Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

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..."

View on HN

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.

> 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

> 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.

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.

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.

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...

Apparently Google explicitly ignores "Accept-Language: en" because of some Japanese Internet Explorer users whose browsers mistakenly send that header, or something like that. But I find that argument ridiculous, ignoring everyone's preferences due to some buggy browsers is obnoxious. At least limit it to Japanese IPs.

According to the EU, GDPR protections apply to EU citizens wherever they are in the world...

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.

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.

What about Dan Schroeder? He wasn't even in Thailand at all.

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.

Maybe VPN or Proxy servers

Specifically GDPR should hold if you’re a resident regardless of where you’re physically located at an instance in time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com