[HN Gopher] An unwanted update to your Google Account
___________________________________________________________________
An unwanted update to your Google Account
Author : olvy0
Score : 235 points
Date : 2021-06-19 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (roboleary.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (roboleary.net)
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| The author is aware that his account ended up being associated
| with Malaysia, right?
|
| I have the impression he mistakenly thinks it stayed with
| Germany?
| eyeinthepyramid wrote:
| Didn't he want it to stay with Germany?
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| Yes, and it looks like it changed to Malaysia rather than
| remaining in Germany.
| wikunia wrote:
| Yeah I'm also confused by that part. The first said Germany ->
| Malaysia and the second said: Will be unchanged but Malaysia
| masklinn wrote:
| It looks like Google told the author to get bent, but it's
| really rather unclear.
|
| Though note that the dates may be confused: the article was
| posted on May 1st but the edit is marked April 4th, for an
| update to an article which would have been posted a month
| later.
|
| Most likely the date for the update is wrong and should be
| something like June 4th, and in
|
| > Which will happen first? The automatic switching of the
| country association, or Google responding to my inquiry? It's
| going to be a race!
|
| the automatic switching won.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| > I have the impression he mistakenly thinks it stayed with
| Germany?
|
| I don't get that impression. I think the reason it's in bold
| with is to show that even after the manual attempt to change
| it, Google responded with "sorry, still Malaysia".
| Little_John wrote:
| hey everyone, Let's all hail from Uzbekistan!
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Do you have Google One or a Workspace plan? I'd be curious if you
| contact support from there if they are able to assist you. Last I
| checked, Google One offers a free trial.
| samat wrote:
| I've contacted Google One support regarding youtube/google one
| family account. They've said some things and I've tried some
| things, nothing changed. Too big of an issue, I guess.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| > There is a disadvantage for me, because the privacy laws in
| Europe are stronger than Asia, I lose some privacy protection.
|
| You don't lose privacy protection by virtue of Google changing
| your location. You lose privacy protection by not being a
| resident of the jurisdiction with those laws.
| developer93 wrote:
| But if a company has you down as being in country x, how do
| they know to apply the laws from country y? This is a practical
| rather than legal point
| compiler-guy wrote:
| If the company has you down in country A, then they apply the
| rules for country A. But there are many signs they use to
| determine what country you are actually in.
|
| Apparently there were enough signs in this case to conclude
| he had been in Malaysia long enough to trigger the rule.
| jmholla wrote:
| There were also enough signs for them to identify Dan
| Schroeder being from Thailand despite the fact he hasn't
| been there or out of his country of residence for two
| years.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| The argument isn't that the system is perfect. It likely
| just needs to be good enough. A false positive in
| attempting to comply with the law really isn't a reason
| to not try at all.
| daxuak wrote:
| It's not mentioned in the article, but services could differ
| between app stores if we head in this direction, not only for
| privacy terms. For instance if China somehow get VPN apps off the
| shelves from HK's app store and people there couldn't associate
| their google accounts with regions other than HK, then that's a
| root/switch OS or no VPN scenario for them. Same could happen to
| Americans there - it's not based on citizenship or proof of
| residence, google just decides. Ultimately one can argue that
| even so it's not google's responsibility to fight against
| authoritarians or whatever, but imho android already has a closed
| eco system, this is getting worse.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| I got this email a week or two ago, but Google sent a follow up
| email shortly thereafter clarifying that it was sent in mistake.
| I'm curious, were only some of those emails sent by mistake? Or
| were all of them? If the latter, perhaps the OP's concerns are
| unfounded as of yet.
| efitz wrote:
| Why are you using Google if privacy is this much of a concern for
| you?
|
| There are many other services that provide much better privacy
| protections, eg ProtonMail.
| eingaeKaiy8ujie wrote:
| It's not only about mail though. I don't use Gmail, but I still
| need a Google account for my job to access our Drive, Calendar,
| etc. I will delete it without hesitation once I don't need it.
| nerbert wrote:
| Spoiler alert: in 10 years a leak reveals that ProtonMail is
| one of the multiple "Swiss-based privacy-oriented" services
| operated by secret services.
| dev_snd wrote:
| Please don't spread FUD. Do you have any sources for your
| accusations?
|
| I believe that there are still honorable companies out there
| (and I don't even use ProtonMail in particular)
| rvba wrote:
| NordVPN is pushed so hard everywhere that it looks like a
| single point of failure - I assume every secret service wants
| to hack it, if they didnt already.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I would have expected some sort of crackdown on popular
| VPNs used by US citizens if they were as private as they
| seemed or at least some polical action funded by right
| holders.
|
| We don't see this at all.
|
| That tells me these services are compromised on some level.
|
| A little while ago I noticed plenty of different VPN
| providers. Many of the smaller ones were bought and private
| labelled or had smear campaigns against them. Companies
| compete so some of that is understood.. but the extent of
| the attacks tells me players with powerful networks
| (governmental,business or rogue) shut down many legitimate
| smaller VPNs whike help promote others.
