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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

I think there's a bit of a rush to panic about data balkanisation here; remember, this is not a ruling that applies directly to Facebook, but to the information commissioner of Ireland.

There's no new policy and no court orders to do particular things. What's likely to happen is an extensive legal limbo. We may even end up with a special Snowden version of the cookie warning: "Data stored on this system is subject to mass surveillance and may be accessed by the security services without a warrant or due process".

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IANAL, but I don't think it's that unclear; the ruling essentially said the Safe Harbour is void, and so the US is now just like any other non-EU country regarding the Directive, for which there probably already exists jurisprudence.

> We may even end up with a special Snowden version of the cookie warning

Depends. The courts might rule that that sort of "click-through" agreement is invalid and doesn't count as consent.

Update: Already happening. DPA of Schleswig Holstein: Transfer on the basis of Model Clauses unlawful. from https://twitter.com/CarloPiltz/status/654214641975984128

It looks like the DPC of Ireland has been "considering" this question since 2011, and still not got anywhere: http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Complaints/complaints.html

Low tax rate and compliant DPC. That's Irish pitch to foreign companies.

I don't believe such a ruling will be allowed to stand for long, if it really is effectively a blanket ban that can't be overridden by reasonable consent. Enforcing something like that really would have the potential to block international trade on an economy-damaging scale.

The party who broke the deal was the USA, with it's unrelentent mass spying of as many people as possible. If you want change, start there.

That doesn't change the issue of data transfers to third countries that are not approved though.

Then the US needs to stand up and write some laws that respect human rights.

Icebraining has it right - it's actually struck down Safe Harbour, which means that the US is considered an unsafe destination for personal data until such time as national rulings to the contrary are made, and those rulings could well be subject to challenge at the EU level themselves.

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