eBay Has To Turn Over Info On Canadian PowerSellers

from the can't-get-off-that-easy dept

Michael Geist points us to the news that a Canadian court has told eBay Canada that it needs to cough up info on Canadian PowerSellers. The case involves attempts by the Canadian government to determine if eBay PowerSellers are underreporting earnings on their taxes. Canadian tax officials had asked eBay Canada to hand over data on various Canadian PowerSellers, but the company refused, noting that the info was actually held by eBay in the US, and thus the data was not subject to the Canada Revenue Agency's jurisdiction. The court disagreed, noting that eBay Canada had easy access to the data at a "click of the mouse." For the most part, this does make sense, though it does raise some questions about jurisdictions. Perhaps this is a special case, due to the close relationship between eBay and eBay Canada, but it still is a bit worrisome that a Canadian court would rule that info on an American server is subject to Canadian laws. You could see that coming back up in a bad way in the future.

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