Restrictive Sales Practices on the Web?

Ed Almos asks: "I don't know about other Slashdot readers, who happen to live outside the US, but I'm in Hungary, and am finding it more and more difficult to purchase goods and services over the web. The sites are there, the money is in my account, but the sites won't sell me anything! Can someone come up with a logical reason for these policies? Last time I checked I was using the WORLD Wide Web, and there seems little point wasting bandwidth to post your website to the world when only those living in the USA can buy and/or use the product. Then again, is this yet another example of the Internet and the rest of the world becoming more and more centered on the continental USA? The final irony? I'm originally from Maine. These folk won't even sell to one of their own!"

"Here are a few examples:

IBM, Apple and Dell operate web stores that sell almost their entire range of kit, they only ship to the USA. Power Notebooks have the same policy but cite different reasons (see below). Some manufacturers have local country websites but these offer a restricted range compared to the main site.

Apple has their new iTunes system. As I am outside the USA they will not let me logon to the system.

Amazon.com are willing to sell me books but nothing else.

The reasons for this policy range from the (almost) reasonable to the downright silly. Amazon cite difficulties with warranty returns as their reason and while most of the rest won't tell me why they don't want my business Power Notebooks told me that recent anti-terrorist legislation stops them from exporting equipment. Quite why they cannot export a notebook originally manufactured in the Far East is beyond me.

Getting the kit to me in Hungary is no problem either. FedEx and UPS have local offices and if that fails there is always the Hungarian Postal Service. Shipping time from the USA can be as short as two working days, I know this because my company obtains spares from the USA for our products."

Comments

phirst p0st!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

fp!!!! woooowooo!!!!

did I get it?

Re:phirst p0st!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, You were close. Always remember these two things.

1. If you get second place, you're still a loser.

2. If you win a gold medal in the special olympics, You're still a retard.

Re:phirst p0st!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic? I'll give you offtopic.

She married and had 13 children. Her husband died. She married again and had 7 more children.
Again, her husband died. But, she remarried and this time had 5 more children. Alas, she finally died.

Standing before her coffin, the preacher prayed for her. He thanked the Lord, for this very loving woman and said, "Lord, they're finally together."
One mourner leaned over and asked her friend, "Do you think he means her first, second or third husband?"

The friend replied, "I think he means her legs"

testing

[Anonymous Coward]

never mind if this actually gets through, I'm just testing because I'm having trouble posting stuff...

Re:Didn't you know?

[eht]

if it's funny it should get +1 funny, not +1 informative

Annoying Europeans and their factoids

[Nice2Cats]

I live in Germany and get a lot of this crap: Europeans making fun of Americans' alleged lack of geographical knowledge. Note this comes from a bunch of people who tend to think that Syndey is the capital of Australia, believe the Grand Canyon is in Colorado (because of the river), and regularly call the people who live in Iran "Arabs" (hint: try "Persians").

Different educational systems stress different fields of learning. The Europeans spent centuries invading either each other or forcing third world countries into colonial slavery -- of course this sort of geography was traditionally important to them, if only for national prestige. Also, with the exception of Russia, Europe is a collection of very small countries, mostly not larger than a good sized U.S. state, and so you tend to run out of cities, states, and rivers to memorize rather more quickly. Americans for the most part stayed at home, or at least didn't establish colonies. If you have 50 states and a bunch of fun places in neighboring Canada, that's quite a lot. Apart from that, Europeans have a hard time understanding that European geography is about as interesting to Americans as Japanese geography to the Europeans -- just ask one of these smart-ass Europeans to name the principle Japanese islands. Or, to the original poster Waikerie: Could you find Kyushu on a map? Yeah, right.

Another thing Europeans like to bitch about is that Americans don't know the name of their Chancellor / Prime Minister / whatever. Every time a German does this to me, I ask him to name the prime minister of the Netherlands, which they routinely fail at. Note this is a neighboring country and one that Germans visit in great numbers to buy drugs. The prime minister of Poland or, for that matter, Denmark, is completely beyond their grasp. Germans also regularly fail when asked to name the countries that have borders with Germany -- they usually get confused south of Poland, and seem unable to tell Slovenia and Slovakia apart.

To be fair, the Germans are starting to realize that their educational system is not as good as they keep telling themselves. The international PISA study put a big dent in their ego, and just today, the news magazine "Der Spiegel" has an article about how German universities are as expensive as anywhere else, but their quality of education is terrible.

So the next time some European here at Slashdot starts making those Anti-American remarks, don't moderate them as funny, moderate them as troll. Lack of education is never funny, even in cases where it is true, and people who use glass as a construction material shouldn't be throwing heavy silicoid compounds in any case.

Re:those a**holes at Showtime.com

[TheShadow]

They probably got sued by the dumbass French government for airing a show about Nazis.

Re:"Can't be bothered..."

[Gorm the DBA]

Yeah, I know you're a troll...but I can't help it...Lance Armstrong uses no items that are on the banned/restricted list for cyclists. Anything he's on is within the rules for any cyclist.

Now...I freely admit the cycling drug rules make it so that damned near anything is free game (It's almost like that old SNL skit "The All-Drug Olympics"), but he ain't no better than anyone else because of drugs. He's better than anyone else because he's on the bike something like 355 days a year, where most cyclists do a "3 on, 1 off" kind of thing, and he spends more time focusing on the specific mountains and trails the Tour De France is taking in a given year than any other racer out there. In other words, he wins because he tries harder than the rest...and he's gifted, and extraordinarily driven, not because he's hopped up.