If you have a business presence in that country (like an office, or you do payment processing in that country or authentication) - then YES - but if you don't have any of that and you are just a website that French citizens for example can access from France that runs in China - French laws do not apply.
No not really, it just becomes a bit harder to enforce the EU consumer rights... but they still apply. This is not me making this up, all you have to do is google EU consumer rights.
EU consumer right within EU - fine - outside of EU = does not apply
You cannot enforce local laws for online companies outside of your country period.
That's absurd - what EU is going to sue every online company outside of EU??
Let every Country in the world make up their own laws for online companies outside of them.... heh
So then every online business would have to follow several 1000 laws ..... great isn't it?
You beat me to it DMKano lol. My wife read the discussion cause I was shaking my head and she said they could just put blockers on international connections but then laughed saying no one would be able to access anything anywhere if it was outside their country.
If you have a business presence in that country (like an office, or you do payment processing in that country or authentication) - then YES - but if you don't have any of that and you are just a website that French citizens for example can access from France that runs in China - French laws do not apply.
No not really, it just becomes a bit harder to enforce the EU consumer rights... but they still apply. This is not me making this up, all you have to do is google EU consumer rights.
EU consumer right within EU - fine - outside of EU = does not apply
You cannot enforce local laws for online companies outside of your country period.
That's absurd - what EU is going to sue every online company outside of EU??
Let every Country in the world make up their own laws for online companies outside of them.... heh
So then every online business would have to follow several 1000 laws ..... great isn't it?
Wait, you don't think companies have to follow the laws of the countries they operate in? Valve is trying to sell licenses in each region FOR that region. You think they don't have to follow the laws of the region because they don't want to? You always have insider info so I am trying to stretch my understanding around what you are claiming, but right now it sounds like you think an international company doesn't have to follow any laws of any country.
I am reminded of how Facebook has been facing legal action around the world for their data collection. Facebook is serving consumers that are protected by privacy laws, seems the same here.
So any country can change the law to whatever they want and then online companies have to comply to 100 different laws in 100 different countries.
Yeah I don't think so.
I do. What follows is my opinion...
Corporations should be totally obedient to Governments if they wish to do business in said Nation.
Just because something is on the internet should not exempt it from real life rule of government... example for instance... if a Nation says their citizens have the right of freedom of speech that right should extend everywhere in that Nation, including all internet activity within that Nation. There should be not exemptions just because a Corporation owns something and operates it... either a right is extended everywhere without exception or it is exists no where.
I see nothing wrong with what France is doing and I support it. We should be the owners of software we purchase and should be able to do with it as we decide. In the past I was against RMT involving the sale of accounts and characters of online gaming, but as time goes on I think everyone is better served if ownership was truly in the hands of the players and not the MMO Publishers.
I fully understand that to some it is a very strange concept or even
absurd... but to EU citizens it is quite normal and they would find some of the regulations in the states as strange or absurd.
Edit: Well... normal if you actually know your rights.
Most definitely and i am VERY surprised the governments have not been all over this since they are losing out on millions in tax dollars on resales.
Where it gets tricky though is via the delivery system.You are using Steam to store your game and load it. Also unlike a normal sale which si conducted by the consumers,this would entail Steam to also make the change of ownership and far i know there is never going to be a law to force them to take part in a transaction.
SO if this by some fluke gets passed as law,Steam would be forced to change their delivery system so that consumers have full right and access to the game without the use of Steam and again i just don't see it happening.So what happens then?Ok you can sell it but how is the other party going to actually play it,allow account sharing,again that's not happening.
I expect Valve's over priced lawyers already have all bases covered,likely somewhere in the fine print is no sharing of files because Valve is not obligated to transfer files to non customers.What happens 99% of the time when government gets involved similar to the recent 3 billion dollar FDA lawsuit is it is simply a transfer of money.....knock knock...YES?Got our money?Oh yes right here....Ok thanks cya next year same time,yeah no problem ,bring your golf clubs next time.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Most definitely and i am VERY surprised the governments have not been all over this since they are losing out on millions in tax dollars on resales.
Where it gets tricky though is via the delivery system.You are using Steam to store your game and load it. Also unlike a normal sale which si conducted by the consumers,this would entail Steam to also make the change of ownership and far i know there is never going to be a law to force them to take part in a transaction.
SO if this by some fluke gets passed as law,Steam would be forced to change their delivery system so that consumers have full right and access to the game without the use of Steam and again i just don't see it happening.So what happens then?Ok you can sell it but how is the other party going to actually play it,allow account sharing,again that's not happening.
