, then why is Facebook moving the data? There would be no benefit. Also it's currently not clear that it's actually legal to move EU citizen data to the US, because the EU doesn't thing the US has strong enough privacy protections. I know that EU citizen data is in the US, and people keep coming up with clever legal structures to make it legal. But those structures keep getting ruled illegal by EU courts.
    - rock_hard 6y ago
      Because they don't own a datacenter in the UK and it probably doesn't make sense to open one for a country that small So the next best option is to move it to the US based data centers
  - M2Ys4U 6y ago
    It's not about localisation of data, it's about localisation of control of those data.
- 6y ago
ironmagma 6y ago
It’s more like de-globalization, which could very well be a good thing given the multitudes of problems that have arisen out of globalization.
- k_bx 6y ago
  Yep. Another scary trend is the recent move of Joe Rogan under exclusively Spotify platform, together with the fact that they've removed the Podcasting part from their app for a number of countries including my own (Ukraine). I really hope there's going to be some common-sense movement that'll put this absurd to an end.
  - pilsetnieks 6y ago
    That's like the complete opposite of what the comment you're replying to is talking about. They're arguing against globalization and you're against different rules for different countries. If you don't want globalization and think multiculturalism is the devil, it's kinda hypocritical to decry isolationism keeping away the global culture you do want.
    - k_bx 6y ago
      The comment states it's anti-globalization and then states "it could be a good thing", I didn't see that as "arguing against globalization", felt more like adding points to the discussion. I don't believe in utopia of full 100% globalization (one nation? one army?), but it definitely seems like a good default, and splitting the internet is kind of a worrysome trend.
- pilsetnieks 6y ago
  Living in a country where a global total war and several occupations of the most evil totalitarian regimes in history is still within living memory, and having been under an isolationist totalitarian power, comments like these make me shudder. Globalization has some problems. The benefits so far have massively outweighed them, especially if you take the long view. How about we try to fix those faults, instead of retreating and isolating?
yarg 6y ago
The problem is people expect all things to be free (beer). Naturally there's a cost to all things: developers need to eat; they need a work/life balance. Unless there's financial backing for a concept or project it will have a hard time getting off the ground. And unless there's some corporate interest in what's being worked on it simply won't be written. The best hope is open-source outreach not as benevolence, but as part of a large company's recruitment policy. One thing I'd like to see is Microsoft licensing Firefox's backend, and allowing the user to chose which engine to use. Chromium might have some major advantages, but user privacy (and ultimately experience) will never be a part of it - we need to stop relying on corporations that have intentions that are ultimately adversarial to the end user. Will that ever happen? Fuck no - Microsoft already bundles adware into their $300 operating system.
- benbristow 6y ago
  > Chromium might have some major advantages, but user privacy (and ultimately experience) will never be a part of it I take it by saying 'Firefox's Backend' you're talking about Gecko, and with Chromium, Blink (fork of Webkit). They’re just browser engines. What's the difference in terms of privacy? Nothing. They just render web pages. No way they’d have two engines switchable, would make it a headache for developers and testers.
- laumars 6y ago
  > The problem is people expect all things to be free (beer). That may be true, but few people ask the follow up question “why do people expect things to be free?” The answer is usually because companies like Google had pulled a bait-and-switch of sorts where they offered a service for free long before they made a commercial business of people’s profiles. They set this expectation of free themselves. And you can’t really blame a consumer for wanting to bag a bargain.
  - annadane 6y ago
    Yeah, this is the answer. Absolutely correct
  - XorNot 6y ago
ardy42 6y ago
> This is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable future for all technology companies, big and small: Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it. That's better than a race to the bottom, e.g. > Pick the jurisdiction(s) are most biased towards your selfish interest for your shareholders, tell the rest of the world to quit whining and deal with it. They either they can play ball or opt of of modern society.
not2b 6y ago
For business purposes the EU is one jurisdiction, so if a company can find a set of practices that complies both with the EU rules and the US rules, and doesn't violate anything Canada, Japan, the UK, or South Korea requires, they can serve about a billion people. They can probably live with that.
tinus_hn 6y ago
If you target EU users, you have to follow EU rules. It doesn’t matter where your servers are. The move is because the UK is leaving the EU so the EU rules no longer apply to UK users.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
s/internet/commercial &/
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
ok, but this is about moving users' data not employees or servers? I'm not following the leap in logic that seems to be happening to connect these things here.
yurlungur 6y ago
Facebook can absolutely operate in each country following their laws. They just have to change their own company structure and data policies. For example, they may need to physically separate EU data from US data completely and have separate employees with access to each. I don't see any reason they cannot do that. It will hurt their bottom line for sure, but it's completely reasonable imo.
adventured 6y ago
> but it's soon over. It's not soon over. It has been over for many years now.
bumblebritches5 6y ago
That's what the EU gets for trying to meddle in the affairs of companies based in America.
Voloskaya 6y ago
> Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it. How does that help when you have countries like the US that enforce extra-territorial laws?
HenryBemis 6y ago
This should also a taster for people living in the UK (including me) on what will happen to our rights under a sovereign state after an apocalyptic Brexit. Not politicising this conversation, just seing what is to come outside of the EU and with the struggle that is coming head on. First they gave our FB data to the americans, next they went for our NHS! :) ps1: I don't use FB ps2: I got nothing against the americans (apart from their eating habits and love for guns) ps3: there is a post-Brexit feast coming, and it won't be the People enjoying the main course(s).
- marcosscriven 6y ago
  This is just so true, and so depressing. We need to fight for standards internally now.
flexie 6y ago
Facebook is in the business of selling advertisement. When they sell advertisement in the EU, they must follow EU legislation, including GDPR. Mercedes Benz is in the business of selling cars. When they sell cars in the US, they must follow US legislation. Nothing new in that. Different jurisdictions have always had different legislation, both online and offline. For a while, when the internet corporations were small, and most business and life interests were still offline, internet companies flew under the radar. The last 10-15 years, though, larger jurisdictions have very much asserted their influence online. Whereas some Brits don't care about privacy protection, many do. The British likely already have or will get their own privacy laws after Brexit, but it remains to be seen whether large corporations like facebook will respect those. When Britain was inside the EU, facebook risked billion euro fines. Outside of the EU, the risk of ignoring the rules is smaller. The latest move from facebook shows that they believe British users are now fair game. They can prey on them the same way they prey on Californian users.

