Their apps are in the Brazilian app stores
I never been there, I don't read or write danish, I never interacted with danish government, or met any danish person.
If the dane government wanted something from me, and sent a letter to some random person, written in danish, even if it reaches me, I wouldn't understand it anyway.
Thus, having app in some other country store doesn't prove much, except that you clicked "publish" somewhere on Google or Apple uploading interfaces.
At which point you agree to adhere to their laws and regulations.
A famous example of someone operating legally under local law, but who got prosecuted for having merely a website accessible in another country, was Kim Dotcom.
That’s the current state of international law, either lobby to change it, or accept it, but don't ignore it.
Uhm nope. If my app(published on Apple Store/Google Play) violated a law in Saudi Arabia and they sent me a letter requesting me to appear and subject myself to 100 lashes for violating their law, I would very promptly disregard said letter, to put it politely.
It's a bit like saying "You should hang yourself, because if you don't, I'll hang you." The proper response is "get on with it then."
Just because you can take their money doesn't mean they have to accept that.
I can’t sell medical marihuana in most states of the US – and I don’t go and try, and then complain about getting arrested.
Instead, if I wanted to start a business doing that, I’d check out where it would be legal, and in which ways, and sell my product in those markets.
Why do you assume you can sell your product in markets without having checked the legality, and then complain when they ban your product because it violates the local law?
My point was - is there any reason why I, as a developer, should not check "all countries" when publishing an app? If Saudi Arabia wants to ban my app later - let them, I literally don't care.
And yes, consumer protection laws absolutely still apply. The laws of my country - if my country says that I have to give him 2 years warranty - of course he gets 2 years warranty. If his country says a seller can be subject to 100 lashes for selling prohibited materials - they can go and try executing this, I wish them all best luck.
And that is the problem. You can't actually expect people to hire lawyers from 108 different countries to see if their app is legal in each of them just because they're going to distribute it on the internet, to say nothing of what happens when two countries have mutually contradictory laws (e.g. privacy vs. data retention). And a person who goes to see the Great Pyramids shouldn't have to worry about being hauled off to Saudi Arabia and then stoned to death because their app doesn't prohibit blasphemy.
> Also Saudi Arabia will propably ban your App, which is what is happening in Brasil.
Which only increases the proliferation of tools to bypass the restriction.
You could expect facebook, with their almost infinite resources to so.
I never thought I'd say this, but: Good on Facebook for not complying.
If you purchased a VW car in Germany and had it shipped over to the US it would be on YOU to make sure it complies with all requirements of your country, not Volkswagen's.
Harmful lays laws should not be considered lawful just because somebody wrote them down.
That's a pretty shit example, given everything that happened around that case.
If an art dealer sells a painting to someone in brazil, does it mean the original artist operates in Brazil?
(Not that I agree with that, but that's what it looks like)
Apple has a corporate office in Brazil (google too) and they're the ones who distribute and approve the application for sale there. They're legally required (I assume) to respond to legal notice they're served with. WhatsApp is not legally required to do so, and others have pointed out that it might not even be legally feasible for them to do so.
Of course this situation is more complex because obviously Apple doesn't have the data and I doubt Brazil wants to get into a legal battle with Apple. And although Brazil doesn't have the ability to force WhatsApp to comply with anything, they do have the leverage of being able to shut down their service. Should make for an interesting story to follow.
At the very minimum, if they had served Apple/Google instead, they would have had a legal requirement to actually respond. I don't know much about the actual case so these are mostly assumptions.