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Comment by Aperocky | Hacker News Reader

> But the lawmakers say because TikTok is owned by a Beijing-based company, it could be compelled by the Chinese government to turn over user data — such as location data, cookies, metadata and more — even if it’s stored on servers it owns in the United States.

An analogy: To protect data from potential acquirement by the US government, EU should shut out Google from Europe? This doesn't make sense and is completely political. Watching politicians trying to gain brownie points and _sound like they care_ while not actually doing anything useful hurts my eyes.

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I'm not sure which laws they're basing this on, but it's not unusual to see countries differently. For example UK's DPA allows storing data in countries with similar protection guarantees. I would expect that doesn't include China, but does include Germany.

US will have more or less trust in each country.

> I'm not sure which laws they're basing this on, but it's not unusual to see countries differently. For example UK's DPA allows storing data in countries with similar protection guarantees. I would expect that doesn't include China, but does include Germany.

It's not the ICO that sets that rule, it's the GDPR (and prior to that, the Data Protection Directive)

The EU does put restrictions on how Google handles European data.

Didn't stop the court case of US government wanting data from Microsoft Ireland and trying to force Microsoft US, the parent company, to get it from them by saying they have jurisdiction on any data owned by subsidiaries of companies they have direct jurisdiction on.

So in a way this is us politician saying "we do that already, so China will probably do it too".

> Didn't stop the court case of US government wanting data from Microsoft Ireland and trying to force Microsoft US, (empahsis added)

The trying to bit is important. The US tried to compel Microsoft to hand over data, and Microsoft went to the US courts and (we think) prevented it. MS can now go to European governments and say that both willing and able obey the European law in this regard.

Now this might not be true. Perhaps the US Govt. has used its leverage to force MS to MS slyly leak the data anyway. And perhaps European governments are quietly doing the same. But if the rule of law is uncertain restraint on western governments, it is no restraint at all on the Chinese government. A company straightforwardly will be compelled to hand info over to the Chinese government, and Chinese courts will not even consider trying to stop it.

It makes perfect sense with the way business works in 2019. Regulatory capture means big players in a given country want lawmakers to attack foreign (and local) competition, and the lawmakers are happy to do it because it pays off. The fact that Chinese competition is Politically Threatening just makes it easier to convince lawmakers to act.

Foreign countries will exercise their control over local companies and subsidiaries (for population control, for tax revenues, and for corrupt personal gains to politicians) just like we do, and will tap into any data they can for political advantage.

All the big countries want control over data, which means they want services to be operated by local subsidiaries or want the foreign companies to be subject to local laws. Their uses for the data may vary and the other demands they make may vary but in the end all of these big capitalist societies (even the ones pretending to be communist or whatever) function the same way: The people with money control the system in order to make more money.

Even before TikTok was being attacked as an arm of a foreign surveillance state, Huawei was being targeted the same way (rightly or not - probably correct). This framing is a success with the general public as well, and is currently being deployed against international gaming companies like Blizzard, Epic and Riot based on their Chinese (Tencent) ownership stakes, even if they're based in the US.

>and is currently being deployed against international gaming companies like Blizzard, Epic and Riot based on their Chinese (Tencent) ownership stakes, even if they're based in the US.

Blizzard didn't exactly get called into question out of the blue. The criticism against them was explicitly the result of their actions.

TikTok is under scrutiny lately in part because of their heavy moderation of content considered objectionable by Chinese regulators. It's shown up in various news stories.

Comparing the EU to China's government isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison.

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