Court Ruling Shows The Internet Does Have Borders After All (csoonline.com)

itwbennett writes: Microsoft's recent victory in court, when it was ruled that the physical location of the company's servers in Ireland were out of reach of the U.S. government, was described on Slashdot as being "perceived as a major victory for privacy." But J. Trevor Hughes, president and CEO of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) has a different view of the implications of the ruling that speaks to John Perry Barlow's vision of an independent cyberspace: "By recognizing the jurisdictional boundaries of Ireland, it is possible that the Second Circuit Court created an incentive for other jurisdictions to require data to be held within their national boundaries. We have seen similar laws emerge in Russia -- they fall under a policy trend towards 'data localization' that has many cloud service and global organizations deeply concerned. Which leads to a tough question: what happens if every country tries to assert jurisdictional control over the web? Might we end up with a fractured web, a 'splinternet,' of lessening utility?"

Comments

I'll take the bait

[guruevi]

No, we just end up with these large corporations splitting up in entities that are harder to control (and tax). Microsoft will just transfer it's "data assets" to Microsoft Farawayistan just like it does with it's taxes to Microsoft Ireland. We may end up with all of the major data centers in South America, Japan and Eastern Europe and thus a shift of both tech, brains and money to countries that don't put up with idiotic lawmakers.

Re:I'll take the bait

[Anonymous Coward]

I was with you until the 'idiotic' part.

The idea that cyberspace is space-less, that' it's some vague cloud beyond national laws, has also created lots of (privacy) problems.

I really like my EU protections, and I can see the oposite happening where something like "Our servers are located in the EU" becomes a mark of quality.

Re:I'll take the bait

[Sique]

The Location of data has what to do with its movement around the world?

It always exists in at least one place.

Even that is not a given. Think about a RAID5 spread over several legislations, where each hard drive is in another country. No legislation has control over a complete set of the information in the RAID5, and only if one reads a sector of it, its parts get requested in the different locations and combined to the real data. And only if all but one legislations agree, you are able to get the complete information, as the data from n-1 stripes can reconstruct the original.

Short answer

[ebonum]

Yes.

Long answer. China is quickly moving in this direction. 20% of the world's population is quickly moving towards being on an internet island. Currently, the great firewall is a black list. There is talk of it becoming a white list. Of course to get on the white list, companies will have to jump through all sorts of hoops. Including agreeing to terms such as recognizing Taiwan as part of China, that China owns the South China Sea, Japan sucks and the Chinese people are superior in every way, etc. Globally, all content from the company will have to follow rules to promote peaceful, happy society. Otherwise, you company doesn't get access to China. The sad part: most companies will agree in a heartbeat.

Re: Short answer

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet the US government acts as if it has some sort of manifest right to said data wherever it may reside. Well, the data islands may be bad. but I'd sure hate for Herr Erdogan to determine that this post is inflamatory to him and that the US should just compel /. to unmask my anonimity so they can then compel US Marshalls to help facilitate my extradition to Turkey to whatever kangaroo court will soon be set up. Erdogan can just go suck on big Q and shove a big W up his ass.
tl;dr similar laws and policies protect people so why shouldn't data be protected?

Actually, I've seen a vision of how it turns out.

[Narcocide]

Turns out this is the setting of the world in which your character lives in Megaman Battle Network 2 (Nintendo GBA). Its not really the plot, but as a setting for a world it makes some interesting but subtle social commentary. First of all, it just assumes this is the "right way" for the internet to work and that it always has been thus, and doesn't debate it with you. You're along for the ride in a world where:

1) Just connecting to the internet in another country requires a Passport.
2) The internet is not as safe in every country. In fact, they're all incrementally more dangerous than your home country's internet.
3) The space on the internet between country jurisdictional borders is very hostile.
4) Viruses roam freely, attacking anything in their sight. Nobody seems to know why they are there. They just take for granted that they must always have been there or are naturally occurring.

The 90s called and want their cyberspace back

[Kjella]

Remember when tech pundits were talking like the Internet would transcend to become it's own nation that people would emigrate to and live in? Well shit turns out we still live in meatspace with countries and laws. And surprise, surprise so does our data. The cloud is just the new buzzword for the same concept without the people. I suppose companies will try to go jurisdiction shopping, but I doubt they'll succeed. The governments of the world will set requirements for dealing with their citizen's data and you'll either comply or get in legal trouble, like the EU's "right to be forgotten". Yes, it means data on the Chinese might stay in China but it might also mean data on US citizens stay in the US. Would you really like them to swap? Or do you just want to fulfill the NSAs wet dream that all data on everyone in the whole world go through the US? Seriously, for most of us local data is a good thing.

Incentives

[edjs]

"it is possible that the Second Circuit Court created an incentive for other jurisdictions to require data to be held within their national boundaries"

No, the PATRIOT act and related laws regarding the (lack of) privacy for data held in the US did that ages ago.

No

[PPH]

The Internet has no borders. Court jurisdictions do however.

Countries might try to mandate local storage for their citizens' data. But that is authoritarian control over their citizens, not so much the Internet. Anyone reasonably motivated can still move their data to overseas services if they are willing to incur the risk.