EU Politicians Realize US View Of De Facto Ownership Of The Internet Makes Their Data Protection Laws Irrelevant

from the jurisdictional-mess dept

Tue, Jul 12th 2011 3:44am — Mike Masnick

One of the topics that we've discussed since the very beginning of Techdirt is the odd questions of jurisdiction raised by the internet. Pre-internet, most (though not all) jurisdiction questions where fairly straightforward: where was the alleged infraction/crime committed. Once you added the internet to the question, things got weird fast and no one seemed to really want to deal with it. Over the years, there have been some flareups here and there, but over the last couple of years, one thing has started to become clear: the US government feels that it has jurisdiction over much of the internet, even as it decries any other country that suggests something similar.

As we noted recently, folks, like Erik Barnett at Homeland Security, have a rather expansive view over why the US has jurisdiction over any website using a .com or .net domain name. And, of course, it goes way beyond that as well, with the recent admissions from Microsoft that EU data protection rules are effectively meaningless when faced with a US PATRIOT Act request for data. Basically, the US appears to claim that even if the data is stored in Europe, with strict data protection rules, if it's a US company, the US believes it has jurisdiction and can demand access to it.

Not surprisingly, this is upsetting EU officials, who realize that their data protection rules may be effectively meaningless if the US continues to take this rather expansive view of its own jurisdiction.

While you can understand why US officials and law enforcement want to view the world this way, what stuns me is that they appear to be both totally tone deaf to how this makes the US look abroad, as well as oblivious to the obvious unintended consequences and likely counter moves to such a view. Not only does it give moral cover to other countries doing the same thing -- potentially harming US interests significantly -- it's also going to lead to inevitable backlash and widespread harm to US companies and internet users, as users in foreign countries won't go near their services.

This is what happens when you have people who can't think more than single step ahead and put them in a position of power.

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Filed Under: data protection, eu, europe, jurisdiction, ownership, patriot act, privacy

47 Comments

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James (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 3:54am

Frustrating
It is extremely frustrating to people outside of the US to hear stories like this... I can understand why US officials might feel this way but I feel sometimes there is this sort of unwritten rule for US officials to just assume that they own the internet.

Imagine the huge back clash which would emerge if David Cameron suddenly decided to pass a law which meant that all US citizen's internet connections were subject to UK jurisdiction just because Tim Berners-Lee is British
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Prisoner 201, 12 Jul 2011 @ 3:55am

The third paragraph looks a bit odd, like its missing its beginning.
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Lance Bledsoe (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 3:55am

HTML typo
(I don't think those last three paragraphs were intended to be a link.)
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A Guy, 12 Jul 2011 @ 4:00am

I don't understand the draw of "the cloud" anyway from a personal perspective. I understand why corporate and government types like the idea...

If you're a worried European country, simply pass a law that all data must be stored in country and make any failure to secure the data from transport overseas or transfer to a new locale a felony with very stiff penalties including a right to sue by the violated users. Then make a law that makes continued operation by that company within its borders illegal once a breach occurs unless it is reported immediately to relevant authorities. I bet that punch in the economic gut would fix Microsoft's patriot act problems quickly.
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Chargone (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 4:49am

ya know, this kind of massive over reach, claim of jurisdiction in other people's areas, and general arrogant trampling of sovereignty in other lands... go have a look at history. this kinda thing has caused major wars over and over again. only thing that's different here is that it's the internet and even now the logistics of intercontinental war are... nightmareish.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 4:58am

Well the US did INVENT the internet through DARPA and the Darpanet
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mike allen (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:04am

Actually the internet was a british invention by Tim Berners-Lee suggest you re read internet history.
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out_of_the_blue, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:05am

Or, the EU is playing "good" while secretly in cahoots with US.
I think it obvious that an overarching cabal of The Rich are controlling both, and even MOST of the world. You see it visible in UK-US military operations in several places that just happen to be oil-rich, and particularly of late in the NATO bombing of Libya. And Europe mostly stands idle while the US is exhausting its treasure to establish an empire with its military. When the US is broken from that -- particularly its civil rights -- then it can be brought down with endless debt and an "austerity" program just like Greece recently was, because "owe" massive debt to the same central banks.

So, first flaw is the false premise of "two" sides here. It's just another show to have an appearance of conflict, no different from professional wrestling. The Rich ALL have interests against The People, though they might struggle for which group becomes Global Tyrants.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:15am

USA! USA! USA!
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:18am

Re:
Correction: they devised the Internet's key mechanism, whilst CERN and Berners-Lee helped devise the key standard by which pages are viewed.
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:19am

Re: Or, the EU is playing "good" while secretly in cahoots with US.
So basically, it's an international turf war.

