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Comment by Pedro_Ribeiro | Hacker News Reader

Do people not understand that companies on this scale are geopolitically important?

Thank they should act like it and respect the laws of the countries.

If you run to the US executive to assert US understanding of law onto other countries you are geopolitical important, however, as a tool for the US national interest not as a true international company. A true international company would serve their customers in their legal systems. Fight the laws there, try to make them better, but don't strongarm them with other country forces. They are a sovereign country.

Italy should have no right to take a website off the internet globally, which from what I’ve read this allows them to do. That’s insane.

They have all right to sanction or restrict a company which has a legal footprint in their territory.

When you are incorporating as a company in a country you are subject to their laws. Period. If that includes rules how you act worldwide, than that is a part of it.

Do not get me wrong, restricting free speech or apply IP law outside your territory is IMHO not right for a country to do.

When a country is trying to impose extra-territorial laws, then it goes beyond enforcing their sovereignty, and it is completely reasonable for the affected to request diplomatic intervention.

Surely I don't need to point out the irony of complaining to the US government about another country wanting to impose extraterritorial laws?

Whataboutism. What do you expect Cloudflare to do about the US imposing extraterritorial laws? How is that in any way relevant to their dilemma at hand?

"Whataboutism" is being overused to the point of meaninglessness. It describes deflecting criticism by raising an unrelated issue. I did not do that. I did not avoid a question or dodge the criticism. I just pointed out an irony.

Has Trump considered bombing Italy and kidnapping Meloni yet?

Well the law is surely addressing European/Italian citizens and business. If you serve them from the US and target Italians for financial gain, you are no longer extraterritorial because you operate there as a business.

Italy has authority over what Italian companies or subsidiaries are allowed to do, and they have authority over any operations that foreign companies have within Italy and any dealings that foreign companies have with Italians or others in Italy. They do not have authority over foreign companies operating in foreign countries serving foreign customers, just because that company also does business in Italy. That is extraterritorial, and is what this law is requiring by demanding that Cloudflare remove DNS entries worldwide.

You mean like the US with it's sanctions that prevent European countries getting payments per credit card or Paypal when they sell Cuban products?

It would be nice if we had an international agreement on how to apply sovereignity on the internet without infinging on sovereignity of other countries. US would be in a great position to initiate this if the current administration had any understanding of what "international agreement", "sovereignity" or "other countries" means.

Maybe that's the way it is in the US, because the country is run by corporations. But in the rest of the world we don't operate like that.

This is objectively false. You're telling me ASML isn't geopolitically important? That TSMC isn't geopolitically important? We are likely to enter a war for the latter within the next decade.

Why would Italy pick Cloudflare over Bunny.net or even CDNetworks if Cloudflare can't follow their laws? Today US tech products sell well in Europe because of the past 80 years of positive relationships. So Cloudflare is the obvious choice over CDNetworks, but for how long will it be like that?

The Italians obviously don't

Geopolitical important companies are a bad thing. Imagine the company being an Iranian or North Korean company.

That's one countries leverage against another countries laws.

I mean, that's an argument for making them respect your country's laws or banning them from your country if they don't want to.

They're not.

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