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

[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?