Seems pretty accurate, and it's pretty simple to predict the consequences of such.
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Gabriel Tane (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:22am

I can understand the US demanding information stored over-seas by US companies... those companies are technically US citizens (thanks to ridiculous interpretations to the 14th Amendment long ago). So if they are citizens, should they be able to hide 'incriminating' information over-seas to escape the law? If I'm missing something, please do let me know.

Now that I'm done playing devil's advocate... Of course the US is going to decry other companies exercising jurisdiction over the internet in their own countries... if they effectively control it, how can we? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Honestly, I can't wait until the US completes its campaign to run the rest of the world out of .com/.net, the rest of the world sets up its own .screwusa, and cuts us all effectively out of the loop.

After all, isn't the general response to infection supposed to be isolation and termination?
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Spaceboy (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:38am

Re: Re:
Fail on both. It was Al Gore.
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Nicedoggy, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:39am

Well if American companies can't adhere to the rules of the land the USA just showed them how to proceed, charge every one of them with a crime, convict them and ask to extradite every American CEO to face jail in Europe for breaking their own rules, which probably means American companies will have to close offices in Europe so to not be liable.

The BRICS could also do something similar.
China in particular since it reached a point where they are no longer dependent on exports alone to grow, could mean a more assertive country on that front.
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Nicedoggy, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:46am

Re:
Oh wait there is no need for a trial just accuse every American CEO of a crime under European law and ask the USA to extradite them to face trial in Europe.

That should be good for a laugh.
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DannyB (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:56am

Re:
I think you mean the world wide web not the internet.

The internet predates the web.

The web is an application that runs on the internet.

Email is an application that runs on the internet.

Telnet, SSH, FTP, Usenet, VNC, Bittorrent are applications (eg with their own protocols) that run on the internet. There are protocols that don't have applications.

Some of us were using the internet before the web. The web did make the internet a household word and is now probably the primary application on the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 5:56am

"Or, the EU is playing "good" while secretly in cahoots with US."

Not likely. Unless their master plan involves a meltdown of their respective economies.

Stranger things have happened.
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Richard (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:02am

Re: Re:
Correction: they devised the Internet's key mechanism,

No the key mechanism (packet switching) was devised by Donald Davies at NPL in the UK - although there were also cotemporary research activities in the US. The truth is that no-one (person or nation) can really lay claim to having invented the internet - it was the work of many hands - and a lot of rather obvious ideas arrived at independently in different places!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:12am

Re:
It's not that strange. An economic meltdown may make the rich a few million poorer, but it will make the poor slaves. This makes the money and resources that the rich people own worth more.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:22am

Re: Frustrating
Would those of us who used the Internet prior to Tim Berners-Lee's creation of the World Wide Web be grandfathered in?
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known coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:23am

Re:
I would think most governments would feel the same way. i.e. China wanting access to the data of citizens of the PRC who store data on US servers to evade Chinese laws.

Just because it is easy to do on the interweb does not make it right and therefore legal.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:39am

Re: Re:
Yeah, it's funny when the noobs think that the web is the internet.
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:57am

Re:
Actually it would put the Giant in a very problematic position. Comply with the US and get fucked up in Europe or comply with EU and get fucked up in the US.

This wouldn't happen if the US wasn't some sort of megalomaniac thinking they own the world. Lucky us this has a huge economic and diplomatic cost that will eventually put them at their place.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 6:57am

This comes of course after years of the EU trying to force it's policies down everyone's throats. Privacy policies on websites are often set to the highest standard (EU) to avoid any legal hassle.

Germany routinely bans websites and forces companies like Google to remove the sites from their search results. They reach out around the world with legal documents and summon websites owners to Germany to stand before commissions, which have the power to decide that a site is unfit. Oh yes, they do it for the children.

The EU folks look like idiots in this fight, because they are just getting back the sort of treatment they have dished out for a long time.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:05am

The last line says it all. The world is mostly run by people with big egos who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag.
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:09am

Re: Re: Re:
Doesn't really matter right? the UK is an American state nowadays.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:15am

Re: Re: Frustrating
Wasn't the Swiss CERN also involved with the creation of the Internet?
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Ninja (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:16am

Re:
I can see your point. I'd say the EU is nowadays what the UN is to the world. A powerless ornamental sort of organization.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:17am

Re:
Third paragraph in full:

Not surprisingly, this is upsetting EU officials, who realize that their data protection rules may be effectively meaningless if the US continues to take this rather expansive view of its own jurisdiction.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:17am

Re: Re:
(I recovered this by looking at the source code of the article.)
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:19am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I never figured that ninjas would live under bridges.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:21am

When two dogs fight over a bone, a third one will run away with it.

I expect China to "own" the Internet soon.
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Hephaestus (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Why is the ninja under that bridge eating a kitten??
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:40am

Re: Re:
"Comply with the US and get fucked up in Europe or comply with EU and get fucked up in the US."

