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by coldcode 4338 days ago
Countries all over the world seem to think that forcing international companies to conform to their local requirements makes sense.
5 comments

Which country DOESN'T do this? I can think of none. The US is one of the worst offenders since they often bypass courts and conduct takedowns without any real oversight (often claiming that they have the right since non-Americans have less rights and the sites are ran from abroad).

Anyway, the way I read your post is that you think international corporations should essentially be above the law. That if you're a nice little local startup that you're subject, but if you're a monster corporation you're not. How does that benefit anyone?

The US is one of the few offenders that CAN do this and get away with it because the market is so important to companies and conforming makes economic sense.

I don't think coldcode was saying that international corporations should be above the law but just that it's impractical to expect an online company to be able to operate in different standards under every different possible jurisdiction.

In a way it makes sense, as most of these multinationals do not reside in the countries where the laws are being made. Maybe if they stop doing business there, or it is more difficult, it will give local companies(which pay taxes and provide more jobs locally) and advantage. Not saying that's definitely true, but it is something to think about.
Just because a company is international doesn't mean it should be exempt from local laws. That would be ridiculous.
How does it not? Operating in more than one country doesn't somehow exempt you from laws.
Agreed, I don't think the global company/local laws mismatch is a difficulty that the government should be responsible for figuring out how to deal with, but something that a company who wants to operate globally needs to figure out.

The real complaint with this recent spate of European laws around the Internet is how incredibly stupid they've been.

Because they don't have to operate in your country. Google can simply decide to no longer run any operations within their borders to avoid the law.

Heck they could potentially even have a subsidiary corporation whose sole purpose is to squat Google.es and redirect to Google.com/es/

That would be a reasonable course of action for Google to take.
It is difficult to determine which parts of the internet are within a particular countries jurisdiction.
Otherwise whose requirements do they follow? The US?