Comment by sammy2255

7 months ago

How do you "pull out" of the UK if you are not a UK company, you are a US company, hosted in the US, and proxied by Fastly. There's nothing to do? You do not need to abide by UK laws, even if your website is accessible from there.

38 comments

sammy2255

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baobun  7 months ago

It means to stop doing business there. For example selling ads targeting UK users to UK advertisers. London banking. Integrating with UK-based data-milking peers.

  • prism56  7 months ago

    So if a site doesn't monetise adult content. The UK can't impose fines? Only eventually force ISPs to block that site?

layer8  7 months ago

You are sending data into the UK, hence you have to abide by their laws regarding said data.

  • patrickmay  7 months ago

    As the owner of a U.S. based website, I am not sending data anywhere. Some people in the U.K. might request data and download it from my site. I'm not forcing it on them.

    • Vespasian  7 months ago

      You can absolutely take that stance and be fine as long as you never get into the sphere of influence of UK law enforcement for potentially a very long time.

      If they get hold of you your interpretation of who sent what doesn't matter but theirs does. They can absolutely hold you until your fine is paid or you spend and equivalent amount of time in prison.

      Many people like to vacation in the UK or Europe (one diverted flight away) and they might decide that it's better to just block users and be done with it. Some people may even happily pay a small fine incurred before the block.

    • layer8  7 months ago

      HTTP responses (website contents) are data that the web servers you are paying for are sending. People can’t download anything from your site without your servers sending the data. Nothing forces you to send that data when you receive an HTTP request. Indeed, geoblocking is a common way to prevent sending data to jurisdictions whose laws the sending of the data might be in violation of.

      4 replies →

constantcrying  7 months ago

The UK government does not care. The law applies no matter where you are hosted, where you are incorporated or who is proxiying you.

>You do not need to abide by UK laws, even if your website is accessible from there.

The UK government does not agree.

  • thewebguyd  7 months ago

    But its still not the UK government's decision. They don't have sovereignty over other nations, as much as they'd like to think they do.

    All they can legally do is bitch and moan and order UK ISPs to block. There's no action they can legally take against Imgur.

    • pixl97  7 months ago

      >There's no action they can legally take against Imgur.

      This is a very, very dangerous game to play.

      This is how employees of your business on vacation in the UK end up in jail.

      5 replies →

  • ToucanLoucan  7 months ago

    I suppose in their defense, culturally, the UK hasn't respected many borders apart from their own so this really isn't anything new.

    Zing aside, I'd be thrilled to see whatever prosecutor or litigator or whatever they call them over there bring a case against a US based company for hosting content in the US, geoblocking the UK, a UK resident using a VPN to bypass that block, and making the case that that is somehow the US company's fault.