Mani MasoodEvery week that passes brings with it a major IT story in the media. But this Slack is more interesting for two reasons one – it show the impact of regulatory compliance and framework on technology and two how inter-connected the world truly is.
BBC Technology is reporting, that Slack ‘bans users’ who have visited US sanctioned countries. Users whose IP addresses connected to Slack in countries like Cuba are reportedly affected.
Some users of communication service Slack have reported their accounts have been closed over visits to countries under US sanctions.
The move, which Slack says is to comply with US regulations, is believed to be affecting users who have visited nations including Iran and North Korea, and many of the users are now complaining they were not warned in advance.
While some have said they had not visited the countries in recent years, and believe their bans were in error, and this is possible because most tech companies store your connection history. So even if you logged in 3 years ago from a certain location that IP address or location may still exists in the service providers “white-list” as a location that you login from.
Cuba, Syria and Crimea are other countries and regions where Slack says its systems may not be used.
The business messaging service is used by about eight millions of users every day in thousands of companies, including large firms like Airbnb and Ticketmaster.
The issue is the politics, government and regulators have not really caught on with the new high tech world that we live in. Those who write the laws and regulations have a difficult time in imaging the implications of these laws as they can not fully visualize the ability of the technology.
Mani