This was ARAMCO [Saudi Arabia's Arabic American Oil Company] problem in the early 1970s.

Comply with US law governing employment rights especially women's rights with head chop experiences in Arabia or satisfy Islamic Law and be sued into bankruptcy in the US. The conflict came to a head in the US oil crisis [not the cause of the crisis but the issue came to a head at the same time as the crisis]. The solution was to split the company in to two parts, a US company under US law located in Texas and a Saudi company under Islamic law in Arabia.

That is what is going to happen to the web. It will be broken up with only the US portion being under US law all others being under the law of their respective jurisdictions. This will of course have lots of negative effects on the free flow of information but it will allow countries like Australia to establish their perfect filter network by the simple means of sources eliminating all access to information not stored in Australia. Realizing that Australia is not nearly as bad as China is irrelevant as the issue is not size or filter ability but the acceptance of legal issues generated there in other countries and there the impact is big.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:50am

Re: Re:
You said: "Just because it is easy to do on the interweb does not make it right and therefore legal"

Me: Sure it does. That is the entire justification for music and movie piracy. It's easy to do, therefore legal (or should be).
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 7:53am

Re: Re:
"This wouldn't happen if the US wasn't some sort of megalomaniac thinking they own the world."

Hmmm, I believe you've fallen into the misstep of national generalization. I, for example, do not share this belief despite being an american. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the majority of americans are not actually represented in any way by the actual policies and actions of our own government. A sad yet true fact unfortunately. The US is not represented in government by its constituency, it is instead simply a controlled "head" manipulated by big business. Additionally, our "democratic" process has no impact or bearing on governmental decisions due to the simple fact that politicians spin fact into emotional "bytes" in an attempt to placate the people while continuing to follow their coffer filling overlords in actual decision making.

/end rant/
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 8:24am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Because he ran out of babies.[/badtaste]
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The eejit (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 8:25am

Re: Re: Re:
Nice scarecrow you have there.

The justification for content piracy is that the content being overvalued by gatekeepers.
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A Guy, 12 Jul 2011 @ 8:49am

Re: Re: Re:
Well said

As another example, a US citizen just suggested you change your laws to fuck any company that complied with the Patriot Act extra territorially. I hope you do it and I hope sane privacy laws spread here.
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Jay (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 9:57am

Re:
"Now that I'm done playing devil's advocate... Of course the US is going to decry other companies exercising jurisdiction over the internet in their own countries... if they effectively control it, how can we? "

Left hand, meet right hand.

Left hand, slap right side of face.
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Gabriel Tane (profile), 12 Jul 2011 @ 10:01am

Re: Re:
Sorry... should I have included the "/sarc" tag on that one?
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Tim, 12 Jul 2011 @ 11:20am

Circles and Groups
So the US (Google+) creates a new Circle (Patriot Act) and is now happily adding countries to that Circle, whether those countries like it or not. No-one's quite sure how it's going to work out in the long-term, but it's getting a tonne of attention at the moment.

The EU (Facebook) meanwhile has created a Group and is inviting all it's neighbours, but not the US, because they only work with them.... Unfortunately most people don't give a monkey's about Groups and so all of this is likely to be ignored.

Then you have China (Twitter) wondering what all this fuss with groups/circles is about and just ploughing along as they were!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Jul 2011 @ 11:23am

Re: Re: Re:
In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the majority of americans are not actually represented in any way by the actual policies and actions of our own government.

Bull. You keep electing the same types over and over.

Additionally, our "democratic" process has no impact or bearing on governmental decisions due to the simple fact that politicians spin fact into emotional "bytes" in an attempt to placate the people while continuing to follow their coffer filling overlords in actual decision making.

Being "emotional" doesn't really excuse how they vote.
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PRMan, 12 Jul 2011 @ 11:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, but our "majority rules" system only allows for 2 parties at a time. And it's pretty easy for businesses to pay off both parties (as most of them do).

We need to change our system to be more like Europe where minorities are represented and groups have to make deals with each other that the public can live with.
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btr1701 (profile), 13 Jul 2011 @ 3:09pm

Re:
> So if they are citizens, should they be able
> to hide 'incriminating' information over-seas
> to escape the law?

Actual human citizens do it all the time. Those Swiss banks have their reputation for a reason, after all.
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AO1JMM, 13 Jul 2011 @ 11:06pm

Re:
The US through ARPA(DARPA later) invented the INTERNET(which is really just a big network) but Tim Berners-Lee created what you see ON the internet as webpage or what you and the rest of us call the World Wide Web.

Get it?
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hugh williams, 16 Jul 2011 @ 3:03pm

i can't see how they can demand data outside the US they would still have to go through courts in the country in question
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