|
| I would be wary of using any VPN if I expected privacy.
|
| Rolling your own is easy enough but be careful where you
| setup shop.
| masklinn wrote:
| It's ok, because now ExpressVPN is putting out ads
| everywhere instead!
| lrem wrote:
| Disclaimer: I'm a Googler. These are my personal opinions.
|
| Email is a small part of things I care about. Moreover, there's
| snowflake's chance in hell I succeed at convincing every
| correspondent to switch to e2e encryption and off services no
| more trustworthy than Google or Microsoft. So, the technical
| premise of ProtonMail doesn't help.
|
| When it comes to Swiss privacy law... I'm already protected by
| GDPR. Google is a juicy and politically convenient target for
| most countries, so I'm not worried about its compliance. And
| I'd rather stick to a company with a legal team equipped to
| wrestle with government overreach.
|
| Finally, I feel perfectly fine trusting Google to keep my
| private things private. I keep copies of important documents in
| Drive. Realistically, the highest risk vector for them leaking
| is someone pwning my machine.
| tyingq wrote:
| I can see someone wanting something that the GDPR provides
| them, while still wanting to use Google. "Right to be
| forgotten", for example.
| qwertox wrote:
| Many others? I only know of ProtonMail. Then there's
| mailbox.org and Posteo, but both are required to provide access
| to the government [1]. Their only option is to provide end-to-
| end encryption, like ProtonMail does.
|
| I wouldn't trust any other email provider than one of those
| three, if I would need to have truly secure emailing via a 3rd
| party. But none are in a different position that Google, maybe
| with exception of ProtonMail.
|
| Which ones would you list?
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_d...
| ipaddr wrote:
| I would only trust my own server and even then.
| type0 wrote:
| put it under your bed so that you could immediately notice
| if anyone tries to access it while you asleep
| izacus wrote:
| Even ProtonMail needs to operate under Malaysian law for
| Malaysian residents.
|
| Being "private" doesn't magically make GDPR affect non-EU
| residents.
| Havoc wrote:
| Anybody know where to see this setting. Been clicking around my
| account for a while and can't see it (Not under personal info or
| data & personalisation)
| Guidii wrote:
| Another thread mentioned:
| https://policies.google.com/terms?authuser=
|
| This gave me the TOS matched to the country that Google thinks
| I'm in. (They're correct, in my case)
| Havoc wrote:
| That has me under US despite being in the UK. So that seems
| to be the legal territory you fall under rather than
| necessarily IP detected country
| ajross wrote:
| Well... is the author actually in Maylasia or Germany? I mean,
| that matters. You don't get to personally choose whose laws
| you're subject to, nor does Google. Having your Google settings
| set to Germany does nothing to protect you from Maylay law, nor
| Google for that matter.
|
| If you don't want to be subject to the laws of the country you're
| in[1] _you have to move_. Google can 't help you.
|
| [1] Edit: I guess in this circumstance better phrased as "If you
| want legal protections offered by a country you're not in..."
| charles_f wrote:
| Yup. Plus, beyond privacy there's the matter of taxes, both
| paid by the consumer when purchasing but also paid
| (sometimes...) by Google to the country of operations. So yeah,
| you don't get to decide.
| nulbyte wrote:
| > You don't get to personally choose whose laws you're subject
| to, nor does Google.
|
| You could move, apply for and gain citizenship in another
| country, or do other things to make these choices. But
| contracts are even easier: Just pick a place. That's what a
| choice of laws provision[0] is for.
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice_of_law_clause
| masklinn wrote:
| > Well... is the author actually in Maylasia or Germany?
|
| It seems rather clear that the author is physically in
| Malaysia.
|
| > I mean, that matters.
|
| Kinda but kinda not? If you're an american citizen and for some
| reason go spend 6 months or a year in Malaysia, you probably
| don't want your accounts to be switched over to Malaysia, and
| possibly Malaysian, a language you probably do not speak.
| ajross wrote:
| Localization settings are distinct from location, they're
| just defaults. You can read Google in German right here in
| the US, etc...
|
| The author was concerned about losing privacy protection
| offered by Google to people in Germany as required by German
| law. Which is nonsensical, because German law does nothing to
| protect you _in Maylasia_.
| [deleted]
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Ah, obnoxious geo-IP-based defaults, rather than respecting
| the browser's "Accept-Language" HTTP header.
|
| I remember Google forums there were angry servicemen that
| got Google in Arabic when they flew to Kuwait...
| IX-103 wrote:
| According to the EU, GDPR protections apply to EU citizens
| wherever they are in the world...
| izacus wrote:
| That's wrong. According to EU, GDPR applies to EU
| residents and the companies need to protect EU resident
| privacy no matter which country they hail from.
| spiddy wrote:
| Doesn't this mean that US customs should comply with GDPR
| when collecting data from EU citizens? I don't remember
| being notified of my GDPR rights when entering US last
| time. I suppose this boils down to enforceability.
