Norwegians plan to harpoon Twitter A battling consumer group has pledged to take on Twitter, accusing it of breaching privacy laws. The Norwegian Consumer Council, which has a legal battle with Apple under its belt, said social networking sites' terms and conditions are unfair. "None of the international social networks adhere to even the most basic …
I think it says it all when the only way a consumer can respond to proposed consumer protection preventing foreigners owning them, their emails and their photos for ever is "lol".
What was once surreal and exaggerated in Brass Eye and The Day Today is now real mainstream news. The next film candidate for a real life remake surely must be Idiocracy?
I've always felt companies should be bound by the laws of the place they are actually in at the time - so my local McDonalds here in the UK is under UK law, not American, Norwegian or Afghan. If they go and open a branch in Saudi, presumably that'll rule out the bacon and egg McMuffin - but not here. Now, if a Norwegian comes and visits my local McDonalds here, it's still governed by UK law: why shouldn't the same thing apply to that Norwegian visiting an overseas place of business electronically rather than physically?
If Norway gets to impose their law on a system on US servers just because people from Norway can visit, will Saudi Arabia then be entitled to execute anyone posting things on Twitter which are banned under Sharia law? I certainly hope not. If Norwegians want a version of Twitter under their own laws, they're welcome to try starting one - but leave other people's alone.
You are mostly right, and then again altogether wrong.
The idea is that international companies adhere to the laws of where they operate. Thus if a company wants to be allowed to operate in say Australia, there services would have to stand up to Australian law. Now, things does of course get a bit complicated when things move online. However, the rule does still apply. Most countries have the means to block out an online service if they want to. Thus if Twitter wants to continue to offer their service in Norway, they might have to change their ToS - at least for their Norwegian users. Now, Norway is pretty small country, but it is still always a problem for an international company to be deemed "non grata" in any country.
Figure the annoyance among politicians if they had to attend a summit in Norway and couldn't tweet instead of paying attention to the items on the agenda! - Obviously the same goes for regular users.
I do however not think that it will come as far as this - although I still hope Twitter et. al. will make their ToS more consumer friendly.
The problem is that every country wants its laws obeyed by on-line entities located and operating in different countries subject to ITS laws. Given the diversity of governments, I can see an on-line firm choosing to end service when privacy, provision of information, surveillance and conduct rules collide.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
