37 ms·

Google refuses to pay French privacy fine in a battle of company versus country

36 points by neverminder 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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free652 13y ago
Let's just wait for the time when US will sue a number of french companies for some sort of privacy violations and force french to drop their lawsuit against Google.
yawz 13y ago
> ...its sorrows in a bottle of beaujolais... You'll have more sorrows after drinking some Beaujolais. It's incredible that this is one of the best known wine regions in France. At most barely-drinkable, Beaujolais is inferior to most French wine.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  What would you recommend? I don't drink a lot of wine so I tend to just buy $14ish bottles of American Pinot Noir or Reislings.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Bordeaux and Bourgogne (Burgundy) are the big ones[0]. Loire and Alsace are also known for more specific wine types. That doesn't necessarily help much as within each regions exist complex classification systems (e.g. Bordeaux uses Châteaux, essentially winemakers, while Burgundy uses an m:n mapping of domaines (a winemaker) to terroir (a geographical area), there's quite a bit of variation across winemakers (and within one especially on generational shifts) and price is essentially useless a data point. And then you've got to decide whether you want "drink" wine drunk within a few years or "keep" wine which you'll grow over 5, 10, 20 years or more. [0] Bordeaux is bigger, Bourgogne has more controlled designations of origin.
  - yawz 13y ago
    I like certain regions of Bordeaux: Saint-Emilion (it has also sub regions), Pomerol, Fronsac, etc.) I also quite like Bourgogne. Good red wine. If you like white wine you should try Chablis and Macon Village. Alsace has Gewurztraminer, which is definitely sweeter than Riesling. You can try it with spicy dishes, if you like. Also I'm quite fond of Spanish Rioja. I find wine quite expensive in the US but you can find good valued wine, especially if you can afford to store some of them for a few years before enjoying them.
wildpeaks 13y ago
Compared to the amount they owe from tax evasion (the 1 billion € mentioned in the thread), 150k is almost a drop in the bucket.
p4bl0 13y ago
Actually, the Conseil d'État just released its decision a few minutes ago: Google have to pay. See http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction_prononcee_par_cnil_a-l-encontre_google_inc.html http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction... (in French).
- neverminder 13y ago
  According to the article it's not about the money, it's about the publicly displayed apology that google is uncomfortable with.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    So they are perfectly happy to admit liability and pay up, as long as they aren't forced to publicise that admission to the people that the court case itself was on behalf of.
    - neverminder 13y ago
      Yep, I think that sums it up. The fine is pocket money for Google so surely it's not about that.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - p4bl0 13y ago
      This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€. But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).
      - RBerenguel 13y ago
        American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)
chris_wot 13y ago
Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.
- aragot 13y ago
  What happens if they don't pay and have no physical business in France? France to sue them in Ireland? French police to ask Ireland police for seizure? Are they really in a position of power to do that, and can they really recover a billion just by seizing an office?
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    Google has offices in Paris.
- finch_ 13y ago
  So then I suppose Google should have just given in to the Chinese government's demands for censorship, or the US government's demands for access to private data?
  - buro9 13y ago
    Yes. I don't agree with either of those things, but there is a point at which globalisation comes into conflict with sovereign nations. The status of a company is one that is granted to it by a sovereign country, and sovereign countries establish through their legal and government systems how companies can act within their borders. Once you're there... yes, Google should comply to any legal request. And in fact, they do... as requests for data issued under legal order are in fact complied with. Companies are not above the law (and laws tend to exist at country level or through treaty across many countries). And if the law of a country says pay, then Google need to pay unless another law can trump it and says not to pay. There's no two ways about it, companies must comply with the laws of whatever land they operate in.
    - serge2k 13y ago
hndontknow 13y ago
So Google didn't just buy Lenovo shares: http://recode.net/2014/02/06/no-google-didnt-just-buy-750-million-in-lenovo-shares/ http://recode.net/2014/02/06/no-google-didnt-just-buy-750-mi... Devices in Sochi don't get hacked 'before you drink your coffee': http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudulent.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudul... And this blog post is also bunk, way to keep that going: Google is maintaining they haven't done wrong and are appealing the decision, so they've asked the court to stay any penalties until the appeals process is resolved. End Of Story.
renekooi 13y ago
> accepting the fine would have also involved making a public admission of guilt (...) and the company feels this would have "irreparably damaged" its reputation. It probably would've. But if they don't want that loss of reputation, perhaps they should have followed the appropriate laws in the first place? Seems like this is kind of the point of a punishment.
- skj 13y ago
  I think the feeling is that the "appropriate" laws were not, in fact, appropriate.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Of course Google's feeling is that they should be able to do whatever they want with user's data and shouldn't have to tell anybody anything, and thus they believe privacy and data protection regimes are inappropriate.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
This isn't company versus country. We're not talking about some arbitrary bureaucratic regulation. This is corporation versus civil rights in a free and democratic Western nation. This is a level of greed driven arrogance that makes 90's Microsoft look like saints.
throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
This is partly about the insane European cookie directive [0] (cf. [1]). A problem with forced apologies is, when the crimes you're apologizing for are actually controversial political issues, it takes on the character of political speech. "I'm sorry I stole from that guy" is an apology. "I'm sorry I hacked your computer without your consent, in violation of privacy law" -- meaning you set a browser cookie -- that's something else. [0] "According to the watchdog, Google didn't adequately inform users about its data collection processes, nor did it obtain consent or tell users how long cookies would be installed on their machine." http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/google-privacy-cnil-fine/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/google-privacy-cnil-fine/ [1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=eu+cookie&sortby=points+desc&start=0 https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=eu+cookie&sort...