| [deleted]
| axlee wrote:
| I'm curious if he will then complain about not paying
| Malaysian tax rates while living in Germany. You want to be
| protected by the EU's privacy laws? Live in Europe, it's
| that simple. Sure, he will find fewer dreamy beaches and
| cheap food, but he can't have his cake and eat it too.
| 3np wrote:
| Specifically GDPR should hold if you're a resident regardless
| of where you're physically located at an instance in time.
| croes wrote:
| What about Dan Schroeder? He wasn't even in Thailand at all.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| I'm wondering if a block of IP addresses got shifted from
| Asia to Europe recently? That's about the only thing that
| would make sense to me. But then again, ascribing sense to
| secret-sauce algorithms and AIs probably isn't a good idea.
| croes wrote:
| Maybe VPN or Proxy servers
| fchu wrote:
| Google changing the country in their terms of services without
| user explicit approval/opt-in is much worse than it seems.
|
| As a user, I might have Germany as my country in Google while
| living in Malaysia: maybe I like its privacy law better, or I'm a
| German ambassador on a diplomatic mission, or a German citizen on
| an exchange program, or a Malaysian citizen who signed up for
| Google while on vacation in Germany and is now confused about
| some parts of their account.
|
| The point is, only the last scenario needs some fixing, while in
| all other cases, the user will understandably prefer to keep the
| country unchanged. Yet Google forcibly and preemptively switches
| country in all these scenarios, with no real benefits to the
| user.
|
| But if there is no real benefit to the end user, and not everyone
| wants this, why force this change in the first place? Something
| technical that has to do with local laws.
|
| And that's where it's really bad: - It's bad as a principle,
| because if a person signs a contract with an entity under a
| specific jurisdiction, that person doesn't expect the
| jurisdiction to change unilaterally. - It's bad in practice,
| because instead of knowing with certainty that my data is under a
| specific jurisdiction, I'm now subject to some automated process
| that could unilaterally move my data to a random country,
| resulting in unintended exposure to its laws
| Rapzid wrote:
| This sorta crazy. If I were visiting China for a bit I wouldn't
| expect to get a notice from my bank or Google that they have
| transferred my accounts to a subsidiary subject to CCP control.
| Next thing you know your blocked from leaving the country.
|
| I'm curious to a few things that are absent from the post but a
| lot of people in here are talking like they know the answers to:
|
| A. How long this person was in Malaysia
|
| B. What local laws they may have been in breach of or in jeopardy
| of breaching(or Google)
|
| C. What specific local rules/laws Google was attempting to comply
| with in good faith(if any)
|
| It's amazing how many people are jumping all over the OPs case
| like they have this information. If this were a bank account
| and/or China I don't think everybody would be giving the company
| the benefit of the doubt and casting shade on the OP for raising
| concerns...
| anonu wrote:
| Any international bank that wants regular access to US dollars
| needs to play nice with the US Treasury. This means if you're a
| US Bank account holder and live abroad, they want to know.
| Similarly if you're a US citizen with a foreign bank account,
| they want to know.
|
| Not as onerous as transferring a bank account to another
| entity, but the oversight is pretty extensive nonetheless.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Can EU citizens living in Malaysia long-term exercise their GDPR
| rights when Google decides that they reside in Malaysia?
| StavrosK wrote:
| No, because the GDPR doesn't apply to citizens, but to
| companies. It only applies to companies that target the EU for
| their services:
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/refo...
| floatingatoll wrote:
| That is technically correct, but ultimately unhelpful in the
| context of the post. I've rewritten my question to address
| your objections to my phrasing.
|
| Is Google required to comply with GDPR data and deletion
| requests made by EU citizens that Google has deemed to be be
| residing in Malaysia?
|
| Since you're familiar with GDPR, I would appreciate your
| opinion on it.
| izacus wrote:
| No, GDPR explicitly speaks about EU residents and not
| citizens. Which means that OP is not covered, but an
| American living in France is.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Alright. I'm glad I asked, even if my phrasing sucked,
| because it uncovers why they're doing this.
| croes wrote:
| That's clever by google. Because if a german citizen uses
| european google services, he is GDPR protected no matter
| where he is.
|
| That switch made im a EU citizens living abroad using non-EU
| services, so no GDPR protection.
|
| Coincidence?
| StavrosK wrote:
| Again, the GDPR applies to EU _residents_ , not _citizens_.
| A German citizen in the US isn 't protected by the GDPR.
|
| Technically, it doesn't even apply to citizens, but to
| countries that the company markets to. The link explains
| all this.
| croes wrote:
| It's not so simple. A German citizen in the US is
| protected by the GDPR if he uses a EU company's service,
| even a US citizen in the US is then protected by GDPR.
|
| Here it is the same, if he uses EU Google he is
| protected, because of the switch to Google Malaysia he
| isn't anymore.
| StavrosK wrote:
| I disagree, even EU companies don't have to adhere to the
| GDPR if they don't target EU countries. Google doesn't
| have to adhere to the GDPR for people in the US, whether
| they're EU citizens or not.
| germanier wrote:
| Companies have to, see Article 3. GDPR triggers whenever
| the processing is done by a company located in the EU or
| targeting users located in the EU.
