Eh. this is just the tech cartels thinking they are untouchable.
I give it good odds that the Canadian dictators will try to save face by giving the tech cartels a smackdown.
Not certain though.
Not really. This is the Canadian government massively overreaching and disliking the expected consequences of that overreach.
If Facebook complied with the Canadian law then FB/Meta would be losing money in the Canadian market and it would encourage other governments around the world to do the same thing. Seeing as the US government is a piece of shit that is utterly unwilling to stand up for US companies against foreign government action (see all the anti-competitive BS that the EU keeps pushing without any meaningful US response), the corporations are left to fend for themselves.
And news flash, the vast majority of all of the major tech companies profits come from the US market.
Take the UK's policy on end to end encryption. Apple will flat out leave the UK market before they comply with the UK's demands, because if they do comply then they destroy one of their brands core selling points in the rest of the world just so they can retain access to a relatively small market. Or they cut off the UK and spend a few dozen million on marketing to make sure that everyone in the UK is aware of the fact that the reason they can't get Apple products is because Apple refused to let their government use Apple to spy on them.
This whole shit fest in Canada is the same kind of thing. The government is trying to extract money from a foreign corporation to give to its local friends and then acts affronted when the foreign company just takes their ball and goes home.
1. the tech cartels want canada, it is important to them to control ever more countries. Both for profit and for power.
No, they really don't. Canada is a nice market and all else being equal, they would prefer to have access to it. But for the bottom line its a drop in the bucket and really isn't worth the costs that the government is trying to impose.
2. Govt can impose fines bigger than the taxes they are trying to evade
And suddenly Canada finds that any time they want anything done in the US they are running into massive opposition because Meta/Google/Amazon/etc. dropped a combined few billion on lobbying and marketing campaigns. Canada is already a shit place to do business, these kinds of antics just make it even more of a shit place to deal with.
3. Canada and USA have extradition treaty. so canada can absolutely go after owners of tech cartels and have them extradited to stand trial in canada.
Good luck. If Canada wants to turn itself into a pariah state that no business will touch or interact with them all they have to do is try and extradite Zuckerberg over this. Seriously, try that any NO major US company will touch the Canadian market place. The possible returns simply don't justify the risks.
4. if the tech cartel fully leaves canada, canada can seize its canadian assets, revoke its patents, and release its source code. or use it to create govt controlled and owned clone.
Their Canadian assets amount to a few server farms (if that). They don't hold Canadian patents and don't have access to the relevant source code either. Those actions would also be USMCA violations and get Canada into a full blown trade war with the US - which Canada would lose.
5. even if canada is not willing to go after google directly. they can absolutely just pick open source software to make their own local alternative backed by the govt to offer those services to the canadian consumer. And would probably be very happy to. As it gives them china like control over social media.
basically, canada has all the control here. ... in theory.
In practice the bigger question though is what rules the deep state has over it.
would canadian oligarchs playing hardball with google, a tool of the western oligarchy, result in them turning on him or not.
Canada really doesn't have the control. Canada is a piss ant tiny nation whose economic and political worth is almost entirely tied up with its position as a US appendage. Try to pick a fight with Google and Google would crush Canada.
Turn off Gmail for every Canadian IP, go and open source all of Google's data on Canadian government officials (i.e. the full contents of their Gmail accounts). Cut off YouTube to Canada. Cut off Google search. Change the Google algorithm so that any search for Canada or Canada related things suddenly returns the worst results.
And the kicker? If things reached that point then Google would have *allies*. Suddenly there is no Amazon Web Services, or Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure in Canada or available to any Canadian company. Suddenly there are no MS Windows licenses sold to Canada. Suddenly Visa and Mastercard no longer work in Canada. Suddenly there is no Google Play Store or iTunes in Canada. Suddenly Canadian exports find that they aren't being welcomed into the US market because doing business with Canada has become politically toxic in the US.
If Canada pushes too far against any one US company (or even all of them) then it will suddenly find that every US multinational is willing to stand in solidarity and torch the Canadian economy because they are all fully aware that if they let Canada get away with its BS once against one of them then Canada will do it to all of them in time.
And Canada is a nation of less than 40 million people, many of whom would be opposed to their governments antics. And its a nation where the US corporations are very aware of how to manipulate the information space. They would also be at least passively assisted by the US government.
www.cp24.com
