Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Twitter Moves Non-US Accounts To Ireland, and Away From the NSA

Posted by timothy on from the be-right-over-here-guys dept.

Mark Wilson writes Twitter has updated its privacy policy, creating a two-lane service that treats U.S. and non-U.S. users differently. If you live in the U.S., your account is controlled by San Francisco-based Twitter Inc, but if you're elsewhere in the world (anywhere else) it's handled by Twitter International Company in Dublin, Ireland. The changes also affect Periscope. What's the significance of this? Twitter Inc is governed by U.S. law; it is obliged to comply with NSA-driven court requests for data. Data stored in Ireland is not subject to the same obligation. Twitter is not alone in using Dublin as a base for non-U.S. operations; Facebook is another company that has adopted the same tactic. The move could also have implications for how advertising is handled in the future.

5 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Except... by GoddersUK · · Score: 5, Informative

    ...it's been done before and didn't work.

    1. Re:Except... by onepoint · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have a very general answer to this which if you research will lead to the exact answer.
      Companies in the USA are allowed to have subsidiaries ( look up the structure of any international bank )
      Subsidiaries are governed by local law and pass the profits up the chain.

      the government can not request a subsidiary outside of it's jurisdiction to hand over personal information
      ( maybe some other things, but not personal information )

      to carry this issue to the extreme ...
      Please see what Argentina did to citi bank recently (2015)
      Please see what NY ( 1996 to 2002 ) and the USA (last 6 years) did to Swiss banking
      NY told the Swiss ( in summary ) If you got nazi loot you can not do business with NY, Swiss banking replied by opening subsidiaries to handle NY business
      Swiss replied to the USA ... here are all the Americans that have accounts with us, you figure out who is evading taxes.

      --
      if you see me, smile and say hello.
  2. Re:What the fuck is "Periscope"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Umm, Ireland isn't in the UK you know ...

  3. Re:Get out of Dodge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yep, Ireland is a favourite country for shuffling money through to avoid paying tax, to the point where this sort of corporate structure even has its own wikipedia page.

  4. Re:GCHQ by Intrepid+imaginaut · · Score: 4, Informative

    GCHQ has no jurisdiction in Ireland. Different country, not part of the UK and all that.