|
| Google probably does not as they surely don't do
| processing of non-EU user's data within their EU
| subsidiaries.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| It's irrelevant where Google decides they reside. It only
| matters where they _actually_ reside. Your question is a fair
| one, but it 's pretty thin and is therefore trivially answered
| by a Google search.
|
| https://www.compliancejunction.com/does-gdpr-apply-to-eu-cit...
|
| > When an individual leaves an EU country and goes to a non-EU
| country, they are no longer safeguarded by GDPR.
| Macha wrote:
| I got a similar notification recently that my account was updated
| from being associated with "unknown" to Ireland, which was
| interesting.
| blfr wrote:
| _There is a disadvantage for me, because the privacy laws in
| Europe are stronger than Asia, I lose some privacy protection. Is
| this a coincidence?_
|
| Maybe not but some of my accounts have been associated with
| European Google entities so it works both ways. It seems that
| they're simply sorting by IP from which you most often access it
| since consistent use of proxies resulted in predictable country
| association.
| tangy_fluid wrote:
| This is outrageous and attacks like this aren't going to stop
| until we start putting CEOs in prison.
| inigojonesguy wrote:
| My google account is associated with Switzerland, which is not in
| EU, although I am in Romania, which is in EU. I never received
| such a message from google.
| superkuh wrote:
| It's even worse if you don't enable javascript. Suddenly most
| google services will be in another language (not english) and
| there's nothing you can do about it. My google account regularly
| gets switched to Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc because lots of people
| from those countries use the same (canadian) VPS provider as me
| to tunnel though.
| anoncake wrote:
| If only there was some sort of Accept-Language header.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Don't get me started! Every time I travel somewhere, Google
| and a bunch of other web sites just decide on their own to
| send me web content in the local language. Why?? Just respect
| the user agent's Accept-Language header. That's the whole
| purpose of it!
| mavhc wrote:
| Because 99.999% of people don't know what that is.
| anoncake wrote:
| No, because browser makers don't expose it appropriately.
| There aren't any real alternatives: The only way to
| determine the user's language preference that can
| actually work is for them to provide it.
| Semaphor wrote:
| What would be appropriate?
|
| Firefox has it under "Choose your preferred language for
| displaying pages" which seems appropriate to me.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| More importantly, Firefox defaults to the language of the
| browser you choose to install.
|
| I haven't seen anybody install software on the wrong
| language by mistake for a long time.
| anoncake wrote:
| Somewhere more prominent, in the main UI. The user may
| want to see different pages in different languages (e.g.
| to avoid garbage translations). Or perhaps explicitly ask
| the user.
| mavhc wrote:
| Again, 99% of people want the default language, annoying
| them isn't helpful, nor is adding 100 more menu options
| squiggleblaz wrote:
| I think that's true however you slice it. There's lots of
| possibilities for defining the default: but the language
| the user has chosen to use for their system is vastly
| more likely to be right than a best guess.
|
| The other one is: pick to one language and stick to it.
| If the page I'm reading is in some European language,
| please show the GDPR messages in that European language
| not some other language. If it's a French blogspot blog
| being visited by a user in Germany, show the messages in
| French! This is almost guaranteed to be 100% reliable.
| It's not like Google is ignorant of the language of the
| page. (I can understand not having GDPR messages
| translated into say Indonesian. But if you do, then again
| - match the language of the page.)
| pingiun wrote:
| That's why there's a browser setting that handles this
| for you
| karaterobot wrote:
| If he lives in Germany, and they mistakenly changed his location
| to Malaysia, I understand his complaint. But, you can't just say
| "I want you to treat me as though I lived in a different country
| than I do, because I prefer their laws on this particular
| subject".
|
| Granted, I wish Google's approach to privacy was better all
| around, but given that they want to gobble up as much data as
| possible, and we all know about that by now, I am not as confused
| by their approach here as I am by the author's reaction.
| Skunkleton wrote:
| Many laws apply to citizens of a country, no matter where they
| are. Is GDPR applicable to EU citizens regardless of where they
| happen to be?
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| No, it only applies to residents of the EU: https://gdpr-
| info.eu/art-3-gdpr/
| codegladiator wrote:
| > you can't just say "I want you to treat me as though I lived
| in a different country than I do, because I prefer their laws
| on this particular subject
|
| why not ?
| anonymousab wrote:
| Because the laws of the country you are in dictate how Google
| must treat you as a customer or user, and not your preference
| of how you'd like them to treat you.
| ISL wrote:
| There is a subtlety here, due to Google's scale.
|
| If I sign up with a small company based in, say, Chile, all
| of my information is likely to be stored there or at least
| governed by Chile's laws no matter where I am in the world.
|
| The author of this article appears to have engaged with
| Google on the terms presented in Germany but is accessing
| Google services from Malaysia. The difference is that
| Google has a more-substantial presence in Malaysia and is
| hence more-beholden to Malaysia's laws. Our hero's ability
| to choose to interact with a first-class service while
| being treated as a German while abroad has been
| substantially degraded.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| I just took a look at this for my own account. It has me
| associated with India; I'm Australian, but spent just over a year
| in India recently. I have never received any notification like
| the one cited in this article. (Perhaps because it wouldn't
| affect which company service is offered through? But the laws may
| still differ.)
