This was such a weird case. Usually when a country goes after a foreign business they enforce it by imposing restrictions within their own borders and threatening the operators with legal action if they ever enter the country. If the operators don’t visit the country and their banking doesn’t cross a business that must follow those laws (which is hard), it’s otherwise symbolic.
I may be reading too much into the editorialized writeups about Ofcom but even their statements imply they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
This quote from the court is amazing:
> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution
Indeed. Who could have predicted this?
Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all? Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates? Are they using this as a demonstration of why internet censorship is the only solution? It’s hard to imagine why they thought they were going to get anywhere with this case, unless failing was the goal
While Ofcom were barmy to even try this there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't, and somewhere that will have contributed to supporting the effort to do this.
While the US isn't perfect it is also far from the worst conceivable entity to be in that position (and current UK and Australian governments provide easy examples). If they want to use their influence to promote free speech then good, because we need it. Just less of the mass surveillance of absolutely everyone at the same time, then we'd be good.
I actually wouldn’t have been shocked if other countries had helped, and the powers that be may regret enforcing their sovereignty here.
Countries used to enforce this at their borders (for foreign information) because it largely worked. They couldn’t stop 100% of the copies of the book, but they could stop there being enough copies for it to be part of the cultural zeitgeist (most of the time).
Not anymore. The companies don’t have a local HQ to harass, and the information doesn’t flow through infrastructure the government owns. They’ve pretty much entirely lost the ability to control the flow of information, and they’ve largely lost the ability to control its direction either with the fall of major news outlets.
I don’t think they have the support for a China-style great firewall, but I’m not British so maybe I’m wrong.
I think it’s a good thing information is set free, but I see why they tried it. It’s the only politically tenable way they had to try to keep that control.
It's about honor, I remember Saddam Hussein saying that after they held against the US for 40 days they "won" the war, because in their culture when a higher power entity goes against a weaker one, it is without honor and the weaker entity "wins" honor by being able to defend for that long.
Maybe they weren't allowed to not try? Like adding Denuvo to your game doesn't stop piracy, but your investors will be angry if you don't make the (wasted) effort at due diligence.
Those toolkits don’t stop piracy - they slow it down long enough to make the first 2 weeks (days) of sales. The people using them usually understand that.
Exactly. Ofcom understood it needed a dog and pony show to answer the latest UK moral panic over 4chan. The headlines have moved on, and they can safely take off their costumes.
> they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
Indian citizens living in India, who have never left India and only do business with Indian entities, have to declare compliance with US laws (FATCA) when opening a bank account in India with an Indian bank. This is enforced by the Indian government.
> Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
The surprising thing to me is that even 250 years after Saratoga, Great Britain is still not realizing that they do not exert any influence or control over USA and its Constitution at all. And that is apparently still very upsetting for them.
This is just laying down the ground work for Russia-style deep packet inspection. “We don’t have a capability to censor the foreign internet, so we need measures to cut off the violating sites from our side”
This was such a weird case. Usually when a country goes after a foreign business they enforce it by imposing restrictions within their own borders and threatening the operators with legal action if they ever enter the country. If the operators don’t visit the country and their banking doesn’t cross a business that must follow those laws (which is hard), it’s otherwise symbolic.
I may be reading too much into the editorialized writeups about Ofcom but even their statements imply they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
This quote from the court is amazing:
> American courts generally decline to enforce foreign judgments that violate the United States Constitution
Indeed. Who could have predicted this?
Which raises the scarier question of why they tried this at all? Was the defeat a planned showing to justify future action to justify more control of the internet, as Preston Byrne speculates? Are they using this as a demonstration of why internet censorship is the only solution? It’s hard to imagine why they thought they were going to get anywhere with this case, unless failing was the goal
While Ofcom were barmy to even try this there is a level of understandable annoyance outside the US that the US does get to project what it wants and other countries don't, and somewhere that will have contributed to supporting the effort to do this.
While the US isn't perfect it is also far from the worst conceivable entity to be in that position (and current UK and Australian governments provide easy examples). If they want to use their influence to promote free speech then good, because we need it. Just less of the mass surveillance of absolutely everyone at the same time, then we'd be good.
I actually wouldn’t have been shocked if other countries had helped, and the powers that be may regret enforcing their sovereignty here.
Countries used to enforce this at their borders (for foreign information) because it largely worked. They couldn’t stop 100% of the copies of the book, but they could stop there being enough copies for it to be part of the cultural zeitgeist (most of the time).
Not anymore. The companies don’t have a local HQ to harass, and the information doesn’t flow through infrastructure the government owns. They’ve pretty much entirely lost the ability to control the flow of information, and they’ve largely lost the ability to control its direction either with the fall of major news outlets.
I don’t think they have the support for a China-style great firewall, but I’m not British so maybe I’m wrong.
I think it’s a good thing information is set free, but I see why they tried it. It’s the only politically tenable way they had to try to keep that control.
It's about honor, I remember Saddam Hussein saying that after they held against the US for 40 days they "won" the war, because in their culture when a higher power entity goes against a weaker one, it is without honor and the weaker entity "wins" honor by being able to defend for that long.
Maybe they weren't allowed to not try? Like adding Denuvo to your game doesn't stop piracy, but your investors will be angry if you don't make the (wasted) effort at due diligence.
Those toolkits don’t stop piracy - they slow it down long enough to make the first 2 weeks (days) of sales. The people using them usually understand that.
It’s largely political. Even the rank and file staff there agree that it’s nonsense, being done for appearances.
Exactly. Ofcom understood it needed a dog and pony show to answer the latest UK moral panic over 4chan. The headlines have moved on, and they can safely take off their costumes.
> they thought they were just going to impose their laws globally and that other countries would line up to help them do it?
Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
Indian citizens living in India, who have never left India and only do business with Indian entities, have to declare compliance with US laws (FATCA) when opening a bank account in India with an Indian bank. This is enforced by the Indian government.
> Why is this surprising? The United States does this all the time, successfully.
The surprising thing to me is that even 250 years after Saratoga, Great Britain is still not realizing that they do not exert any influence or control over USA and its Constitution at all. And that is apparently still very upsetting for them.
This is just laying down the ground work for Russia-style deep packet inspection. “We don’t have a capability to censor the foreign internet, so we need measures to cut off the violating sites from our side”
Likely yes IMO, especially since the UK is making moves to militarize.
I hate to break it to you, but the UK has had a military for some time now.
So has France, but their nuclear weapons program is new.
I don’t think it’s weird to point out the little guys (especially former or current EU) getting strapped.
When European governments say they will lead in technology regulation, this is what they mean.
cognitively slow, highly regarded ofcom