> We've created a mess of legal jurisdiction and geography that is difficult to reconcile with globally distributed systems.
It's easy to reconcile. If you want to operate in a jurisdiction, you are subject to that jurisdiction's laws, and legal injunctions. This is a very basic thing, on the level that a school-child can understand it. Just because you're operating using computers doesn't change a damn thing.
When a jurisdiction tells you that you can't operate in it, unless you change your behaviour, you either change your behaviour, or stop operating in it. Or keep operating, and be treated by it like a criminal. Or appeal.
If you don't like Canadian internet laws, don't do business in Canada. If you don't like Russian speech laws, don't do business in Russia, or plan a vacation in Leningrad. If you don't like Quebec language laws... Don't operate in Quebec.
You're not entitled access to every market in the world, if you can't comply with their rules. If the rules are contradictory, pick the ones you care about more.
What defines "operating"? Does it mean you are physically based there? Your infrastructure being there? Your company registration? Your bank account? Etc.
Back in the day these weren't problems in practice; for physical goods/services you typically were based in a single jurisdiction. If exporting goods, customs take care of it.
The internet has no "customs" equivalent though, so you can very well be based in one jurisdiction and yet process personal data of residents of another. Sometimes you may not even know where the data subject actually resides.
> What defines "operating"? Does it mean you are physically based there? Your infrastructure being there? Your company registration? Your bank account? Etc.
For globally distributed businesses governments can and will target payment processors.
> The internet has no "customs" equivalent though
We can thank regulators for not understanding this "computer" thing. This environment gave the industry 20 years of innovation. Nothing more depressing than dealing with custom and special snowflakes regulations (most of the time, to protect some local rent-seeker!).
In this case, BC can do whatever it wants, they have no jurisdiction. They might as well claim ownership of the moon.
If some aspect of an operation can be detained, expropriated, or extradited, now or in the future, then it operates in that jurisdiction. Otherwise it is just talk. Hence Assange is slowly on his way to the US; Snowden is just cold until the US has something to offer.
> What defines "operating"? Does it mean you are physically based there?
Whether or not I do any business with anyone controlled by the jurisdiction.
It's not a problem in practice.
I can host a website that pisses on Putin in the United States. I have no intentions of ever going to Russia. I don't rely on any Russian services. A Russian may visit it, because, well, Russia has access to the internet. I may be breaking Russian law, but I don't care, because I'm not operating in Russia. Russia can tell their ISPs to block me, or can ask for my host to cut me off. My host isn't likely to comply, because it too, is unlikely to have ties to Russia.
I put up an ad from a Russian company on it. I'm now operating in Russia, and Russia can shut that part of my business down, by forcing the Russian company to stop doing business with me. Once they do, I'm no longer operating in Russia.
Some jurisdictions reach further than others. Russia (or Canada) has jurisdiction over its corner of the world, and little else. The United States has jurisdiction over a very large part of the world, because a lot of businesses that I would partner with have an American presence, and will comply with American requests. China is somewhere in the middle. Its reach extends somewhat beyond its borders, but doesn't straddle the world.
If I run a liquor store in Florida, and a Saudi tourist visits it and buys a bottle of wine, that's not my problem. Saudi Arabia can't do anything to me, regardless of how many of their drug laws I'm breaking.
If I start advertising my store in Saudi Arabia, or move my money into a Saudi bank, or visit their kingdom, then I'll have a problem. Because it can do something to me. It can tell my business partners to cut me off, or seize my money, or, in the latter case, arrest me as a drug kingpin.
It's easy to reconcile. If you want to operate in a jurisdiction, you are subject to that jurisdiction's laws, and legal injunctions. This is a very basic thing, on the level that a school-child can understand it. Just because you're operating using computers doesn't change a damn thing.
When a jurisdiction tells you that you can't operate in it, unless you change your behaviour, you either change your behaviour, or stop operating in it. Or keep operating, and be treated by it like a criminal. Or appeal.
If you don't like Canadian internet laws, don't do business in Canada. If you don't like Russian speech laws, don't do business in Russia, or plan a vacation in Leningrad. If you don't like Quebec language laws... Don't operate in Quebec.
You're not entitled access to every market in the world, if you can't comply with their rules. If the rules are contradictory, pick the ones you care about more.