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Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

I'm not suggesting giving up the US market. I'm suggesting moving out of the US and continuing to serve the US market from elsewhere, because the US does not have a nation-wide firewall. And working with organizations mounting legal challenges to "please destroy your company in order to put in a backdoor for us".

Certificate Transparency has essentially eliminated the problem of backdoored CAs, because attempting to do so would destroy an entire CA. Binary Transparency can do the same for software.

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I'm not sure exactly what you think that will accomplish...?

Companies have to follow the laws of the countries they operate in, not just the countries their physical headquarters are in.

That's why, for instance, Apple has to follow the DMA in Europe.

Furthermore, especially for many of the tech companies, where they are located is an integral part of their culture. They are Silicon Valley. You're going to have a very, very hard time convincing any of them to up stakes and move.

And further-furthermore, move where? Europe has, unfortunately, made similar authoritarian noises (eg, Chat Control). China is already more of an authoritarian state than even Trump's USA. Ditto for Russia, and, AIUI, India, though both in somewhat different ways.

The degree to which you have to follow the laws of a place you have no legal nexus in (e.g. no employees) is limited. Non-US companies can and do refuse overreaching requests from the US sometimes.

Apple is subject to the DMA in europe because 1) they have employees in Europe and 2) they want to import and sell physical phones into Europe. It's easy to block imports or fine employees. It is not especially easy to prevent people from spending money on a service provided entirely via the Internet from another country.

It is not at all impossible to impose sanctions on an entire company. But if the US tried to do so over a refusal to put in a backdoor, and the company very loudly made that clear, that would to some extent be exceptional free marketing.

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