Will LindenLab comply with the RGPD ?

[CheriColette]

Oh thanks for that correction @Callum Meriman  (I didnt keep up with it).

[Phil Deakins]

8 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

The House of Commons library would argue against it, I think, because a few years ago they published a long list of statutes which do allow the prosecution of acts committed abroad: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmquad/419/41920.htm

There you are you see. You (and one or two others) are adding to my statement, and then putting arguments against it. But my statement is perfectly correct. It completely covered what you wrote.

My statement was that no country can make laws that other country's people have to comply with, unless the laws of the other countries say they have to. It covered statutes. There are no arguments against that statement and I don't understand why anyone would even try.

If one country makes a law that it is illegal not to go to church every Sunday, people in another country don't have to comply with it, unless the law in the other country says they have to. It's a ridiculous example that nobody can find fault with, but it demonstrates my statement perfectly.

This whole discussion is solely about whether or not countries have to comply with another country's law. They don't, unless the law in their countries says they have to. It has nothing at all to do with data of any kind. It's entirely to do with laws. The EU cannot make laws that countries outside the EU have to comply with, unless the laws in the other countries say they have to. They can comply voluntarily if they like, perhaps to avoid sanctions of some sort, but they don't have to. If there are laws in the U.S. that compel U.S. companies to comply with the EU law under discussion, then LL has to comply. Otherwise LL does not have to comply. They may comply voluntarily, but they don't have to.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Richardus Raymaker]

It sounds strange if LL would ignore GDPR. Especially now the have things move into the cloud and have plans to mve more into the cloud. And then move the cloud as close as possible to the users the need the sim data.

 

 

[Fionalein]

Why are we even still discussing this? Ninja Linden posted the answer to the question above 

[AyelaNewLife]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

My statement was that no country can make laws that other country's people have to comply with, unless the laws of the other countries say they have to. 

And this statement is correct. A company entirely based in the US, with no business interests of any kind outside the US, only has to pay attention to US law.

The flipside of that is that a company doesn't have the right to do business in another country and pay no attention to their laws. If I base a company in China and start manufacturing and selling knockoff items that breach local copyright, a defense of "b-b-but I'm based in China!" would get laughed out of the courtroom.

Where it gets tricky is in the actual enforcement. If there's nothing within the jurisdiction of a European court owned by the company in question that can be seized to cover the fine, then there is a real possibility that the fine will only exist on paper and would be unenforceable. 

All of this is academic, of course; no company with a significant international presence or customerbase is going to risk this over something so trivial (and it is trivial to implement, for anyone larger than a one-man blog operation), especially as a similar set of regulations will most likely be in place in the US within half a decade.

[Phil Deakins]

3 minutes ago, AyelaNewLife said:

And this statement is correct. A company entirely based in the US, with no business interests of any kind outside the US, only has to pay attention to US law.

The flipside of that is that a company doesn't have the right to do business in another country and pay no attention to their laws.

That's right. As far as we know, LL doesn't do business within the EU.

[Phil Deakins]

14 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

Why are we even still discussing this? Ninja Linden posted the answer to the question above 

Because we want to. That's the reason why people discuss things. Those who don't want to don't have to join in, of course. It's not compulsory

Edited May 10, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Fionalein said:

Why are we even still discussing this? Ninja Linden posted the answer to the question above 

Primarily because Phil likes arguing and must always have the last word.

[Fionalein]

3 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Primarily because Phil likes arguing and must always have the last word.

feared so 

[Innula Zenovka]

6 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

There you are you see. You (and one or two others) are adding to my statement, and then putting arguments against it. But my statement is perfectly correct. It completely covered what you wrote.

My statement was that no country can make laws that other country's people have to comply with, unless the laws of the other countries say they have to. It covered statutes. There are no arguments against that statement and I don't understand why anyone would even try.

If one country makes a law that it is illegal not to go to church every Sunday, people in another country don't have to comply with it, unless the law in the other country says they have to. It's a ridiculous example that nobody can find fault with, but it demonstrates my statement perfectly.

This whole discussion is solely about whether or not countries have to comply with another country's law. They don't, unless the law in their countries says they have to. It has nothing at all to do with data of any kind. It's entirely to do with laws. The EU cannot make laws that countries outside the EU have to comply with, unless the laws in the other countries say they have to. They can comply voluntarily if they like, perhaps to avoid sanctions of some sort, but they don't have to. If there are laws in the U.S. that compel U.S. companies to comply with the EU law under discussion, then LL has to comply. Otherwise LL does not have to comply. They may comply voluntarily, but they don't have to.