Krasnol 6y ago

It's been over for quite some time. I'd explain more but this content is not available in your country.

est31 6y ago

I wouldn't really call it balkanization. Most services still operate across borders. Thanks to the internet I have contact to peers from all over the world. Some aspects of the internet will become more localized in the future, but generally inter border communication is still growing I think. And in fact on an EU level, rules are unified instead of balkanized. The digital single market project brought things like the GDPR or the abolishment of EU roaming charges, allowing you to travel around the EU without having to pay extra to your phone provider.

Sargos 6y ago
EU is still pretty balkanized when it comes to rules and is a headache for businesses especially when compared to the US.
- oblio 6y ago
  They're trying to improve that but it impinges on member state sovereignty so it has to be delegated by them. It will take time.
- kazen44 6y ago
  is this really the case though? it seems state law results in a ton of balkanization in the USA aswell. bigger barriers to doing business is probably cultural moreso then rules themselves.
- hugi 6y ago
  The EU as a whole is much more consistent than individual countries, in fact, standardization is one of it's biggest strengths. I used to work for the national vehicle registry in my country. European vehicles were easily registered using standard European "Whole Vehicle Type Approvals". Each new European car came with a type approval number linked to it's info, no problem. American cars were a nightmare. Every new vehicle type came with it's own adventure of Googling or otherwise gathering information about the vehicle (number of doors, engine size etc...). Just no standards whatsoever. Horrible.
- Hokusai 6y ago
  That is not true. Each state has different regulations, that's why the article says "moved to California" and not just "moved to the USA". It's possible that UK law is incompatible with other states. The USA has as many or more different regulations than the EU, as lobbying is very strong in America.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Everyone remembers that "balkanization" refers to chopping up a nation into pieces (Balkans), right? So it's funny to see nations and multi-nations groups, who often sign treaties to "rationalize" rules, referred to as Balkanizing.

Sargos 6y ago

We seem to be nearing peak big tech which does conflict a bit with the nation state system but looking at technology today it does seem to be a temporary phenomenon with light at the end of the tunnel. Decentralized protocols that operate at the internet layer above the interference of nation states are being built and deployed today and while they are still in their infancy they have a clear path to providing a neutral, private, and reliable platform for people from around the world to work together, build together, and coordinate more easily without any big corporations or authoritarian governments corrupting the systems. Facebook/Twitter will be turned into a protocol within 10 years that anyone can use. Permissionless systems like the internet always win over centralized systems over time. Big tech will eventually be remembered the same way as we remember AOL. The future is bright and I'm fairly optimistic. I will enjoy living in a post-nation state driven world where humanity works together as a whole towards our common goals.

