I'd like to hear from people who did this, told the immigrations officer about their plans and were not turned back on the border.
So if I were going to US to work on my own business temporarily, I'd either go as a tourist or say, "Oh, I'm from Nandemo Ltd., and will go to a business meeting with SP_ Corp, here's their invitation letter". That's similar to what I did when I went to US for a job interview at the headquarters of X Corp. trying to get a job at their Tokyo office. If I had said I was coming to a job interview they wouldn't let me in; even though I had no intention to work in US.
One must be out one's mind to volunteer unnecessarily detailed information to the immigrations officer. Given that there are millions of illegal immigrants actually working for American employers and not getting deported, the odds that a web developer working at home would be deported seems pretty slim.
Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. It does not allow you to work.
See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html
I'd imagine that the best way for a foreigner to work in the US on non-US projects is if a body-shop (possibly owned by them - I think most people can own a US company) hires them, then subcontracts them out to the offshore employer. The question is how they get everything set up while they don't have a work visa. I wonder if a business visa would allow them to set the paperwork up? Anyway, it's madness.
For people who are require to have visas, the tourist visa and the business visa are issued together. When you get to the port of embark, you tell the immigration officer whether you're coming for business or pleasure.
http://www.workpermit.com/us/employer_b1_b2.htm
> Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences.
Yeah, that's the situation I described.
> It does not allow you to work.
...for an US entity. If you're going for business then you're working, right? Anyway, even if it's not specifically allowed, there's a gray area.
> See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html
I read that, I think he was quite naive and uninformed. He should have done what I described. "I'm working for DutchCorp, and will go to a business trade event, here's the invitation". Then he would make sure the event organizers would not pay him directly. They would pay his Dutch company, and he would get paid in Netherlands, not in US.
However, I did have to continue to extend (and therefore satisfy the requirements of) the normal visitors visa (which seemed to be waived for a certain period of time, but then I had to renew it).