[hmmmm]

A couple of problems: Iceland is small so although it has an image as a cool sensible safe Scandinavian country it wouldn't take many voters to put in a far right/far left president who might screw up your business model.

Do you know the details of Icelandic law? Does your corporate lawyers? Your regulation compliance officers? How many Icelandic Intelectual Property specialists can you hire tomorrow? There is a reason that banks have HQs in London/New York - they have a few hundred years of case law that they understand.

Iceland is bankrupt, which means it is under thumb of the IMF which means it will do whatever Washington says. Do you want your data to be ruled officially by Reykjavik but unofficially by MPIA/RIAA/Whoever says.

[ugh]

Um, so you basically claim that smaller countries tend to have more often more extreme governments? I don't think this is the case. And why wouuld it?

Icelanders vote for sane middle of the road goverments. Even during the financial crisis (which hit Iceland disproportionately) they didn't go extreme. Why would it be easy to change that? Easier than with larger countries?

[conflux0]

It shouldn't be too much of an issue considering Iceland is going to eventually join the EU.

[hmmmm]

Austria is in the EU, would you trust Jörg Haider with your gay rights mailing list?

[sohooo]

That would be a highly suspicious situation, considering the fact that J. Haider died in a car accident more than a year ago.

[fauigerzigerk]

Considering he was gay and is now dead I would say the answer is yes :-)

But I know what you mean and you are right, the EU doesn't prevent rabid populism. Interestingly though, it's the mainstream parties in the EU who aggressively pursue all kinds of privacy intrusions and surveillance madness.

[theoneill]

That particular list, yes.

[fauigerzigerk]

That's certainly a plus because you have a court to go to, but tax law is national law in the EU.