> What does it mean to "operate in" a country, when talking about the Internet? They don't really operate the product in the UK. I have to disagree with this s

> What does it mean to "operate in" a country, when talking about the Internet? They don't really operate the product in the UK. I have to disagree with this statement. I would agree with it, if people from the U.K. were using FB without FB explicitly catering for a U.K. audience, or collecting enough information to fairly accurately identify a U.K. audience. But both of those statements are false. 1. FB advertises on TV and in meatspace in the U.K. I don’t understand how you could not consider that operating in the U.K. Even if the physical servers our elsewhere. 2. We know that FB collect enough data to identify people from the U.K. They undoubtedly segment and sell adverts based on the location of users. So they’re more than capable to identifying U.K. users for legal reasons. > even though no money changes hands? I don’t think this is the standard for determining if someone is operating in a country. I would say the bar is slightly fuzzier, are you offering a simple method for a population to use your product, and targeting them in some manner. The targeting could be anything from explicitly advertising to them, to simply offering cheap and simple shipping to their country. Of people are signing up without you targeting them, then I would happily accept you don’t really have an obligation to follow their local laws. As I mentioned above, I think FB more than qualifies as operating in the U.K. and no doubt if you asked them, they to would agree that they operate in the U.K.