Nokia threatens to leave Finland
Nokia threatens to leave Finland if constitutional rights not revoked.
Nokia Corporation threatened to leave Finland, unless law preventing them to snoop thorough employee email correspondence is not overturned, the Helsingin Sanomat (HS) reported this morning.
An ammendment to the law protecting citizen’s privacy in electronic correspondence, known locally as Lex Nokia or ‘the snooping law’, will be voted on in the Finnish parlament within weeks. The law would permit companies to examine their employees’ and according to HS, libraries, schools, colleges and appartment complexes to spy on their customer’s email if they suspected wrongdoing inside their network.
The affair began as an alledged case of industrial espionage when a Nokia employee attending the 2005 Cannes electronics fair noticed Nokia technology, just being unveilled at the fair, being presented in a network adapter by Chinese manufacturer Huawein. To hunt down the leak inside its company Nokia demanded existing Finnish privacy laws be overturned or it would close its home operations completely, thereby effectively blackmailing the Finnish government for aprx. 1,3 billon Euro tax income and 16 000 local jobs. (Source HS)
Nokia accounted for a third of the market capitalization of the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 2007. In 2004 Nokia’s share of Finland’s GDP was 3.5% and accounted for one quarter of Finland’s exports in 2003. In 2006 Nokia’s revenue exceeded the state budget of Finland. (Wiki)
Whoa, this is pretty huge stuff. What I’m selfishly wondering is, what does this mean for us, the consumers ?
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