I expect Valve's over priced lawyers already have all bases covered,likely somewhere in the fine print is no sharing of files because Valve is not obligated to transfer files to non customers.What happens 99% of the time when government gets involved similar to the recent 3 billion dollar FDA lawsuit is it is simply a transfer of money.....knock knock...YES?Got our money?Oh yes right here....Ok thanks cya next year same time,yeah no problem ,bring your golf clubs next time.
Valve should just put in a clause that says you can resell your games but we take a 200% cut of the games original worth or what you sell it for, whatever is higher for the service.
So any country can change the law to whatever they want and then online companies have to comply to 100 different laws in 100 different countries.
Yeah I don't think so.
The law of the land is the law of the land. And in some countries companies go to great lengths.
It is a key driver behind trade agreements. Real example: goods shipped from EU to US in metal container as required by EU law (explosive parts); rejected by US customs - not in a plywood container; had to let it in because of EU-US trade deal. The irony: EU had updated its laws to comply with new United Nations standards that the US had helped push and sign off on.
Digital ownership has been tested in EU courts - don't think it has yet in the US. I remember Steve Jobs before he died jokingly - but very seriously - posing the question: who would own his music collection when he died, his family or Apple.
I do wonder though... why do some of you want consumers to have less rights? I
always found that rather absurd that people side with a company that
makes billions anyway... even if Valve would lose (and I'm quite sure
they'll find something to weasel out from it.) they'll have a system in
place that would still make them money.
The devil is in the details when it comes to laws.
If Valve was smart - they would have no business presence, no authentication and no payment processing that they run out of France for example.
I am sure Valve's legal team has made sure to not meet any criteria that would make them fall under EU business laws - but maybe they didn't.
We'll see - it's gonna be tricky for Valve as I think they do have a business presence there.
However a person in France will - in some way - have to generate a payment to Valve. And even if Valve have no direct presence in France there will be a chain that connects the buyer to Valve and Valve contract with that chain.
Now extreme case - people holding money in off-shore tax havens - another saga.
Both the EU and the US have become very clear that someone living in a state / country has to pay taxes; on the financial transaction.
Indeed "local sales taxes" were - still are I think - an issue in the US. Different city taxes, unless unconsolidated, county taxes, state taxes and national taxes. And companies were / are expected to abide by all of them
So if Doesnotexistan has a law prohibiting people from addressing others as "pumpkin", does that mean they can sue you for doing so on a web site that people access from there?
You might be surprised that the answer is YES. The site owner could get sued.
In fact, there are several laws like that.
One is the Cookie Law. If your site gets accessed in Europe, you need to tell users that you use cookies, and they need to give consent, if you don't, you can get sued.
All larger sites abide by this, and most web developers know this. Every large site I go to, has an agreement box, including all major foreign sites. This isn't the case in the US, I know because I have family in the US and they don't have the cookie box, even though they use the same site.
Not quite the same thing. If I'm from Doesnotexistan and you call me pumpkin and you live in the US does that mean I can now sue you?
If there is a law against the word pumpkin in Doesnotexistan, you could sue the site owner yes. Not me.
It's the same with the cookie law, if you allow your site to cross international borders, it has to abide by local regulations, especially when it comes to privacy.
By your logic, any podunk municipality ought to be able to censor the entire Internet, since everything posted on the Internet is accessible from that town. You are implicitly arguing that everyone who ever makes a web site must always comply with all regulations made by any government body anywhere in the world, no matter where the web site is located or what it deals with. Any freelance person who wants to put up a simple site would first have to sift through regulations made by tens of thousands of entities and written in hundreds of different languages. Any real effort at enforcing that would be the end of the "world wide" web.
You can do online business in any country AND NOT HAVE LEGALLY BINDING BUSINESS presence there
false
You are required to abide by regulations of the country you do business in.
Wallmart can't sell me a gun in Europe just because it's legal in the US.
If you come to the US and it's legal under US for you to buy a gun here, then Walmart can very much sell you a gun in the US. They can't deliver your gun to somewhere in Europe where it's illegal. If you buy a gun from Walmart in the US and then try to smuggle it back to Europe on your own, you're the one who violated European law, not Walmart.
If you have a business presence in that country (like an office, or you do payment processing in that country or authentication) - then YES - but if you don't have any of that and you are just a website that French citizens for example can access from France that runs in China - French laws do not apply.
No not really, it just becomes a bit harder to enforce the EU consumer rights... but they still apply. This is not me making this up, all you have to do is google EU consumer rights.