|
| And as far as Google Play Store is concerned, I'm American for
| some completely unknown reason, and they refuse to be convinced
| otherwise unless I give them credit card details; so any apps
| region-locked to Australia are out of my reach.
| lokedhs wrote:
| I was curious what country Google associates with me, and this
| is what I see:
|
| As shown in Google's Terms of Service, your account is
| associated with the following country: .
|
| It seems there are things Google don't know about me, even
| though I'm not making this information secret.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| Same for me, but they say "As shown in Google's Terms of
| Service", and that link
| https://policies.google.com/terms?authuser= does show the
| country (see and possibly click on the text "Country
| version").
| ipaddr wrote:
| How many apps get region locked to Australia?
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| I'm not in Australia, but many other countries have region
| locked local apps. In my experience banking is a big problem,
| though it seems to have improved in the last few years.
|
| Local TV providers still use region-locked apps for streaming
| services.
| mikelward wrote:
| Mobile phone companies is another one. Installing the
| Vodafone app was (maybe still is) impossible in many
| countries if you're not a local.
| AnssiH wrote:
| In addition to what siblings said: taxi apps, parking apps,
| food delivery apps, package delivery apps are sometimes
| region locked. I'm not in Australia, though.
| johnvaluk wrote:
| Location has has become a huge thorn in Google's side in a number
| of areas:
|
| - Geographical location of data (Data regions) for Google
| Workspace
|
| - Culpable deniability about a user's location when anonymously
| accessing Google Maps
|
| - Compliance with local laws where the user is physically located
| when accessing a service
|
| - Region locked applications
|
| - Financial/banking restrictions
|
| I'm sure there are more. Google is justifiably concerned about
| compliance and liability. That's the incentive for these changes,
| not improving the user experience.
| paulgdp wrote:
| I've never received such an email, but I recently moved to many
| different countries (many months each), how can I check to which
| country my account is attached to?
| laborat wrote:
| I was under the impression that the EU privacy laws (GDPR etc)
| applied to EU citizens regardless of location. If that impression
| is correct, then isn't it the case that nothing meaningful,
| privacy-wise, will change for the author even after this change
| to their account, as long as they remain a German citizen?
| chki wrote:
| No, that's not correct. As an EU citizen living abroad, using
| non-EU based services, the GDPR will not apply. It would also
| be impossible to enforce something like that.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The GDPR does apply to non-EU based services but no
| enforcement is possible.
|
| So it doesn't matter where you live if the service is out of
| reach of this law.
| chki wrote:
| >The GDPR does apply to non-EU based services
|
| That's only correct with regards to the processing of data
| subjects who are in the European Union. See Art. 3.2 of the
| GDPR.
| type0 wrote:
| Here's how Madison.com handles this:
|
| "451: Unavailable due to legal reasons
|
| We recognize you are attempting to access this website
| from a country belonging to the European Economic Area
| (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data
| Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot
| be granted at this time. For any issues, contact ..."
| twirlock wrote:
| >the privacy laws in Europe are stronger than Asia, I lose some
| privacy protection. Is this a coincidence?
|
| Of course it's not.
| Aulig wrote:
| > There is a disadvantage for me, because the privacy laws in
| Europe are stronger than Asia, I lose some privacy protection. Is
| this a coincidence?
|
| It is a coincidence, I recently had my account changed from
| Australia to Germany. Seems to simply depend on your IP, as I
| don't have any payment methods associated as speculated in
| another comment.
| Jaygles wrote:
| I understand the author's frustration. But until someone finds
| out how a company that operates globally can satisfy the laws of
| the countries their customers are located in without associating
| the accounts with a country, I'm not sure what we can do.
|
| > What I find curious is that it says the services are
| essentially the same between different countries. So, there is no
| advantage to me as a consumer for anything to change.
|
| The advantage to the consumer is that they have access to the
| services at all. Countries have the ability to completely cut off
| their citizens to a service if they don't follow their laws.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Google wishes to enjoy the investment, employment, legal, and
| cultural benefits of being physically located in the United
| States for its key operations, but wishes to associate itself
| with Ireland, the Netherlands, and Bermuda for tax purposes.
|
| Why shouldn't its users seek similar geographic arbitrage?
| remus wrote:
| Because Google has to satisfy the legal requirements of the
| country the user is actually in.
| southerntofu wrote:
| No, they only have to satisfy the legal requirements of
| countries where they have established organizations. That's
| why GDPR was a game-changer: it made Europe-wide strong
| privacy regulations that were previously local to a few
| countries. France's CNIL has always been a farce, but at
| least on paper provided privacy rights... that Google was
| free to ignore because it was based in Ireland & such.
|
| Of course as an Internet service you don't have to comply
| with every single national law there is. Would that even be
| possible? Of course, if a nation State believes you don't
| respect their laws, they are "free" to try and censor your
| website, as many do with The Pirate Bay, Sci Hub, etc.
| croes wrote:
| BTW companies like Paypal enforced US boycotts on cuba even if
| the customer is a EU citizens.
|
| "The ticket retailer Proticket, for example, filed a lawsuit
| against the blocking of its account after offering tickets for
| the musical "Soy de Cuba" and the concert of a Cuban artist.
| Although Proticket won its case at the Dortmund Regional Court
| in spring 2016, Paypal still did not change its approach."
