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Which government do you mean when you say "the government"? Any national government? Only the US government? Only governments in which the US is friendly and/or
by Caligatio 3y ago
Which government do you mean when you say "the government"? Any national government? Only the US government? Only governments in which the US is friendly and/or has agreements with?
Would you want authoritarian governments to be able to demand Cloudflare stop serving those they consider criminals that are outside their borders?
International law is messy.
- toast0 3y agoThe rule of thumb is governments where Cloudflare has equipment, personel, or banking. There is a procedure to get a foreign case recognized in the US, too, but it has to be serious, and it's not an easy process.
- Caligatio 3y agoCloudFlare has equipment in 120+ countries, including China: https://www.cloudflare.com/network/ https://www.cloudflare.com/network/ I again ask: is it desirable for any of those countries to be able to unilaterally force a company to enforce its laws regardless of where the individual in question is?
- toast0 3y agoIf the equipment is in country X, it seems reasonable to enforce the rules of country X. Plenty of companies refuse to operate in specific countries, including China, because they don't want to follow rules of that country. If CloudFlare chooses to do business in China, that's a choice they're making and it comes with consequences. Maybe they can offer service where customers will only be served from equipment outside of China, maybe that's not something they choose.
- immibis 3y agoFor starters, Cloudflare is a USA company so it has to do whatever the USA government tells it. See National Security Letters. They can easily order it to reveal the origin server of a website, or the sign-up IP address of the account, or to stop providing services to one.