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Comment by comice | Hacker News Reader

Refusing to comply and threatening to walk are just two different approaches to protesting this and it's not clear to me which is the most effective.

But I think I trust Signal to know the better approach (whichever they ultimately take - they actually said they'd walk "if the alternative meant undermining our privacy commitments".

I don't think it is practical to just refuse to comply with a government like this - especially if you need to charge money (which Tutanota do) and especially if you're nearby, legally speaking (Are Tutanota in Germany?).

And given that Signal has "walked" from other authoritarian regimes but people in those countries still have ways to use Signal, I'm still betting on Signal.

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I think the best strategy is to 'walk' from the country by writing in your T&C's that you don't offer service to the country, shutting down any local office and not doing marketing in the country, but not put any technical restrictions in place.

Do they even need the T&C to say that? What if their T&C just say something like: "It's illegal to use in the UK, but we don't care if you do it anyway because we have no offices there. Use at your own risk."

Frankly given how unworkable it is and how difficult it's going to be to be subject to extra-territorial jurisdiction over this, the easiest strategy is to ignore it. Lots of companies will, the government will whinge a bit, then forget about it.

The UK is not the US in terms of enforcing its laws on noncitizens overseas.

yeah this is probably how it will happen if it becomes law. But UK-based companies won't want to take the chance or will have to immediately cave to the slightest legal pressure, so UK companies will be stuffed.

I wonder if the UK government can compel the likes of Apple and Google to prevent UK users installing the apps from their app stores?

I also prefer Signal's approach. By walking you remove the possible liability for non-compliance.

You can't be non-compliant if you have no presence in a certain country, and internet doesn't really give a shit about lines on a map.

By non-complying, legally, you're in the wrong. While such an activism is admirable, I'm going to bet that the UK government is going to throw the book at them if they cause too much hassle.

You really think signal will walk away from their Cryptocoin that works only in UK? It will end the same way as when those celebrities said they will move out of US if trump wins

Do you think government cares whether some service most of them probably have not heard about leaves or is shut down?

After all it will be all for the "greater good".

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