36 points by neverminder 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

free652 13y ago

Let's just wait for the time when US will sue a number of french companies for some sort of privacy violations and force french to drop their lawsuit against Google.

yawz 13y ago

> ...its sorrows in a bottle of beaujolais... You'll have more sorrows after drinking some Beaujolais. It's incredible that this is one of the best known wine regions in France. At most barely-drinkable, Beaujolais is inferior to most French wine.

wavefunction 13y ago
What would you recommend? I don't drink a lot of wine so I tend to just buy $14ish bottles of American Pinot Noir or Reislings.
- masklinn 13y ago
  Bordeaux and Bourgogne (Burgundy) are the big ones[0]. Loire and Alsace are also known for more specific wine types. That doesn't necessarily help much as within each regions exist complex classification systems (e.g. Bordeaux uses Châteaux, essentially winemakers, while Burgundy uses an m:n mapping of domaines (a winemaker) to terroir (a geographical area), there's quite a bit of variation across winemakers (and within one especially on generational shifts) and price is essentially useless a data point. And then you've got to decide whether you want "drink" wine drunk within a few years or "keep" wine which you'll grow over 5, 10, 20 years or more. [0] Bordeaux is bigger, Bourgogne has more controlled designations of origin.
- yawz 13y ago
  I like certain regions of Bordeaux: Saint-Emilion (it has also sub regions), Pomerol, Fronsac, etc.) I also quite like Bourgogne. Good red wine. If you like white wine you should try Chablis and Macon Village. Alsace has Gewurztraminer, which is definitely sweeter than Riesling. You can try it with spicy dishes, if you like. Also I'm quite fond of Spanish Rioja. I find wine quite expensive in the US but you can find good valued wine, especially if you can afford to store some of them for a few years before enjoying them.

wildpeaks 13y ago

Compared to the amount they owe from tax evasion (the 1 billion € mentioned in the thread), 150k is almost a drop in the bucket.

p4bl0 13y ago

Actually, the Conseil d'État just released its decision a few minutes ago: Google have to pay. See http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction_prononcee_par_cnil_a-l-encontre_google_inc.html http://www.conseil-etat.fr/fr/communiques-de-presse/sanction... (in French).