I see.  We've been at cross purposes, then.   I don't suggest that the USA has to cooperate in enforcing UK law on data protection (or anything else).  That's up to the USA, obviously.

However, the UK can, and does, now and again pass laws saying British courts have jurisdiction over activities outside the UK.   That leaves only the practical problem of bringing the defendant before the court if he's not willing to attend and if his own country won't extradite him, and possibly the problem of collecting fines etc.

In this particular example, though, it's all reasonably straightforward.   The UK Data Commissioner determines that the way a US company handles data collected on British data subjects in the UK  breaches the GDPR, and the US company refuse to comply with the Data Commissioner's instructions to remedy the situation.   The Data Commissioner then issues a notice against the company, fining it up to 4% of its global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is the greater).   The company may challenge this in a British court, of course.   If the court upholds the penalty and the company refuses to pay the fine, then the Data Commissioner can ask the court to issue orders to seize the delinquent company's assets to cover the fine -- either from bank accounts or other property in the jurisdiction or (I think) from payment processors like PayPal, Mastercard and Visa.   These orders would, I think, apply throughout the EEA.

No involvement or cooperation by the US government is needed.   Either the delinquent company pays a hefty fine or it forgets about being able to earn any monies in the EEA until the fine is collected and (presumably) has an unwanted flag on its credit record which may well affect its ability to borrow money or open accounts in the future.

[Phil Deakins]

28 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

However, the UK can, and does, now and again pass laws saying British courts have jurisdiction over activities outside the UK.   That leaves only the practical problem of bringing the defendant before the court if he's not willing to attend and if his own country won't extradite him, and possibly the problem of collecting fines etc.

That's almost fine, but not quite. Actually, it's not fine No country can unilaterally decide that its courts have jurisdiction over anything that happens in another country. It doesn't matter what laws the country passes, it can't have jurisdiction. It can claim it, and it can imagine that it has it, but it can't have it and it doesn't have it. It can even put people, companies, whatever on trial in its own country, and win the cases, but it has no jurisdiction, so it's just blowing in the wind. The exception would be if the other country's laws accepted it, but the primary country simply can't do it on its own.

A country can decide that its citizens abroad can be tried under home law, or even under the laws of another country, so that, when they come back they can be in trouble for something they did whilst abroad, but jurisdiction stays within the home country, or, in cases like the U.S. it's often within state borders.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that LL has offices in the EU any more, so I don't think there would be any grey areas there. It doesn't actually do business in the EU, but I don't know whether or not it has any assets within the EU, such as bank accounts or hardware. If all of those are negatives, and if U.S. law doesn't compel it's people to comply, then LL does not need to change anything because of the EU's data law. It's all academic, of course, because LL is doing something about it. All I ever wanted to do in this thread is state that no country can make laws that people of other countries have to abide by, unless their own country's laws say they have to. And I wanted to state that because some people seem to think that it goes without saying that, when the EU creates a new law, U.S. companies have to abide by it.

 

Edited May 10, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Innula Zenovka]

1 minute ago, Phil Deakins said:

I may be wrong, but I don't think that LL has offices in the EU any more, so I don't think there would be any grey areas there. It doesn't actually do business in the EU, but I don't know whether or not it has any assets within the EU, such as bank accounts or hardware

We both know, though, that LL collects monies (tier and premium membership payments) within the EU/EEA, via payment processors such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, all of whom can be directed by courts in EU and EEA countries to forward any monies received on behalf of LL to the court, instead, until the court has collected the fine.

[Fionalein]

6 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

That's almost fine, but not quite. Actually, it's not fine No country can unilaterally decide that its courts have jurisdiction over anything that happens in another country. It doesn't matter what laws the country passes, it can't have jurisdiction. It can claim it, and it can imagine that it has it, but it can't have it and it doesn't have it. It can even put people, companies, whatever on trial in its own country, and win the cases, but it has no jurisdiction, so it's just blowing in the wind. The exception would be if the other country's laws accepted it, but the primary country simply can't do it on its own.

