Alle 23:23, venerdì 5 marzo 2004, Michael Chaney ha scritto:
> > BTW: if you have a USA-based company and collect info regarding Italian
> > people, you have to comply with this absurd Italian law. Funny, isn't it?
>
> No, we don't. We're not bound by Italian law, only US law.
Unfortunately, that is not so easy. Consider this:
- you sell books online, like Amazon
- you collect personal data from your customers
- a part of your customers are from Italy (or from any other of the 25
countries of 2005 EU, something like 400 milion people)
- you violate the privacy law of these country
- they obscure your site (using their firewall), a technique already used
against porno web sites.
- you lose 400 milion potential customers and win a nice (extremely expensive)
trial for violation of an international law on online commerce.
It happened already. The new law (that I consider quite stupid) imposes
exactly this punishment to companies that violate it (plus a trans-national
criminal trial and a quite large fine).
Both USA and UE companies have to comply with WTO rules. There are
international agreements between USA and EU regarding online commerce and
these agreements states that a company in EU cannot violate the law on
commerce of USA if it operates on the USA territory and, of course, vice
versa. Nowadays, no one can play just for himself on this small planet, in
particular if he wants to sell his stuff to others.
Of course, you do not have to trust me. Ask your company's lawyer about this.
See you
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Alessandro Bottoni and Silvana Di Martino
alessandrobottoni@interfree.it
silvanadimartino@tin.it