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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 compan
by 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 agoGoogle has every right to present their argument to a court. This is how law works.
- EthanHeilman 13y agoWhat gives the state's law making capacity the magical ability to trump morality and ethics? There exist laws so hideous and offensive to human dignity, that they should never be obeyed. EDITED: I am not talking about the google privacy case specifically, previous posts in this thread had widened the scope beyond this point.
- chris_wot 13y agoAgreed. If you feel that you cannot obey those laws, you should cease doing business in that country.
- EthanHeilman 13y agoWhat if that is the sole country you do business in and you are legally forbidden from closing your business (as can happen to a business that produces essential war materials)? The problem that is that companies are not above the law, but they are even less above ethics. The primary reason that we argue that companies should follow the law is ethics and when ethics and the law are in conflict ethics always trumps the law.
- chris_wot 13y agoThat's an extreme situation. I would disobey this law.
- wavefunction 13y agoYou're running a hypothetical munitions factory whose sole client is the government and you're worrying about the ethics and morality of having to comply with the laws of that country? Let's worry about the morals and ethics of operating that munitions factory before we get concerned with "unjust" laws.
- ryguytilidie 13y agoFair enough to make this argument, but I wouldn't call a fine for violating privacy laws as an example of "laws so hideous and offensive to human dignity, that they should never be obeyed." by any means...
- finch_ 13y agoTo be clear, I'm not saying that Google should break the law. Instead, I'm saying that it's clearly the case that there are some bad laws in the world, and that its perfectly reasonable for companies to engage in advocacy to have those laws changed, rather than just rolling over and accepting them, for example the way that American tech companies have been releasing reports on the requests for data that they receive from the government in order to raise awareness of the issue. I'm not even saying this necessarily applies to this exact situation - maybe the laws in France that Google was in violation of are good laws, in which case hopefully Google loses its appeal. It's just ridiculous to say that companies should always just do whatever government tells them to do without question.