Official Legal Complaint: Breach of EU Consumer Protection Laws and Unfair Pricing

[Uska]

they aren't going to shut down the game over a few whiney Europeans they just shut down the EU server and most will just play on an American server

 

[Stein]

so what they dont own DDO an American company does

This doesn't matter in internet commerce, btw. If you offer a product in a country for purchase by that countries citizens you are accepting money from that country and must follow all of their laws while you're doing business in their country, which you are if you accept money from citizens of that nation.

You don't get to sell things in other people's countries and then go "NUH UH" when they tell you to obey their laws or leave. America is not special, it does not get to override other countries sovereignty.

 

[Ilvati]

This doesn't matter in internet commerce, btw. If you offer a product in a country for purchase by that countries citizens you are accepting money from that country and must follow all of their laws while you're doing business in their country, which you are if you accept money from citizens of that nation.

You don't get to sell things in other people's countries and then go "NUH UH" when they tell you to obey their laws or leave. America is not special, it does not get to override other countries sovereignty.

This is what always triggers the debate. If you are a non-resident you argue you are not "doing business" in a country by offering to sell a product. You argue that the sale occurs based on the location you accepted the sale (i.e., the legal contract) which is your home country. Whether or not making a sale is sufficient to cause you to be "doing business" is mostly governed by treaties (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/poland.pdf take a look at article 6 governing permanent establishment). Short answer - a mere sale usually isn't enough to be doing business so I would be very surprised if SSG had a PE because of a sale (hence why the other discussion on attribution/affiliation).

There are a bunch of disputes between the EU and the US over how digital services trigger PE requirements -- France in particular has been very aggressive at trying to get US digital companies to be subject to EU laws/taxes for digital sales.. This has been such a controversy that it moved out of a technical legal dispute to a political issue as some EU countries even enacted VAT laws on digital sales but then backed down and repealed / delayed them when the US threatened retaliation (this has been going on since the mid 2010s).

 

[Uska]

This doesn't matter in internet commerce, btw. If you offer a product in a country for purchase by that countries citizens you are accepting money from that country and must follow all of their laws while you're doing business in their country, which you are if you accept money from citizens of that nation.

You don't get to sell things in other people's countries and then go "NUH UH" when they tell you to obey their laws or leave. America is not special, it does not get to override other countries sovereignty.

yes it does