legal, international, e-commerce, merchant-servicesI’am planning to start of putting up a startup e-commerce hosting site. Users will pay for the monthly subscription. I want to offer the service to people globally but I’m very concerned about the legal laws from some countries that I should adapt as well, I was about to start the process to register my planned business in our local government here to make it legal. If ever I make my services available international is the license I get from my local government enough to make my services available international?
I'm very concerned about the legal laws from some countries that I should adapt as well
In theory, you must comply with the laws of the country you're operating in. Which has a double meaning: you must comply with the laws of the country you're in, of course; you must also comply with the laws your clients are in.
The key case to be aware of is LICRA v Yahoo!. A French anti-racist group, the LICRA, went after Yahoo for enabling US sellers to offer nazi goods. Doing so is legal in the US (first amendment) but criminal in France (most of Europe has anti hate speech laws). They sued in France and won. Yahoo tried to appeal in the US and got booted. Ergo, comply with the laws of where your clients are in addition to the laws of the country you're in.
But that's only theory. Jurisprudence is still evolving on this topic, and what counts in practice is whether the client's country can flex its diplomatic muscle.
A few concrete examples:
US companies aren't making their English websites comply with Sharia law because an occasional visitor might browse it from Saudi Arabia.
But US companies as large as Google, Facebook, or Twitter do bend over to accommodate e.g. China.
Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. all operate an EU subsidiary and EU-based servers, because they don't want their US-based operations to comply with the EU's stricter privacy laws.
It's legal to operate an online casino in Malta. It isn't legal, or it's highly regulated, in most other EU countries and in the US. Malta-based online casinos have no problems accepting EU clients. Other EU members couldn't stop these casinos even if they wanted to because of EU trade rules.
But the same Maltese casinos won't accept US clients -- it's clearly illegal then. Unless, that is, the US clients provide them with a Canadian address and a pre-paid card. and there actually are businesses that provide US citizens with such.
You cannot open a sex shop in Malta. (To put that in context, they legalized divorce a mere few years ago.) But the Maltese do buy sex toys -- they do so online. And the Maltese state can do just nothing about it, even when the goods are shipped from outside of the EU.
In practical terms: don't worry too much about it. You're fine as long as you don't do or allow things that are hugely controversial or illegal in nearly all countries.
If ever I make my services available international is the license I get from my local government enough to make my services available international?
Yes, but don't forget to file for VAT when you deal with EU-based clients in any material way.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.