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I've long wondered, with the rise of the internet, is prosecution really necessary to address unsavory business practices like these? Why not force the company

I've long wondered, with the rise of the internet, is prosecution really necessary to address unsavory business practices like these? Why not force the company into the light, posting this information in a useful form that informs the public and shames the malefactor? I'm a strong proponent of open <EVERYTHING>. If shady behavior arises in business, government, public services, and even public discourse, I'd love to see a moderated form of public disclosure become the standard way to reveal and address such 'discrepancies'. Now that the 'net is ubiquitous, I don't see why age-old small town arbitration principles can't be applied to redress virtually all forms of grievance, as long as the public exchange is conducted decorously, as a judge or strict moderator rules could ensure. IMO, the state of AI is getting pretty close to enabling this sort of moderator service, making it impossible for 'conduct unbecoming' to persist out of the public eye. What cellphone videos are doing to police/perp misbehavior ought to be possible for general business practices too.

johncolanduoni 9y ago
Because ultimately most people won't care enough to stop going with the cheaper option, especially when all you can point to is negative effects for vendors. It's not like Amazon is going around creating spurious libel lawsuits against people for publishing criticism of their business practices, or paying for people to muddy the waters with counter-articles. It's just that the information largely fall on deaf ears. I'm not sure what a judge or moderator would do when there's no real back and forth. A lot of conduct unbecoming like this becomes public (Intel is a good example). How many people stopped buying their products even with literal judges finding them guilty of some particularly nasty anti-competitive practices?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  > Because ultimately most people won't care enough to stop going with the cheaper option, especially when all you can point to is negative effects for vendors. Indeed. If people could get cheaper clothing if slavery was made legal again, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Witness to a lesser extent the general sentiment on HN that Uber is "helping drivers", when they're indentured servants. I wouldn't call it consumer excess when you're exploiting someone with limited options.
mschuster91 9y ago
> I'm a strong proponent of open <EVERYTHING>. If shady behavior arises in business, government, public services, and even public discourse, I'd love to see a moderated form of public disclosure become the standard way to reveal and address such 'discrepancies'. Now that the 'net is ubiquitous, I don't see why age-old small town arbitration principles can't be applied to redress virtually all forms of grievance, as long as the public exchange is conducted decorously, as a judge or strict moderator rules could ensure. The problem is, there is no such thing as a moderated public exchange. Everything can be bought off, be it a journalist, a policeman or a judge. Mass media outside of countries with well-funded public media stations (think BBC or the German TV/radio stations) is always aligned to corporate interest, not to public/journalistic interest. And for what it's worth, state-funded journalism is often enough also subject to meddling by politicians. > IMO, the state of AI is getting pretty close to enabling this sort of moderator service lol even Facebook's content AI, which may very well be the strongest in moderating (Google's strength is lying more in content comprehension!) is not able to distinguish between an iconic Vietnam picture and child porn or remotely good at detecting propaganda. I certainly would not want the Facebook AI as a political moderator.

johncolanduoni 9y ago

Because ultimately most people won't care enough to stop going with the cheaper option, especially when all you can point to is negative effects for vendors. It's not like Amazon is going around creating spurious libel lawsuits against people for publishing criticism of their business practices, or paying for people to muddy the waters with counter-articles. It's just that the information largely fall on deaf ears. I'm not sure what a judge or moderator would do when there's no real back and forth. A lot of conduct unbecoming like this becomes public (Intel is a good example). How many people stopped buying their products even with literal judges finding them guilty of some particularly nasty anti-competitive practices?

toomuchtodo 9y ago
> Because ultimately most people won't care enough to stop going with the cheaper option, especially when all you can point to is negative effects for vendors. Indeed. If people could get cheaper clothing if slavery was made legal again, they'd do it in a heartbeat. Witness to a lesser extent the general sentiment on HN that Uber is "helping drivers", when they're indentured servants. I wouldn't call it consumer excess when you're exploiting someone with limited options.

mschuster91 9y ago

> I'm a strong proponent of open <EVERYTHING>. If shady behavior arises in business, government, public services, and even public discourse, I'd love to see a moderated form of public disclosure become the standard way to reveal and address such 'discrepancies'. Now that the 'net is ubiquitous, I don't see why age-old small town arbitration principles can't be applied to redress virtually all forms of grievance, as long as the public exchange is conducted decorously, as a judge or strict moderator rules could ensure. The problem is, there is no such thing as a moderated public exchange. Everything can be bought off, be it a journalist, a policeman or a judge. Mass media outside of countries with well-funded public media stations (think BBC or the German TV/radio stations) is always aligned to corporate interest, not to public/journalistic interest. And for what it's worth, state-funded journalism is often enough also subject to meddling by politicians. > IMO, the state of AI is getting pretty close to enabling this sort of moderator service lol even Facebook's content AI, which may very well be the strongest in moderating (Google's strength is lying more in content comprehension!) is not able to distinguish between an iconic Vietnam picture and child porn or remotely good at detecting propaganda. I certainly would not want the Facebook AI as a political moderator.