

Big Three Agree on Guidelines for Countries Who Restrict Human Rights - qhoxie
http://mashable.com/2008/10/28/microsoft-google-yahoo-privacy-policy-human-rights/

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mindslight
The right way to address this would be to not setup a physical presence in
those countries, but instead offer their (localized) services from outside the
borders. When an oppressive country was looking for information on a
dissident, they would have to prove the target was a criminal under the host
country's legal system. But that would require a _real_ backbone instead of a
cushy press release.

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chollida1
> The right way to address this would be to not setup a physical presence in
> those countries,

I thought this at first too, but in the end "those countries" include the USA,
Canada, UK, etc.

To follow your comment that would mean the company couldn't incorporate at all
and would have to have no physical presence in any country what so ever.

~~~
mindslight
I originally thought about making a snarky comment asking if these policies
applied to the US, but my pragmatic side won out.

There's a bit of difference for a country with laws and traditions to
explicitly punish dissenters. The local police in China can probably call up a
tech company and merely ask for information on a suspected dissident. In the
US, they'd at least have to go to court with a plausible reason. I'm sure the
big tech companies are in bed with the "intelligence" community in the US, but
nothing we say is going to make them ruffle feathers in their primary market.

The ideal approach involves technical decentralization to put data out of the
reach of _any_ government. But if we're talking about preexisting companies
looking to make money off of services that have already been designed, the
only thing they might be willing to change is how they deploy.