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Doesn't the law block PayPal from being involved in such a
| transaction?
| croes wrote:
| Not the EU branch. Global boycott laws, like US ones, are
| forbidden.
| cptskippy wrote:
| PayPal LU, the bank that makes PayPal EU possible is a
| Subsidiary of PayPal Holdings Incorporated in the US.
|
| > All US persons, including US-incorporated entities,
| their foreign branches (including non-US entities owned
| or controlled by a US person that are also subject to US
| sanctions with respect to certain sanctions programs,
| such as the US's Iran, Cuba, and North Korea sanctions
| programs) and employees, are prohibited from transacting
| with sanctioned parties.
|
| - https://insightplus.bakermckenzie.com/bm/compliance-
| investig...
|
| I am pretty sure the EU and US have treaties requiring
| them to respect one another's sanctions.
| croes wrote:
| Paypal has already lost in german court. And global
| sanctions are still invalid. Paypal explicitly violates
| applicable EU law, namely the EU Blocking Regulation.
| This EU directive was explicitly issued in response to
| the US embargo against Cuba. It prohibits European
| companies from complying with the embargo and threatens
| all those who engage in the US blockade with severe
| penalties. And PayPal (Europe) S.a r.l. & Cie, S.C.A. is
| a european company.
| pstrateman wrote:
| Anybody that wants to interact with the US banking system
| must enforce US sanctions.
|
| Pretty sure PayPal EU wants to be able to send money to
| people in the US.
| nerdponx wrote:
| I don't mind sharing my country of residence, of all things.
| 988747 wrote:
| I live in Europe, but past few years I've been working for US-
| based company, using their VPN a lot. Google wants to associate
| me with USA instead of my home country, and when I tried to
| fill support request to correct them their answer was basically
| "shut up, we know better".
|
| I created another mailbox and am slowly migrating to it. Fuck
| you Google.
| bartvk wrote:
| If you are migrating anyway, think about getting your own
| domain and migrate to that.
| 988747 wrote:
| That's exactly what i did - for now I'm hosting it on OVH
| with their "Professional Email" service, which looks a lot
| like Outlook.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Fastmail is good if you look for other options later. My
| referral link will give you 10% off:
| https://ref.fm/u25202288
|
| It's Australia-based, so any weird regulation differences
| you run into will at least be new and exciting compared
| to what you dealt with at a US-based company.
| croes wrote:
| And how does google satisfy a countries laws if they associate
| a customer with the wrong country?
| reaperducer wrote:
| Unlike computer code, laws tend to have wiggle room. IANAL,
| but I expect in this case "best effort" is good enough.
| croes wrote:
| How but just asking your customer instead of guessing by
| unreliable factors?
| seoaeu wrote:
| Is there any reason to believe that asking would be
| remotely reliable? There's a reason that liquor stores
| don't just ask people whether they're over 21.
| alexeldeib wrote:
| Yet, online that's all websites 18+ and 21+ do.
| croes wrote:
| Does the liquor store estimate your age or do they ask
| for your id? Google should ask and then could demand
| proof.
| compiler-guy wrote:
| If they had asked the OP, he would have told them
| Germany, not Thailand, so they likely would not be in
| compliance with the law.
| croes wrote:
| They could demand proof of residency, that's the correct
| way.
| ac29 wrote:
| In this article, Google wasn't incorrect though - this person
| just wanted the rules for a country they werent in to apply
| instead of local rules. Google made a good faith attempt to
| comply with local rules for this customer based on the
| (correct) location data they had.
| Rapzid wrote:
| I'm curious if you have sources as to:
|
| A. How long this person was in Malaysia
|
| B. What local laws they may have been in breach of or in
| jeopardy of breaching(or Google)
|
| C. What specific local rules/laws Google was attempting to
| comply with in good faith(if any)
| croes wrote:
| What about Dan Schroeder? Associated with Thailand, never
| been to Thailand, didn't travel for 2 years.
| croes wrote:
| I still wonder if they changed the currency and the prices
| in the store accordingly or if he still had to pay european
| prices.
| twirlock wrote:
| The issue of contention is how they determine the country,
| apparently even as the user in question is contesting. i.e.
| your comment is an irrelevant deflection that adds nothing to
| the discussion, and you are functionally doing PR for Google
| for free.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| If someone rents an Airbnb for a few months in a new location
| are they now a resident of that new location? If we aren't
| talking about residency then changing an association (whatever
| that means) seems arbitrary.