cle 6y ago
Could you elaborate on what those protocols are, how they help, what their weaknesses are, and what work remains? I'm really curious to learn more about this area. (Even just a link summarizing this would be awesome.)
- parasubvert 6y ago
  The closest thing to this currently is Mastodon. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentralized-social-network-gab-migration-fediverse-app-blocking https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/12/20691957/mastodon-decentr... There are a lot of open hard technology and business problems to make decentralized systems act as good as centralized systems. In short, The web architecture (HTTP, HTML, URI, MIME) inherently is decentralized for consumption but encourages centralized updates. Many years ago I wrote about these technical challenges and some ideas for solutions on “the Write Side of the Web”. https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-side-of-the-web-7575407?from_m_app=ios https://www.slideshare.net/StuC/ill-see-you-on-the-write-sid...
  - bilbo0s 6y ago

vrperson 6y ago

It's the EU moving towards socialism.

hugi 6y ago

American companies can also just stop raping their users and adhere to the GDPR. Facebook seems to have no problem doing that where it's required.

FactolSarin 6y ago

For social networking companies like Facebook, is that bad? Shouldn't each county be able to enforce the things that are important to them (ie, outlawing Holocaust denial or allowing more nudity) rather than the entire world bowing to US mores and customs? Nothing really changes for the rest of the web. You're allowed to stand up your own webserver if you want.

Traster 6y ago

This is absolutely not what's happening here though. Facebook absolutely could keep the data within the EU, they just think it's more profitable to move UK user data to California. Now, it's a valid question as to why the UK would allow their constituents most personal data to be transferred out of their jurisdiction, but that's up to the UK government. Facebook exists in hundreds of jurisdictions, it's not rare for them to move user data out of a jurisdiction or intio a jurisdiction. It's almost unique that a govenrment encourages that by reducing regulation though.

ku-man 6y ago
The UK can't and won't fight US (in any matter)
dheera 6y ago
Would it be possible to store data in a cryptographically decentralized way to stop giving meaning to "where" a data is stored? Or maybe even just XOR it with a random key, put the result in the UK and put the key in the US. That way neither US nor UK has "personal data" -- independently each country just got a pile of white noise -- but the two countries together do have it, and they wouldn't be able to say who "really" has it.
- 8note 6y ago
  The government can just hold the locals in prison until the decrypted data is provided
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - azalemeth 6y ago
    This is literally the law in the UK at the moment: https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_power/ https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/03/ripa-decryption_keys_...
- mfer 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

Obviously the EU is a force against that, standardizing regulations across the whole EU. Facebook is changing how it relates to UK users because they have left the EU, of course. At the moment there aren't really any significant contradictory laws/regulations I am aware of. Facebook could just choose to treat everyone as if they were protected by EU laws, but they choose not to. They didn't have to change how they relate to UK users, but they legally could and they chose to.

Fl8ixIDN 6y ago
I don’t think this is correct. EU is pretty strong in favour of data localisation, UK is not. Moving customers to California doesn’t mean they are no longer under UK privacy rules, which of course are identical to EU privacy rules (for the foreseeable future, could change of course).
- avianlyric 6y ago
  While I agree with the theory of what your saying, I'm not so sure it matches the reality. If it did, then why is Facebook moving the data? There would be no benefit. Also it's currently not clear that it's actually legal to move EU citizen data to the US, because the EU doesn't thing the US has strong enough privacy protections. I know that EU citizen data is in the US, and people keep coming up with clever legal structures to make it legal. But those structures keep getting ruled illegal by EU courts.
  - rock_hard 6y ago
    Because they don't own a datacenter in the UK and it probably doesn't make sense to open one for a country that small So the next best option is to move it to the US based data centers
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  It's not about localisation of data, it's about localisation of control of those data.
6y ago

ironmagma 6y ago

It’s more like de-globalization, which could very well be a good thing given the multitudes of problems that have arisen out of globalization.

k_bx 6y ago
Yep. Another scary trend is the recent move of Joe Rogan under exclusively Spotify platform, together with the fact that they've removed the Podcasting part from their app for a number of countries including my own (Ukraine). I really hope there's going to be some common-sense movement that'll put this absurd to an end.
- pilsetnieks 6y ago
  That's like the complete opposite of what the comment you're replying to is talking about. They're arguing against globalization and you're against different rules for different countries. If you don't want globalization and think multiculturalism is the devil, it's kinda hypocritical to decry isolationism keeping away the global culture you do want.
  - k_bx 6y ago
    The comment states it's anti-globalization and then states "it could be a good thing", I didn't see that as "arguing against globalization", felt more like adding points to the discussion. I don't believe in utopia of full 100% globalization (one nation? one army?), but it definitely seems like a good default, and splitting the internet is kind of a worrysome trend.
pilsetnieks 6y ago
Living in a country where a global total war and several occupations of the most evil totalitarian regimes in history is still within living memory, and having been under an isolationist totalitarian power, comments like these make me shudder. Globalization has some problems. The benefits so far have massively outweighed them, especially if you take the long view. How about we try to fix those faults, instead of retreating and isolating?