neverminder 13y ago
According to the article it's not about the money, it's about the publicly displayed apology that google is uncomfortable with.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  So they are perfectly happy to admit liability and pay up, as long as they aren't forced to publicise that admission to the people that the court case itself was on behalf of.
  - neverminder 13y ago
    Yep, I think that sums it up. The fine is pocket money for Google so surely it's not about that.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - p4bl0 13y ago
    This time, yes, because it's about privacy and the CNIL can't do much more than 150,000€. But France also asks Google for 1 billion € of unpaid taxes over the last years, and this time I guess they will really try to avoid paying (hopefully they won't be able to, but we'll see).
    - RBerenguel 13y ago
      American billion or European billion? In this case I think the distinction is important (I guess it's the first case... the latter would be... big, very big, hugely, mindbogglingly big)

chris_wot 13y ago

Well this isn't going to go well for Google. At least I sure hope it doesn't. When corporations trump nation-states, we're all screwed.

aragot 13y ago
What happens if they don't pay and have no physical business in France? France to sue them in Ireland? French police to ask Ireland police for seizure? Are they really in a position of power to do that, and can they really recover a billion just by seizing an office?
- dkuntz2 13y ago
  Google has offices in Paris.
finch_ 13y ago
So then I suppose Google should have just given in to the Chinese government's demands for censorship, or the US government's demands for access to private data?
- buro9 13y ago
  Yes. I don't agree with either of those things, but there is a point at which globalisation comes into conflict with sovereign nations. The status of a company is one that is granted to it by a sovereign country, and sovereign countries establish through their legal and government systems how companies can act within their borders. Once you're there... yes, Google should comply to any legal request. And in fact, they do... as requests for data issued under legal order are in fact complied with. Companies are not above the law (and laws tend to exist at country level or through treaty across many countries). And if the law of a country says pay, then Google need to pay unless another law can trump it and says not to pay. There's no two ways about it, companies must comply with the laws of whatever land they operate in.
  - serge2k 13y ago

hndontknow 13y ago

So Google didn't just buy Lenovo shares: http://recode.net/2014/02/06/no-google-didnt-just-buy-750-million-in-lenovo-shares/ http://recode.net/2014/02/06/no-google-didnt-just-buy-750-mi... Devices in Sochi don't get hacked 'before you drink your coffee': http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudulent.html http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudul... And this blog post is also bunk, way to keep that going: Google is maintaining they haven't done wrong and are appealing the decision, so they've asked the court to stay any penalties until the appeals process is resolved. End Of Story.

renekooi 13y ago

> accepting the fine would have also involved making a public admission of guilt (...) and the company feels this would have "irreparably damaged" its reputation. It probably would've. But if they don't want that loss of reputation, perhaps they should have followed the appropriate laws in the first place? Seems like this is kind of the point of a punishment.

skj 13y ago
I think the feeling is that the "appropriate" laws were not, in fact, appropriate.
- masklinn 13y ago
  Of course Google's feeling is that they should be able to do whatever they want with user's data and shouldn't have to tell anybody anything, and thus they believe privacy and data protection regimes are inappropriate.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

This isn't company versus country. We're not talking about some arbitrary bureaucratic regulation. This is corporation versus civil rights in a free and democratic Western nation. This is a level of greed driven arrogance that makes 90's Microsoft look like saints.

throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago

This is partly about the insane European cookie directive [0] (cf. [1]). A problem with forced apologies is, when the crimes you're apologizing for are actually controversial political issues, it takes on the character of political speech. "I'm sorry I stole from that guy" is an apology. "I'm sorry I hacked your computer without your consent, in violation of privacy law" -- meaning you set a browser cookie -- that's something else. [0] "According to the watchdog, Google didn't adequately inform users about its data collection processes, nor did it obtain consent or tell users how long cookies would be installed on their machine." http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/google-privacy-cnil-fine/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/08/google-privacy-cnil-fine/ [1] https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=eu+cookie&sortby=points+desc&start=0 https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=eu+cookie&sort...