EU consumer right within EU - fine - outside of EU = does not apply
You cannot enforce local laws for online companies outside of your country period.
That's absurd - what EU is going to sue every online company outside of EU??
Let every Country in the world make up their own laws for online companies outside of them.... heh
So then every online business would have to follow several 1000 laws ..... great isn't it?
Wait, you don't think companies have to follow the laws of the countries they operate in? Valve is trying to sell licenses in each region FOR that region. You think they don't have to follow the laws of the region because they don't want to? You always have insider info so I am trying to stretch my understanding around what you are claiming, but right now it sounds like you think an international company doesn't have to follow any laws of any country.
I am reminded of how Facebook has been facing legal action around the world for their data collection. Facebook is serving consumers that are protected by privacy laws, seems the same here.
What does it mean to operate in a country? If they hire employees who are physically located in the country, then they're in that country. If they run servers that are physically located in a country, then they're in that country. In situations like that, yeah, they have to follow the local laws.
But what if a company has no physical presence in a country? What if they're based somewhere else, but people from some foreign country access their servers whether they like it or not? Does that then obligate the company to follow foreign laws for a foreign country that they wanted nothing to do with?
If what the lawsuit demands is all that onerous, then Valve has to somehow have the recourse of saying, fine, we won't operate in France anymore. But "won't operate in France" logically must be far shy of "people in France can't buy stuff off of our site" or else you end up with logical absurdities that would shut down the Internet.
I do wonder though... why do some of you want consumers to have less rights? I
always found that rather absurd that people side with a company that
makes billions anyway... even if Valve would lose (and I'm quite sure
they'll find something to weasel out from it.) they'll have a system in
place that would still make them money.
Do gold spammers have a legal right to sell their virtual goods within a game, backed by governments that make it illegal to ban or hamper their business?
More generally, costs of doing business will inevitably be passed along to the consumer. Goods and services are almost invariably more expensive than they would be apart from having to comply with regulations. Some useful things that would be offered aren't because it's too expensive to comply with the regulations.
That's not to say that all government regulations are bad. Sometimes the value of regulations exceeds their cost. But there is always a cost, and to deny that or assume that it is borne entirely by corporations and not consumers is to ignore the entire issue in favor of living in a fantasy world. As with many things in life, there is no magic solution, but only trade-offs.
Why should people not be able to resell games they buy?Or better yet why has some other company not tried competing with steam buy offering the right to resell a game you bought. If they were smart they would just require 10% of the resell and split 5% of that with the game developer. Sure they might sell less copies but not a whole lot less I bet. Better to do it that way than be greedy and later have governments force them to let people resell their digital rights to a game and get nothing at all.
Btw what stops someone from making a new steam account every time they buy a new game and selling the password and email to someone else later? It would be a pain to do but it should be possible I think.
I do wonder though... why do some of you want consumers to have less rights? I
always found that rather absurd that people side with a company that
makes billions anyway... even if Valve would lose (and I'm quite sure
they'll find something to weasel out from it.) they'll have a system in
place that would still make them money.
It's not the individual case that's the issue as much as people are taking what you're advocating to it's logical and somewhat horrifying conclusion.
If every website that's viewable from the EU needs to comply with all EU law then that's great. Guess what, other nations have other laws. Are Saudi Arabia and Iran's moral laws also applicable to every website in the world? What about Russia's laws against certain types of expression? Guess those apply to every website too now.
Likely instead of shutting down the three fourths or so of the internet that doesn't currently conform with the laws of ever nation on Earth, each country would have their own internet and only corporations or institutions with deep pockets that can afford a team of international lawyers will be able to have their websites veiwable across all countries.
It's ironic that your EU consumer laws designed to protect people from large corporations if taken to their logical conclusion would lead to a world where pretty much only corporations were allowed to express themselves across national boarders.
By your logic, any podunk municipality ought to be able to censor the entire Internet, since everything posted on the Internet is accessible from that town. You are implicitly arguing that everyone who ever makes a web site must always comply with all regulations made by any government body anywhere in the world, no matter where the web site is located or what it deals with. Any freelance person who wants to put up a simple site would first have to sift through regulations made by tens of thousands of entities and written in hundreds of different languages. Any real effort at enforcing that would be the end of the "world wide" web.
It's not by "my logic", the cookie law, is not my logic, it's EU regulations. And it's a good law, studies show far more Europeans know what cookies are and do, than in other continents.