| [deleted]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Probably, yeah. You could say it's _temporary_ residency or
| whatever, but by the several months point this is clearly
| more than a mere vacation. If you 've been living in one
| place for several months now you more live there than
| anywhere else.
| jsnell wrote:
| Why do you think this is a matter of a few months? All we
| know is that the author hasn't traveled "recently".
|
| But yes, those kinds of thresholds are common when it comes
| to residency as an official concept for e.g. taxation.
| Usually the threshold is around 183 days, but there is no
| reason why it'd be obviously less arbitrary than other
| choices.
| _nalply wrote:
| Where do you have this strange number from? The
| factorization is 3 * 61.
| Wingy wrote:
| It's 365 / 2, ~half of a year :)
| __zack wrote:
| It's just over half a year
| cldellow wrote:
| As others have said, it's half of a year.
|
| But most importantly, it's the number that the US
| government uses on form 8840, the Closer Connection
| Exception Statement for Aliens:
| https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8840.pdf
| [deleted]
| lbotos wrote:
| Actually, in many countries, yes, a "tax resident".
|
| For the UK it's 31 days of more than 3 hours of work. I think
| it's the same for the US.
| 692 wrote:
| it's bit more complex than that (I've suffered regarding
| this)
|
| The Automatic Overseas Test
|
| You would normally be considered a non-UK resident if you
| meet any one of the following elements of the Automatic
| Overseas Test: You were considered as a
| UK resident in one or more of the previous three tax years,
| but you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK in the current
| tax year You spend fewer than 46 days in the UK in
| the tax year AND you were non-UK resident in the preceding
| three tax years You work full time outside the UK
| and spend fewer than 91 days in the UK and you work fewer
| than 31 days in the UK for three hours or less in any given
| day.
| lbotos wrote:
| You're right, I shortcutted it. I've read this page so
| many times and just jumped to the "hyper conservative
| take".
| judge2020 wrote:
| Regardless, google might have to follow privacy laws of
| countries even if you set foot there for a layover or for
| only a few hours - google itself isn't a country and thus
| other countries can effectively bully them into doing
| anything if Google wants to stay in business there. Not a
| problem for random island nations that have few citizens, but
| you can bet any sizable nation blacklisting them could mean
| an appreciable loss in revenue (and maybe triggering other
| countries to make similar demands).
| jfrunyon wrote:
| We clearly are, in fact, talking about residency.
|
| > As someone who travels a lot (not recently!)
| remram wrote:
| Yes I find it weird that they both resent having local laws
| apply (when it's Malaysia) but value being covered by GDPR
| (when it's Germany). I can't really understand what they are
| wishing for.
| croes wrote:
| Both are german citizens and both are not in the country to
| which they are now to be assigned. The latter wasn't even in
| Thailand at all. So I guess they just don't want that Google
| makes some bullshit associations for them which undermie the
| GDPR.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| So you are saying if a German citizen travels to Mexico,
| they don't need to obey Mexican law because they are German
| citizens?
|
| Suppose a law in Mexico requires Google to store search
| queries and make them available to the government for 1
| year, or it requires the collection of certain types of
| personal information, and a law in Germany bans Google from
| storing search queries or collecting the information. Now a
| German citizen travels to Mexico, and does a web query in
| Mexico, do you think Google should apply Germany's Laws or
| Mexico's laws? It will apply Mexico's laws because that is
| the jurisdiction in which the query is made. Similarly if a
| Mexican travels to Germany and makes a query, then Google
| will not store the results.
|
| Btw, this is the whole point of international VPNs. People
| want an internet presence in different countries in order
| to access content that is not available in their own
| country or to be treated differently than if they were in
| their own countries. So if you, as the German traveller,
| don't want your query stored, you'd VPN to a server in
| Germany and run your queries through that VPN. If you ran
| your query through the Mexican ISP, you can be sure that
| the information would be collected.
|
| Thus as much as European governments may want the GDPR to
| be a type of shield that you can carry with you when you
| cross over to other jurisdictions, the reality of that
| portability is limited to the ability of European nations
| to convince other nations to go along and treat Europeans
| differently in their own legal system. It may work, it may
| not, but whether it works is not a question of the GDPR but
| of the ability of Europe to project power and override laws
| in other jurisdictions.
| 3836293648 wrote:
| You can't go somewhere and expect their laws to not apply
| to you. You can absolutely go somewhere and still have
| the laws of your home apply to you, even if they won't be
| enforced till you get home.
|
| A implies B does not mean B implies A
| rsj_hn wrote:
| This why I gave the example of two contradictory laws.
| Only one can apply.
| croes wrote:
| A european citizen using a european company's service is
| under european law.
| martini333 wrote:
| Meta: this site does not work on 4k monitor. Some weird relative
| sizes
| ipaddr wrote:
| What browser are you using? Don't say safari...
| anonu wrote:
| Most people don't pay a penny for Google services. This may be an
| unpopular opinion: if you're going to complain - dont use their
| service.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The author doesn't seem to say which is correct. Are the facts of
| the matter irrelevant here?
