>Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ? There are two main reasons why companies set up European HQs in Dublin/Ireland: 1. Avoiding tax. Ireland has a low rate of

>Why does Dropbox have a Irish HQ? There are two main reasons why companies set up European HQs in Dublin/Ireland: 1. Avoiding tax. Ireland has a low rate of corporation tax and some fairly large loopholes. See the Double Irish arrangement and the Dutch Sandwich[0] set-ups. 2. Avoiding privacy protection. The data protection authority in Ireland is tiny[1] and severely under-resourced, so finds it hard to enforce European data protection standards which are significantly higher than in the US (which has pretty much zero regulation when it comes to privacy) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement [1] http://i.imgur.com/IKHC2Ud.png http://i.imgur.com/IKHC2Ud.png - This is the office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland. A tiny office next to a supermarket. This is the authority responsible for policing privacy for dozens of huge multinations in Europe, including Facebook.