yarg 6y ago

The problem is people expect all things to be free (beer). Naturally there's a cost to all things: developers need to eat; they need a work/life balance. Unless there's financial backing for a concept or project it will have a hard time getting off the ground. And unless there's some corporate interest in what's being worked on it simply won't be written. The best hope is open-source outreach not as benevolence, but as part of a large company's recruitment policy. One thing I'd like to see is Microsoft licensing Firefox's backend, and allowing the user to chose which engine to use. Chromium might have some major advantages, but user privacy (and ultimately experience) will never be a part of it - we need to stop relying on corporations that have intentions that are ultimately adversarial to the end user. Will that ever happen? Fuck no - Microsoft already bundles adware into their $300 operating system.

benbristow 6y ago
> Chromium might have some major advantages, but user privacy (and ultimately experience) will never be a part of it I take it by saying 'Firefox's Backend' you're talking about Gecko, and with Chromium, Blink (fork of Webkit). They’re just browser engines. What's the difference in terms of privacy? Nothing. They just render web pages. No way they’d have two engines switchable, would make it a headache for developers and testers.
laumars 6y ago
> The problem is people expect all things to be free (beer). That may be true, but few people ask the follow up question “why do people expect things to be free?” The answer is usually because companies like Google had pulled a bait-and-switch of sorts where they offered a service for free long before they made a commercial business of people’s profiles. They set this expectation of free themselves. And you can’t really blame a consumer for wanting to bag a bargain.
- annadane 6y ago
  Yeah, this is the answer. Absolutely correct
- XorNot 6y ago

ardy42 6y ago

> This is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable future for all technology companies, big and small: Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it. That's better than a race to the bottom, e.g. > Pick the jurisdiction(s) are most biased towards your selfish interest for your shareholders, tell the rest of the world to quit whining and deal with it. They either they can play ball or opt of of modern society.

not2b 6y ago

For business purposes the EU is one jurisdiction, so if a company can find a set of practices that complies both with the EU rules and the US rules, and doesn't violate anything Canada, Japan, the UK, or South Korea requires, they can serve about a billion people. They can probably live with that.

tinus_hn 6y ago

If you target EU users, you have to follow EU rules. It doesn’t matter where your servers are. The move is because the UK is leaving the EU so the EU rules no longer apply to UK users.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

s/internet/commercial &/

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

ok, but this is about moving users' data not employees or servers? I'm not following the leap in logic that seems to be happening to connect these things here.

yurlungur 6y ago

Facebook can absolutely operate in each country following their laws. They just have to change their own company structure and data policies. For example, they may need to physically separate EU data from US data completely and have separate employees with access to each. I don't see any reason they cannot do that. It will hurt their bottom line for sure, but it's completely reasonable imo.

adventured 6y ago

> but it's soon over. It's not soon over. It has been over for many years now.

bumblebritches5 6y ago

That's what the EU gets for trying to meddle in the affairs of companies based in America.

Voloskaya 6y ago

> Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it. How does that help when you have countries like the US that enforce extra-territorial laws?

HenryBemis 6y ago

This should also a taster for people living in the UK (including me) on what will happen to our rights under a sovereign state after an apocalyptic Brexit. Not politicising this conversation, just seing what is to come outside of the EU and with the struggle that is coming head on. First they gave our FB data to the americans, next they went for our NHS! :) ps1: I don't use FB ps2: I got nothing against the americans (apart from their eating habits and love for guns) ps3: there is a post-Brexit feast coming, and it won't be the People enjoying the main course(s).

marcosscriven 6y ago
This is just so true, and so depressing. We need to fight for standards internally now.

flexie 6y ago

Facebook is in the business of selling advertisement. When they sell advertisement in the EU, they must follow EU legislation, including GDPR. Mercedes Benz is in the business of selling cars. When they sell cars in the US, they must follow US legislation. Nothing new in that. Different jurisdictions have always had different legislation, both online and offline. For a while, when the internet corporations were small, and most business and life interests were still offline, internet companies flew under the radar. The last 10-15 years, though, larger jurisdictions have very much asserted their influence online. Whereas some Brits don't care about privacy protection, many do. The British likely already have or will get their own privacy laws after Brexit, but it remains to be seen whether large corporations like facebook will respect those. When Britain was inside the EU, facebook risked billion euro fines. Outside of the EU, the risk of ignoring the rules is smaller. The latest move from facebook shows that they believe British users are now fair game. They can prey on them the same way they prey on Californian users.