First, you are confusing visas. The tourist visa is not the same as the visa waiver. There is a tourist visa, it's called B-2 and it does not allow you to do any business or work. Visiting with the visa waiver program means visiting without a visa.
Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. It does not allow you to work.
Exactly. There's a fine line between a business trip, and something that requires a work visa.
I'd imagine that the best way for a foreigner to work in the US on non-US projects is if a body-shop (possibly owned by them - I think most people can own a US company) hires them, then subcontracts them out to the offshore employer. The question is how they get everything set up while they don't have a work visa. I wonder if a business visa would allow them to set the paperwork up? Anyway, it's madness.
I'm not confusing the visas, though I probably could have made it clearer. I'm not talking about what you can do with the visa waiver. I specifically mentioned the case where the visitor is from South America, because there's no visa waiver for us.
For people who are require to have visas, the tourist visa and the business visa are issued together. When you get to the port of embark, you tell the immigration officer whether you're coming for business or pleasure.
> Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences.
Yeah, that's the situation I described.
> It does not allow you to work.
...for an US entity. If you're going for business then you're working, right? Anyway, even if it's not specifically allowed, there's a gray area.
I read that, I think he was quite naive and uninformed. He should have done what I described. "I'm working for DutchCorp, and will go to a business trade event, here's the invitation". Then he would make sure the event organizers would not pay him directly. They would pay his Dutch company, and he would get paid in Netherlands, not in US.
Next, for short trips, visiting without a visa is equivalent to having a business visa (B-1). It allows you to meet with US clients, customers, partners, and so on and it allows you to go to conferences. It does not allow you to work.
See as a recent example from Hacker News: http://www.noop.nl/2011/06/american-learning-experience.html