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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Extraterritorial jurisdiction + global nature of the internet causes these problems. We've already seen lots of the reverse: it's illegal to provide gambling to Americans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg

It's also legally difficult to provide bank accounts to Americans: https://www.thelocal.fr/20210924/why-americans-are-finding-i...

Then there was the whole incompatible court orders in re Azure: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/5/17203630/us-v-microsoft-sc...

Really the only workable outcomes are a global agreement on internet-touching governance (which the US will never accept on principle) or Balkanization. Or I suppose an eternal chasing into new as yet unbanned services.

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Thanks, that’s was really insightful. I wonder if global agreements are really unimaginable. There have been quite a few from the old days, e.g. international marine conventions. What do you think?

The last two data exchange agreements between US/EU were overturned. I think it's unlikely at this point unless the USA adjusts some of its surveillance laws.

Yup, Section 702 of the FISA act needs to be repealed in order for these judgements to not be relevant.

That's not to mention all of the other, non-legally justified analytics performed by the NSA/CIA etc.

That gets to the heart of it. Europeans are increasingly uncomfortable using US based services due to how the data is used. It is not inconceivable that there will be multiple Internets based on legal jurisdiction, we already see this with China.

Do you imagine the EU blocking EU citizens from accessing US services? I find that hard to believe. "We're blocking your access to the outside world for your protection" must ring pretty hollow to the people who vote. It works in China because nobody gets a vote.

Extra-territorial laws are one way of achieving the same effect. A logical next-step would be blocking websites from jurisdictions where such extra-territorial laws are unenforceable.

"This website is in a territory not subject to EU regulations governing privacy, security, and content. Do you wish to proceed?"

This would amount to a even worse cookie banner. I hope the EU has learned something from the embarrassment that is cookie banners.

Nope. They are blaming the banners on the "greedy" websites. Not on the broken law.

Kind of like the current US government blaming inflation on... also the companies. Not the money printing.

My website has no banner, and is completely legal. I just use cookies for what they were meant for: As login cookie and to store preferences such as dark mode.

It’s not the EU law that’s broken. It’s intentional that if you want to sell someone’s firstborn you need actual approval and not a clause hidden in the ToS

> the embarrassment that is cookie banners

The idea is great, but shady websites make it so you hate it, so that you hate privacy laws instead of the shady companies tracking your children.

Its a responsibility that should never have been put on websites in the first place. The browser should handle it.

Cookie banners is akin to letting browser extensions create their own permission requests.

Yes

> Simpler rules on cookies: the cookie provision, which has resulted in an overload of consent requests for internet users, will be streamlined. The new rule will be more user-friendly as browser settings will provide an easy way to accept or refuse tracking cookies and other identifiers. The proposal also clarifies that no consent is needed for non-privacy intrusive cookies that improve internet experience, such as cookies to remember shopping-cart history or to count the number of website visitors.

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eprivacy-r...

It is already a reality that you can't access certain US websites as a European. They block you out because they don't want/don't know if they comply with GDPR. Same effect.

This just demonstrates a level of cowardice on the part of those US-based companies. The extraterritoriality of the GPDR has not been tested.

I remember when the Great Firewall was considered the manifestation of evil by old-time internet users.

It'll be hilarious if European nations decide pursuing GDPR cases is intractable when so many services Europeans use are fully outside the country (and beyond EU enforcement of jurisdiction) and they decide a firewall is necessary to protect their citizens from American surveillance. It would prove China was just ahead of the curve.

Do we then also finally get some of our own internet giants that won't get bought out immediately?

I suspect there's a third outcome within crypto many are quietly pursuing. Looked through the lens of "what if the internet were its own country" a lot of web3 makes a bit more sense.

Or maybe I've read too many Neal Stephenson novels.

That was my "eternal chasing into new as yet unbanned services". The ban wave has largely caught up with big ICOs, but not with "governance tokens" or "NFT based communities".

There's going to be a cycle of "web3 gets big money", "big money fraud in web3", "SEC enforcement against web3", and then the launch of "web4" in 2030.

Crypto can never manage that because the infrastructure running it, the power needed to do that and all the people using it are in countries already.

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