1. "Google cannot conduct business in Japan unless they store their data in Japan"
2. "Netflix cannot conduct business in Japan unless they allow complete access to all content"
Who does law (1) benefit, and who will be benefited if it goes away?
Same for (2).
> (Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with protecting that data and more to do with making it available for attempted seizure.)
I think any government that would be interested in this, wouldn't sign the TPP agreement in the first place.
In both cases, "who will benefit if the law goes away" would be people who wanted to do business with Google and Netflix, but can't because those companies were told they "cannot conduct business". If Google and Netflix also benefit from that, it's because they offered something people wanted to pay for.
The scenario you envision is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the business changes their practices". The more common scenario, for the majority of countries in the world, is "law blocks doing business in the country, so the people in that country don't get the service until enough people complain and the law goes away, or people find a way around the block if they want the service enough".
How about this one: "Whatsapp cannot conduct business in Brazil unless they make their customers' data available to the government on demand". ("End-to-end encrypted? That doesn't sound like 'yes sir how would you like that delivered sir' to me.")
I can see your point, and is definitely a multi-dimensional problem.
Just for the record and for not getting misunderstood, my opinion and what I support is to break any artificial borders on the Internet, which means that on one hand a corps may choose to store the data wherever they think is better, but also prevent the corps from altering their service based on a persons location.
For my own part, I support breaking any artificial borders on the Internet as well. But rather than adding a restriction like "can't do business with a company if they offer different services to different locations", I'd instead remove any restrictions that might affect someone who simply purchased the service as provided in a different locale. (The company can try to block accessing other versions of the service, but that's a technical problem, and solvable with a technical solution. If the company can tell where in the world you are, we haven't made the Internet good enough yet.)
For that matter, geographical restrictions on media depend on restrictive copyright laws to have any effect at all. So I don't support adding a restriction to "solve" a problem artificially propped up by another restriction.
If the proposal on the table was a law/treaty to prevent people from accessing the service as sold to a country other than their own, then I think we'd both agree that's a bad idea and oppose it.
Let's say Japan has the following two laws:
1. "Google cannot conduct business in Japan unless they store their data in Japan"
2. "Netflix cannot conduct business in Japan unless they allow complete access to all content"
Who does law (1) benefit, and who will be benefited if it goes away?
Same for (2).
> (Also, keep in mind that many of the "must store data locally" laws have less to do with protecting that data and more to do with making it available for attempted seizure.)
I think any government that would be interested in this, wouldn't sign the TPP agreement in the first place.