A country can decide that its citizens abroad can be tried under home law, or even under the laws of another country, so that, when they come back they can be in trouble for something they did whilst abroad, but jurisdiction stays within the home country, or, in cases like the U.S. it's often within state borders.

I may be wrong, but I don't think that LL has offices in the EU any more, so I don't think there would be any grey areas there. It doesn't actually do business in the EU, but I don't know whether or not it has any assets within the EU, such as bank accounts or hardware. If all of those are negatives, and if U.S. law doesn't compel it's people to comply, then LL does not need to change anything because of the EU's data law. It's all academic, of course, because LL is doing something about it. All I ever wanted to do in this thread is state that no country can make laws that people of other countries have to abide by, unless their own country's laws say they have to. And I wanted to state that because some people seem to think that it goes without saying that, when the EU creates a new law, U.S. companies have to abide by it.

 

While technically true nothing keeps said contries from refusing entry or even arresting offenders if they try to enter these contries because they broke their laws... Welcome to a global market, Phil.

[Phil Deakins]

28 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

We both know, though, that LL collects monies (tier and premium membership payments) within the EU/EEA, via payment processors such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard, all of whom can be directed by courts in EU and EEA countries to forward any monies received on behalf of LL to the court, instead, until the court has collected the fine.

I don't know, but that may be true.

[Phil Deakins]

31 minutes ago, Fionalein said:

While technically true nothing keeps said contries from refusing entry or even arresting offenders if they try to enter these contries because they broke their laws... Welcome to a global market, Phil.

I thought you didn't want to discuss it.

My statement had nothing at all to do with that. Oh, and my statement was not only "technically true", but it was absolutely true.

And thank you for the welcome. When you've been in it a while, let me know, and I'll tell you where you went wrong. There is no "global market". There are international markets though. Perhaps that's what you mean, but this isn't anything to do with international markets.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 5/9/2018 at 4:11 AM, Phil Deakins said:

I'll make the same statement that I made in the other thread. No country, or group of countries can make laws that people in other countries have to comply with. So no, LL does not have to comply.

That doesn't mean that people in other countries won't comply with the EU's law. There are reasons why some should, for their own benefit, but none of them have to, and I do wish that people would stop saying they have to.

Incidentally, the fact that EU people use SL is irrelevant.

I thought it might be a good time to quote what Phil actually said in the post that started this all  - note that he baldly stated as a fact that LL doesn't have to comply, and made no mention of the possibilities of any treaties or US laws that may modify his statement. This, therefore, is what he's defending as always and absolutely true, as usual.

XOXOXO

Theresa

[Phil Deakins]

You're right Theresa. I added that exception a little later.The point was that one country can't make laws for another country, and it's not the first time that I've seen people auto-assume that they can.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[Paul Hexem]

You guys just don't know when to quit...

Technically Phil is right, no one has to follow laws made in another country. 

Hell, people ignore laws in their own countries all the time.

That said, it would be foolish to ignore said laws if you want to do business with people affected by them. 

[ChinRey]

6 hours ago, Gadget Portal said:

Hell, people ignore laws in their own countries all the time.

That's true. I once saw somebody jaywalking!

[DarkRavenWolfie]

as long as it doesnt end up with LL blocking EU users, i dont mind.

Edited May 14, 2018 by DarkRavenWolfie

[Fionalein]

On 11.5.2018 at 7:47 AM, ChinRey said:

That's true. I once saw somebody jaywalking!

Only Germans don't do that 

[Leia36]

On 5/8/2018 at 4:37 PM, Drake1 Nightfire said:

Why would you assume they wouldn't?

Exactly, I can imagine some poor schmuck in an office somewhere trying to police privacy over multiple social media platforms. Like drinking from not even a firehose, but from an Industrial pipeline.

 

Edited to add, I have met several people from Iran that are still on SL despite that extremely oppressive regime's best efforts to police or block SL, where there is a will, there is a way.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Leia36

[Klytyna]

On 10 May 2018 at 11:03 AM, Phil Deakins said:

That's right. As far as we know, LL doesn't do business within the EU.

You're a Madlands Entitlement Club member... And you live in the EU...

So they are doing business with you, in the EU...

Violate EU laws about doing business in the EU with EU customers, and the EU might STOP you doing business with customers in the EU...

THAT's why all those Murican companies are complying with an EU law... Regardless of what you claim.