Yes, and as UK citizen I can hold my government to account through the democratic process if they start freely sharing data on UK citizens to others in the Five Eyes alliance. Notably the Five Eyes alliance used this exact setup to avoid local laws and democratic accountability, I don't want it to be easier for it to continue.

I sure as shit can't hold the US government to account.

> if they start freely sharing data on UK citizens to others in the Five Eyes alliance.

How will you know?

Another Snowden? Change in government? Does it really matter?

Point is I help elect the UK government, that means I can change it. Does not apply to the US government, so the US government could put full page ads in the Daily Mail talking about how the abuse the data of UK citizens, and there's diddly squat I could do about it.

Funny thing about Snowden's leaks is that the only meaningful outcome I can see of it is his exile. PRISM itself is still alive and well.

Laws forcing companies to keep specific data in certain jurisdictions is another one, as this article is concerned with. The Brits just shot themselves in the foot. I though EU directives had to be ratified and remain in effect, but apparently other UK laws make it possible for Facebook to abuse their position unhampered.

Wouldn’t say there’s much funny about it at all. The general populace being confirmed as largely powerless drones with the cognitive abilities of non-playable video game characters was harrowing at best.

Not really sure why any of that matters. It’s pretty simple, I would rather have my data stored somewhere I have some level of recourse for privacy violations. Even if that recourse is long drawn out and difficult, than somewhere I have no recourse, and never will have any recourse.

I really don’t understand why you’re struggling to understand that. Talking about the relative merits of different governments is completely meaningless, if I can only elect and influence one of them.

Based on your arguments I should just lie down and let every world government and company trample all over my rights, because it’s all hopeless anyway.

Just don't overestimate the effect of the data location. You have other tools as well, including controlling more tightly what information you share on platforms like Facebook. Now surely, they do track us regardless, shadow profiles, like buttons etc.

Also on the other side of things, does it harm me more if a foreign government holds information on me, random Joe, or if my own government holds the same info? Which one cares more about the info and might have incentives to abuse it? What if China has a profile on me? I'll most likely never enter China anyway. I don't live and work in the US, why would them mining my data be so dangerous?

> Also on the other side of things, does it harm me more if a foreign government holds information on me, random Joe, or if my own government holds the same info?

Might be a good question for Kim Dotcom. Regardless of your views on his various business, it hard to explain how the US arresting a non-US citizen outside of the US isn’t a huge and worrying overstep by the US.

Now I probably don’t need to worry about a Kim Dotcom style raid on my home, but I see no reason why I should make it easy for the US to do that if they wanted too.

And regardless of hypothetical harms by the US government. Privacy is my right, and I’ll defend it. Why on earth should I be comfortable with my data being taken by governments around the world that don’t share my world view? (And the US government certainly doesn’t share my world views).

Once again, at least I can hold my government accountable. I notionally understand U.K. law, and the U.K. legal system, and thus what abuses I might be subject too. I see no reason why I should have to learn about US law and the US legal system, just to use the internet from my computer in the U.K.

Let me understand you better. Would you say the following?

- If FB is to operate under US law with US data centers you prefer to be geo-blocked by them based on IP and feel you need to be protected against your own will and you can't trust yourself to just not use the service

- You are concerned about shadow profiles and the like, i.e. the unavoidability of FB even if you want to avoid it. But otherwise you'd be okay with FB offering its services to those who accept it on the foreign terms.

- You are concerned for your fellow citizens who may be less informed and may accept conditions they don't understand and are harmful for them. Therefore rather geo-block foreign FB from them for their own good.

No, I’m saying if FB wish to operate their product in the U.K. they should follow U.K. law, and respect the rights that U.K. law provides to its citizens.

If FB don’t want to do that, then, yes, they should geo-block the U.K. to avoid the liability.

Being an American company doesn’t give them the right to just ignore local laws and customs of other countries, and it would be hypocritical to think otherwise. The US certainly doesn’t allow counterfeit products to enter from China, despite the fact those products would be mostly considered legal in China. So why the hell should American company’s have the right to ignore laws in other countries, just because somethings not illegal in the US?

Whether I trust myself to use a service is irrelevant. I should be able to use almost any service made readily available to me in the U.K. under the assumption they follow U.K. law. The onus should be on FB to operate legally and ethical, not on me audit every service I use for legal and ethical violations.

I see. I think it boils down to how we understand the Internet, what analogies we can reach to. What does it mean to "operate in" a country, when talking about the Internet? They don't really operate the product in the UK. You are sending information about yourself to the US and get back a response. Is getting IP packets through a wire the same as getting Chinese products through the mail even though no money changes hands? Or is it more like sending letters?

> What does it mean to "operate in" a country, when talking about the Internet? They don't really operate the product in the UK.

I have to disagree with this statement. I would agree with it, if people from the U.K. were using FB without FB explicitly catering for a U.K. audience, or collecting enough information to fairly accurately identify a U.K. audience. But both of those statements are false.

1. FB advertises on TV and in meatspace in the U.K. I don’t understand how you could not consider that operating in the U.K. Even if the physical servers our elsewhere.

2. We know that FB collect enough data to identify people from the U.K. They undoubtedly segment and sell adverts based on the location of users. So they’re more than capable to identifying U.K. users for legal reasons.

> even though no money changes hands?

I don’t think this is the standard for determining if someone is operating in a country. I would say the bar is slightly fuzzier, are you offering a simple method for a population to use your product, and targeting them in some manner.

The targeting could be anything from explicitly advertising to them, to simply offering cheap and simple shipping to their country. Of people are signing up without you targeting them, then I would happily accept you don’t really have an obligation to follow their local laws.

As I mentioned above, I think FB more than qualifies as operating in the U.K. and no doubt if you asked them, they to would agree that they operate in the U.K.

And tbh the security services in the have more oversight than the FANGS do

There's a huge difference between sharing between national security services, which are generally out of the reach of everyday warrants and the company moving data so that a local judge can approve a subpoena.