| tomxor wrote:
| Lets be honest.. it's not "your account" it's "their account".
|
| It's not just Google, this is the modern web. If you use a web
| based service I think it's better to assume everything you give
| them is theirs, otherwise it's an impossible battle of constantly
| reviewing massive ToS changes and a mutating product/features. I
| guess this view probably sounds a little out of touch but it's
| easier if you don't use a smart phone.
| tomxor wrote:
| wow, what's going on here? Is google now a sensitive subject?
| EricE wrote:
| No, just people who don't like inconvenient facts.
|
| One of my favorite stickers: "There is no cloud, just someone
| else's computer"
|
| Techies hate it when you point crap like that out - because
| it re-enforces that trust, reputation, creditability,
| character - all those things matter. And most tech companies
| have damn little of any of those :p
| compiler-guy wrote:
| This problem is just a specific instance of the more general
| "expat problem". When you move countries, you have to deal with
| the new country's rules. Many people who move countries run into
| unexpected differences. You have to roll with it and deal.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Oh! I'd love to be able to change the country of my Google Apps
| for Domains. I have tried few times, whenever I remember but gave
| up.
|
| Why do I want to change?
|
| When I signed up, the currency was USD and perhaps the country
| stayed USA too! There was no Indian pricing at that time (I think
| over a decade ago). For the US pricing, I pay $30 monthly for a
| 5-member plan. I want to leverage the Indian pricing of [?]125
| (~$1.6) per account per month.
| waych wrote:
| Xoogler here.
|
| The way I remember this working is that it is entirely dependent
| on the methods of payment (MOP) associated with your account. If
| you remove MOPs from country A, and then 30 days later you add a
| MOP from country B, your underlying gaia account will have the
| home country migrated (affects play store, etc).
|
| The workaround is to use different accounts, each with MOP from
| different countries. Pretty sure IP doesn't matter.
|
| Regarding which legal jurisdictions apply between you and a
| company like Google? Well, the courts are probably not going to
| consider what it says in your account profile.
| dpwm wrote:
| Never worked at google, but I use their services and moved
| country recently.
|
| > The workaround is to use different accounts, each with MOP
| from different countries. Pretty sure IP doesn't matter.
|
| Maybe it has changed, because this was not my experience: my
| methods of payments have all remained the same. It appears to
| be based on IP, because my transition was delayed compared to
| family members who moved with me because I had VPNed back to
| the country I had left. I'm pretty sure it was IP based,
| because the relative delay approximately correlated with how
| many days I'd used the VPN for.
| waych wrote:
| Managing Terms of Service at scale is actually a real problem
| companies like Google face, so yeah it's entirely possible
| the country tracking for Terms of Service (TOS) is completely
| distinct from the MOP country association in Pay & Play.
| izacus wrote:
| This seems to have been changed lately - Google account will
| switch it's location (but not language) by itself if it detects
| you're in a certain country for a long time. Happened to some
| people I know as well.
| [deleted]
| elcano wrote:
| Google services between Germany and Malaysia might be essentially
| the same. But that might not be the case if Google decides to
| relocate you out of the United States. Even those US Citizens who
| live in a USA territory like Puerto Rico or US Virgin Islands
| constantly receive a variant of the message 'this service is not
| available in your country'. Be aware that as a US territory,
| Puerto Rico and USVI are subject to the same federal laws (and
| financial system) as any other state, so technically they aren't
| foreign/alien. But a private company like Google can choose to
| underserve what is not strategic for them. Google uses either
| your IP address or the postal address of your payment method to
| find out that you don't live in the 50 states (or DC). When
| launching some services, Google starts in US (or course),
| excluding their territories. Then they expand to other countries,
| again skipping the United States territories, which continue
| receiving the 'this service is not available in your country'
| message' practically forever. This happened with Google Music.
| Also YouTube videos apparently market for USA market only were
| not playable here. Google controls the YouTube platform and
| there's no excuse for not negotiating including all the US
| territories in the definition of USA for YouTube uploaders.
|
| Recently they made YouTube Premium available in this market. And
| with the YouTube Music change, this also came included. However,
| I don't know if they fixed completely fixed the issue of viewing
| USA only videos from here.
| croes wrote:
| What if I just use VPN of a foreign country?
|
| If they switch the country, did you get the prices of the new
| country or do you have to pay the prices of the original country
| association?
|
| Isn't it a violation of privacy to track the user in that way?
|
| Would it not be the correct way to ask for prove, that he resides
| in Germany and not simply switch the country?
| growt wrote:
| So what would happen if someone moved to another country, used a
| VPN to fool IP based geolocation and disabled Google location
| history etc. Would there still be a (legal) way for Google to
| change their country?
| Little_John wrote:
| Hey everyone Let's all hail from Uzbekistan!
| contriban wrote:
| The hilarious part is that I got this email maybe last week,
| moving my account to country X. Too bad I lived in country X for
| 7 months, they didn't change it then, and now I've been in
| country Y for 2 months, across the world.
|
| Why now? And why the wrong country? I have no links to country X
| and I haven't been there in months.
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