Routing public traffic across county boundaries in Europe

Fri Jul 27 08:19:43 UTC 2007

Scott Weeks wrote:
>
> --- andy.loukes at thecloud.net wrote:
>
> What (if any) are the legal implications of taking internet destined
> traffic in one country and egressing it in another (with an ip block
> correctly marked for the correct country).
>
> Somebody mentioned to me the other day that they thought the Dutch
> government didn't allow an ISP to take internet traffic from a Dutch
> citizen and egress in another country because it makes it easy for the
> local country to snoop.
> ----------------------------------------------
>
>
> That's funny.  I've always thought of the internet as a global, borderless entity where ideas and information are shared without restraint.  Perhaps it's time to whap the gov't with a clue bat?
>
> scott
>   
Yes, but laws dictate that not all information can be shared without 
restraint. The EU, for example, has laws preventing the export of 
personal information to countries deemed to have weaker privacy 
protection laws.

There's also grey areas (that may simply result from legal departments 
not having enough technical knowledge). For example, I've worked with 
companies before that have had the rights to stream certain sporting 
events to certain countries only. Even if you were only streaming to UK 
ISPs and UK IP addresses (via what ever checking mechanisms were deemed 
adequate), legal departments tend to have quite a lot to say on the 
matter if you were egressing that traffic, at say, AMS-IX.

Sam