zlacker

>>ANewbu+(OP)
How is one country able to fine businesses in other countries? What legal authority or ability do they have to do anything?

>>dreaml+a5
If you do business in a country you have to operate under that country's laws and regulations, regardless of where you are registered.

Most commonly it's the EU fining American tech for GDPR violations and related privacy shenanigans.

>>kyleca+j7
Right, but the UK is saying they'll fine Imgur even after Imgur blocked access. At that point, what tooth does the fine have? "You must pay this fine if you want to, err, nothing I guess"?

>>stavro+Z8
They used to have UK legal presence, and planning to move out. The UK is saying something like "crimes done during your presence won't be ignored".

If Imgur never had UK presence, then yeah there would be no teeth. But if you're doing business in a country you can't break the law then leave and expect them to just ignore what you did during that time.

>>Captai+5c
…but how enforceable would the fine be? They pull out and have no UK assets to seize.

>>BeFlat+8g
Why does it have to be immediately enforceable? Now Imgur have thrown the baby out with the bath water and cannot serve the UK and it leaves a big market for another company to come along and capitalise on that.

American companies are too use to being able to bully their way in America. Some countries do have better consumer protection laws.

>>flumpc+jR1
It's not a particularly big market, and given the regulatory hurdles: it's simply not worth doing business with the UK for most companies anymore.

>>gr3ml1+3d2
The regulatory hurdles here are quite small, actually. If COPPA were worded better, Imgur would've been in violation of that, too, from what I can tell of the complaint.