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Honest question: Why is Facebook governed, at least in part, by European law? The reason I ask is that the United States has a lot of trouble enforcing its copy

by Permit 15y ago

Honest question: Why is Facebook governed, at least in part, by European law? The reason I ask is that the United States has a lot of trouble enforcing its copyright laws abroad (which is good in my opinion), but Facebook and Google seem to bend to European laws regarding privacy and transparency.

ruethewhirled 15y ago
I think its to do with Irish tax laws being more favorable to large international companies EDIT see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement
- _delirium 15y ago
  Wonder if tech companies will start to think twice about that particular tax dodge, given the subjecting-yourself-to-EU-jurisdiction tradeoff it involves.
  - rmc 15y ago
    Remember for EU companies, there are limitations to what (personal) data you can export outside the EU. So if FB & Google & Amazon etc. were to 'leave' EU, then lots of EU companies would be legally unable to use their USA services.
radicaldreamer 15y ago
The answer in a nutshell is that they have servers and offices in Europe.
lambada 15y ago
It's to do with whether a company has a 'physical presence' in a country. Facebook has a large presence in Ireland as a company, and Ireland is part of Europe. It's less to do with a country enforcing it's laws abroad, and more to do with companies setting up a physical presence in a country.
- tonfa 15y ago
  It doesn't have to be a physical presence. Some EU countries block gambling sites without a physical presence (for example, a court can decide that the french law applies, depending on a number of parameters, like among others the availability of translations)
beforebeta 15y ago
The linked video (in german) explains this. Apparently Facebook has a registered HQ in Ireland (presumably - as someone mentioned in another thread - for tax purposes). Since it is a registered business in Ireland, it is subject to all Irish and many applicable European laws (one of which is data privacy). The 24-year-old Individual feels it's against his data privacy rights that Facebook retains deleted messages. Personally I find his arguments a bit flawed - e.g. in one instance apparently he objects to the fact that Facebook knows when he was ill because he can do a quick CTRL-F on the text "ill" (german: krank) in the text he received from Facebook. My question is - isn't he the one who posted that content in the first place? Secondly, he complains that deleted messages are still retained by Facebook. Could that just be a referential integrity constraint - since most messages require 2 or more parties. Therefore, although he deletes the messages, the other party still has the message in their inbox. Therefore, Facebook cannot simply delete the message. Furthermore, since the message has him linked, even if he deletes it from his side, Facebook needs to retain that information on their side. You know the best solution to protect yourself from Facebook's data privacy policies - get off Facebook or at least be cautious when you post! I personally love the service and think one should be smart about what they post on publicly accessible social networks since that data remains for eternity!
- d0mine 15y ago
  People say if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, then you shouldn't post there. So others reply that it doesn't matter that you didn't give the data to facebook, one of your friends might. So now the statement is that if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, then you shouldn't tell your friends, colleagues, etc. anything - after all, they may enter it on facebook. </quote> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2481922&cid=37750358 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2481922&cid=37750358 If you visit pages that might contain Like button then facebook will know about you even without your acquaintances.
- dantheman 15y ago
  Watch all the tech companies leave Ireland due draconian European laws. I don't understand, why all law must be proactive. Let people try and experiment, let norms evolve. Why must we prelegislate things, wait until facebook or someone else starts doing horrible things before passing a law.
tonfa 15y ago
I don't think comparing copyright enforcement, and companies offering a service targeted to citizens of foreign countries is really relevant. As far as I know, what matters is that Facebook targets EU citizens (by having subsidiaries in the EU, by running ads, by explicitly accepting users from abroad etc.) I think you'll find some pointers at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_laws
grecy 15y ago
>The reason I ask is that the United States has a lot of >trouble enforcing its copyright laws abroad. Note this is entirely different when a company has a presence in the US, any of the servers are in the US, or even if the DNS servers are in the US.

by Permit 15y ago

ruethewhirled 15y ago

I think its to do with Irish tax laws being more favorable to large international companies EDIT see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_Arrangement

_delirium 15y ago
Wonder if tech companies will start to think twice about that particular tax dodge, given the subjecting-yourself-to-EU-jurisdiction tradeoff it involves.
- rmc 15y ago
  Remember for EU companies, there are limitations to what (personal) data you can export outside the EU. So if FB & Google & Amazon etc. were to 'leave' EU, then lots of EU companies would be legally unable to use their USA services.

radicaldreamer 15y ago

The answer in a nutshell is that they have servers and offices in Europe.

lambada 15y ago

It's to do with whether a company has a 'physical presence' in a country. Facebook has a large presence in Ireland as a company, and Ireland is part of Europe. It's less to do with a country enforcing it's laws abroad, and more to do with companies setting up a physical presence in a country.

tonfa 15y ago
It doesn't have to be a physical presence. Some EU countries block gambling sites without a physical presence (for example, a court can decide that the french law applies, depending on a number of parameters, like among others the availability of translations)

beforebeta 15y ago

The linked video (in german) explains this. Apparently Facebook has a registered HQ in Ireland (presumably - as someone mentioned in another thread - for tax purposes). Since it is a registered business in Ireland, it is subject to all Irish and many applicable European laws (one of which is data privacy). The 24-year-old Individual feels it's against his data privacy rights that Facebook retains deleted messages. Personally I find his arguments a bit flawed - e.g. in one instance apparently he objects to the fact that Facebook knows when he was ill because he can do a quick CTRL-F on the text "ill" (german: krank) in the text he received from Facebook. My question is - isn't he the one who posted that content in the first place? Secondly, he complains that deleted messages are still retained by Facebook. Could that just be a referential integrity constraint - since most messages require 2 or more parties. Therefore, although he deletes the messages, the other party still has the message in their inbox. Therefore, Facebook cannot simply delete the message. Furthermore, since the message has him linked, even if he deletes it from his side, Facebook needs to retain that information on their side. You know the best solution to protect yourself from Facebook's data privacy policies - get off Facebook or at least be cautious when you post! I personally love the service and think one should be smart about what they post on publicly accessible social networks since that data remains for eternity!

d0mine 15y ago
People say if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, then you shouldn't post there. So others reply that it doesn't matter that you didn't give the data to facebook, one of your friends might. So now the statement is that if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, then you shouldn't tell your friends, colleagues, etc. anything - after all, they may enter it on facebook. </quote> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2481922&cid=37750358 http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2481922&cid=37750358 If you visit pages that might contain Like button then facebook will know about you even without your acquaintances.
dantheman 15y ago
Watch all the tech companies leave Ireland due draconian European laws. I don't understand, why all law must be proactive. Let people try and experiment, let norms evolve. Why must we prelegislate things, wait until facebook or someone else starts doing horrible things before passing a law.

tonfa 15y ago

I don't think comparing copyright enforcement, and companies offering a service targeted to citizens of foreign countries is really relevant. As far as I know, what matters is that Facebook targets EU citizens (by having subsidiaries in the EU, by running ads, by explicitly accepting users from abroad etc.) I think you'll find some pointers at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_laws

grecy 15y ago

>The reason I ask is that the United States has a lot of >trouble enforcing its copyright laws abroad. Note this is entirely different when a company has a presence in the US, any of the servers are in the US, or even if the DNS servers are in the US.