And no, that does not give the EU the right to dictate what happens on "the entire internet", but within their digital borders it does, which is normal when you think about it.
As far as "freelance person", most of those rules don't apply to those people. The cookie law deals with storing private data of people. When you start storing private data of people in cookies, you are no longer a "freelance person", you know what you're doing at that point, and it's perfectly normal you are forced to comply with laws at that point.
Frankly, anyone not knowing what the cookie law is, shouldn't be allowed to make a website in 2015, because that person is clueless. They should make a wordpress site and not be allowed near a 10 mile radius of Dreamweaver.
You beat me to it DMKano lol. My wife read the discussion cause I was shaking my head and she said they could just put blockers on international connections but then laughed saying no one would be able to access anything anywhere if it was outside their country.
International blockers (France) might actually happen. Only recently Belgium has won a case against Facebook because of FB breaking Belgium privacy laws (which are derived from EU laws I might add), and FB now blocks EVERY user (that's not logged in to FB) who visits to a FB page.
On the other hand, the 2 week refund policy added to Steam was because Germany sued Valve because the non-return policy was not in line with German (and once again EU) law. Valve obviously lost and now we (FINALLY) have a return policy on Steam.
...so you might never know what will happen when France will win this...
Up until now, the internet has basically been a wild wild west. Privacy, ownership, age of digital consent (being raised to 16 in the EU, which means Facebook can't register a 12 year old child anymore and data mine them), while heavily discussed, haven't been subject to much regulation.
It's normal that it seems like the hammer is coming down now, because it's been party without rules for decades.
Especially in the West, there's been extremely lax regulations online, consumer rights and privacy rights have been ignored in favor of corporate profits.
There's always been this laissez-faire attitude towards the internet. But that was before companies were making massive profits selling goods and mining private data.
What DMKano say's his valid. If they don't have any presence there, the law for that country does not apply to them. The thing is if they do have a presence like Microsoft and other software company then they will be charge and will have to pay a very high amount. Just having a payment processing system over there makes them accountable.
EU laws are not a joke. Pass event talks for itself in this matter.
Only recently Belgium has won a case against Facebook because of FB breaking Belgium privacy laws (which are derived from EU laws I might add), and FB now blocks EVERY user (that's not logged in to FB) who visits to a FB page.
Comments
Oh and some info for some of the others: Valve's EU HQ is located in Luxembourg not France.
You beat me to it DMKano lol. My wife read the discussion cause I was shaking my head and she said they could just put blockers on international connections but then laughed saying no one would be able to access anything anywhere if it was outside their country.
I am reminded of how Facebook has been facing legal action around the world for their data collection. Facebook is serving consumers that are protected by privacy laws, seems the same here.
Corporations should be totally obedient to Governments if they wish to do business in said Nation.
Just because something is on the internet should not exempt it from real life rule of government... example for instance... if a Nation says their citizens have the right of freedom of speech that right should extend everywhere in that Nation, including all internet activity within that Nation. There should be not exemptions just because a Corporation owns something and operates it... either a right is extended everywhere without exception or it is exists no where.
I see nothing wrong with what France is doing and I support it. We should be the owners of software we purchase and should be able to do with it as we decide. In the past I was against RMT involving the sale of accounts and characters of online gaming, but as time goes on I think everyone is better served if ownership was truly in the hands of the players and not the MMO Publishers.
Edit: Well... normal if you actually know your rights.
Where it gets tricky though is via the delivery system.You are using Steam to store your game and load it.
Also unlike a normal sale which si conducted by the consumers,this would entail Steam to also make the change of ownership and far i know there is never going to be a law to force them to take part in a transaction.
SO if this by some fluke gets passed as law,Steam would be forced to change their delivery system so that consumers have full right and access to the game without the use of Steam and again i just don't see it happening.So what happens then?Ok you can sell it but how is the other party going to actually play it,allow account sharing,again that's not happening.
I expect Valve's over priced lawyers already have all bases covered,likely somewhere in the fine print is no sharing of files because Valve is not obligated to transfer files to non customers.What happens 99% of the time when government gets involved similar to the recent 3 billion dollar FDA lawsuit is it is simply a transfer of money.....knock knock...YES?Got our money?Oh yes right here....Ok thanks cya next year same time,yeah no problem ,bring your golf clubs next time.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Valve should just put in a clause that says you can resell your games but we take a 200% cut of the games original worth or what you sell it for, whatever is higher for the service.
The law of the land is the law of the land. And in some countries companies go to great lengths.
