DNS pulling BGP routes?

Mon Oct 18 18:31:57 UTC 2021

On Sun, Oct 17, 2021 at 4:54 AM Masataka Ohta <
mohta at necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp> wrote:

> Matthew Petach wrote:
>
> > I'd like to take a moment to point out the other problem with this
> > sentence, which is "antitrust agencies".
> >
> > One of the key aspects to both CDN providers and transit
> > providers is they tend to be multi-national organizations with
> > infrastructure in multiple countries on multiple continents.
>
> Your theory that multi-national entities can not be
> targets of anti-trust agencies of individual countries
> and can enjoy world wide oligopoly is totally against
> the reality.
>

*facepalm*

No, the point I was making wasn't that they can't be the
target of antitrust agencies, the point was that there's so
many conflicting jurisdictions that consistent enforcement
in a coordinated fashion is impossible.  We can't even get
countries to agree on what a copyright or a trademark means,
or even what privacy rights a person should have.

I know one content distribution company that was originally
thinking of putting a site in country X; however, after taking a
closer look at the laws in country X, decided instead to put the
site in a nearby country with more favourable laws and to
interconnect with the network providers just outside country X,
thus putting them outside the reach of those laws.

It's really, *really* hard to "regulate" global infrastructure because
it crosses over/under/through so many different jurisdictions; if
one country decides to put considerably stronger restrictions
in place, the reaction by and large is to 'route around the damage'
so to speak.

The lack of success from Brasil's efforts are a good indication
of just how successful per-country regulation of internet providers
tends to be:
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2175352/brazil-to-drop-requirement-that-internet-firms-store-data-locally.html

The GDPR is probably the most successful effort at reining
in global internet companies in recent years, and even there,
when companies ignore it, the resulting fines are a small slap
on the wrist at best, hardly causing them to change their
behaviours:
https://secureprivacy.ai/blog/gdpr-the-6-biggest-fines-enforced-by-regulators-so-far

Even the $5 billion fine Facebook paid to the FTC after the
Cambridge Analytica was really only a $106M fine, with an
extra $4.9B thrown in to make the personal lawsuit go away:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/21/facebook-paid-billions-extra-to-the-ftc-to-spare-zuckerberg-in-data-suit-shareholders-allege-513456

When companies can afford to throw an extra 50x the money
at a regulatory agency to make a problem go away, it's pretty
clear that thinking that regulatory agencies are going to have
enough teeth to fundamentally change the way of life of those
businesses is optimistic at best.

Looking at the top 15 antitrust cases in the US, you can see
how in many cases, the antitrust action was minimally effective
in the long term, as the companies that were split up often ended
up rejoining again, years down the line:
https://stacker.com/stories/3604/15-companies-us-government-tried-break-monopolies

>
>                                         Masataka Ohta
>

Matt
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