zlacker

> As soon as you do business abroad you will have to comply with the laws of those countries.

But are you doing business abroad, just because you're on the internet?

Is it not the customer who is coming to you to to do their business abroad, while you do your business in the country you live in?

>>jstanl+(OP)
The author claims that local law compliance has always been the case. That is in fact incorrect and is a glaring mistake in the article. For the first 20 years of the Web's popular usage globally, you in fact mostly did not have to comply with local laws when it came to commerce online - there were few laws, and most jurisdictions had yet to flesh out how they were going to regulate and apply their laws or not. You simply opened up shop and sold to anyone from anywhere that wanted to buy from you, and you did not need to give a second thought to anything else.

Coming next is a global compliance nightmare. If you want to sell globally, you'll have to comply with dozens of unique local approaches. Small businesses won't stand a chance of being able to deal with that. An army of fee charging middle-men will spring up offering solutions, extracting fees accordingly.