It is a key driver behind trade agreements. Real example: goods shipped from EU to US in metal container as required by EU law (explosive parts); rejected by US customs - not in a plywood container; had to let it in because of EU-US trade deal. The irony: EU had updated its laws to comply with new United Nations standards that the US had helped push and sign off on.
Digital ownership has been tested in EU courts - don't think it has yet in the US. I remember Steve Jobs before he died jokingly - but very seriously - posing the question: who would own his music collection when he died, his family or Apple.
I always found that rather absurd that people side with a company that makes billions anyway... even if Valve would lose (and I'm quite sure they'll find something to weasel out from it.) they'll have a system in place that would still make them money.
Now extreme case - people holding money in off-shore tax havens - another saga.
Both the EU and the US have become very clear that someone living in a state / country has to pay taxes; on the financial transaction.
Indeed "local sales taxes" were - still are I think - an issue in the US. Different city taxes, unless unconsolidated, county taxes, state taxes and national taxes. And companies were / are expected to abide by all of them
If you come to the US and it's legal under US for you to buy a gun here, then Walmart can very much sell you a gun in the US. They can't deliver your gun to somewhere in Europe where it's illegal. If you buy a gun from Walmart in the US and then try to smuggle it back to Europe on your own, you're the one who violated European law, not Walmart.
But what if a company has no physical presence in a country? What if they're based somewhere else, but people from some foreign country access their servers whether they like it or not? Does that then obligate the company to follow foreign laws for a foreign country that they wanted nothing to do with?
If what the lawsuit demands is all that onerous, then Valve has to somehow have the recourse of saying, fine, we won't operate in France anymore. But "won't operate in France" logically must be far shy of "people in France can't buy stuff off of our site" or else you end up with logical absurdities that would shut down the Internet.
Do gold spammers have a legal right to sell their virtual goods within a game, backed by governments that make it illegal to ban or hamper their business?
More generally, costs of doing business will inevitably be passed along to the consumer. Goods and services are almost invariably more expensive than they would be apart from having to comply with regulations. Some useful things that would be offered aren't because it's too expensive to comply with the regulations.
That's not to say that all government regulations are bad. Sometimes the value of regulations exceeds their cost. But there is always a cost, and to deny that or assume that it is borne entirely by corporations and not consumers is to ignore the entire issue in favor of living in a fantasy world. As with many things in life, there is no magic solution, but only trade-offs.
Btw what stops someone from making a new steam account every time they buy a new game and selling the password and email to someone else later? It would be a pain to do but it should be possible I think.
If every website that's viewable from the EU needs to comply with all EU law then that's great. Guess what, other nations have other laws. Are Saudi Arabia and Iran's moral laws also applicable to every website in the world? What about Russia's laws against certain types of expression? Guess those apply to every website too now.
Likely instead of shutting down the three fourths or so of the internet that doesn't currently conform with the laws of ever nation on Earth, each country would have their own internet and only corporations or institutions with deep pockets that can afford a team of international lawyers will be able to have their websites veiwable across all countries.
It's ironic that your EU consumer laws designed to protect people from large corporations if taken to their logical conclusion would lead to a world where pretty much only corporations were allowed to express themselves across national boarders.
And no, that does not give the EU the right to dictate what happens on "the entire internet", but within their digital borders it does, which is normal when you think about it.
As far as "freelance person", most of those rules don't apply to those people. The cookie law deals with storing private data of people. When you start storing private data of people in cookies, you are no longer a "freelance person", you know what you're doing at that point, and it's perfectly normal you are forced to comply with laws at that point.
Frankly, anyone not knowing what the cookie law is, shouldn't be allowed to make a website in 2015, because that person is clueless. They should make a wordpress site and not be allowed near a 10 mile radius of Dreamweaver.
On the other hand, the 2 week refund policy added to Steam was because Germany sued Valve because the non-return policy was not in line with German (and once again EU) law. Valve obviously lost and now we (FINALLY) have a return policy on Steam.
...so you might never know what will happen when France will win this...
It's normal that it seems like the hammer is coming down now, because it's been party without rules for decades.
Especially in the West, there's been extremely lax regulations online, consumer rights and privacy rights have been ignored in favor of corporate profits.
There's always been this laissez-faire attitude towards the internet. But that was before companies were making massive profits selling goods and mining private data.
EU laws are not a joke. Pass event talks for itself in this matter.
We will have to wait and see how it plays out.
http://www.eweek.com/cloud/four-nations-join-belgium-to-demand-facebook-rein-in-cookies.html