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What law prohibits Google from making Bard available outside the USA?



It's available here in the UK, so it's not USA exclusive.


I was just on a cruise around the UK and I couldn't access Bard from the ship's wi-fi. That surprised me for some reason. Should've checked where it thought I was ...


It's blocked in the EU because they don't want to/can't comply with GDPR.


Do you have a source on this? Given that the UK has retained the EU GDPR as law[1] - I don't really understand why they would make it available in the UK and not the EU, seeing as they would have to comply with the same law.

[1] - https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-and-the...


What's the excuse for Canada being omitted


We're small and no one cares about us...


It is not GDPR, it is available in some countries outside the EU with GDPR-like privacy regimes.


This is naïve though. Regulation — especially such as this — has to be enforced and there is obviously room to over and under interpret the text of the law on a whim, or varying fines. OAI knows this and looking at the EU lately, what they’re doing is wise.


Which is interesting, because if they can't comply within the EU, then how do they comply outside of the EU. With that I mean, if they have concerns that there is private data of EU citizens somewhere in that, then that is also in there for users outside of the EU. That said, they do not comply with GDPR anyway. If that its not the case, then they could also enable it for users within the EU.


It's a risk mitigation strategy, these things are not black and white.

Making it unavailable in the EU decreases the likelihood and severity of a potential fine.


Simple: GDPR (or any EU law) is not enforceable outside EU


Some nuance:

If Google gobble up data about EU citizens then they fall under GDPR.

It doesn't matter that they don't allow EU citizens to use the result.

If our personal data is in there and they are don't protect it properly they are violating EU law. And protecting it properly means from everyone, not just EU citizens.


The gobbling happens in realtime as you use it


Actually, in case of Google it is, because they still do business within the EU.


GDPR is likely not enforceable if you have no presence in EU whatsoever, if you have no assets in EU and no money coming in from EU.

Anything Google does with data of EU residents is subject to GDPR even if that particular service is not offered within EU, and it is definitely enforceable because Google has a presence in EU, which can be (and has been) subjected to fines, seizures of assets, etc.


That’s a common belief, but it’s wrong. In principle an EU court could decide to apply the GDPR to conduct outside the EU; and in the right circumstances, a non-EU court might rule that the GDPR applies.

Choice of law is anything but simple. Think of geographic scoping of laws as a rough rule of thumb sovereign states use to avoid annoying each other, rather than as a law of nature.


They clearly can with all their other products, as can OpenAI since they've been unblocked. They're just being assholes because they can.




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