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Yes, that makes sense to me. Local businesses are much more likely to know the local laws. Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be har
by beaner 8y ago
Yes, that makes sense to me. Local businesses are much more likely to know the local laws. Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be hard to know all the different regulation.
- untog 8y agoGoogle is also an order of magnitude bigger than a local TV station. They have no excuse.
- CobrastanJorji 8y agoOn the other hand, a local TV station only needs to know and comply with the election laws of their own city. Google needs to know and comply with the local laws of every city in the world.
- mulmen 8y agoThis isn’t even remotely compelling. Companies have to comply with local laws. “We’re too big to follow the rules” is no excuse. If you need an example (which you should not) I worked for a small (~100 employee) phone company and we complied with all tax laws nationwide at a federal, state, county and municipality level. That’s a lot of regulation. It was a lot of work. We did it. What’s Google’s excuse?
- SamReidHughes 8y agoYes it is an excuse. Having to comply with all these regional laws to run an ad service has a chilling effect on speech. A small or large one, depending on compliance costs.
- chasontherobot 8y agoA chilling effect on running an ad service, maybe. Following the law is a cost of doing business.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoA specific sales tax on newspapers is also cost of doing business. But it is unconstitutional. Making the law really complicated so that it's expensive to follow is the same thing. How can I make an online community and sell ads profitable (like some people I know that ran profitable forums) if I have to vet ads and follow laws of fifty states? The result of such laws being enforced is, these online communities cease to exist, and people aren't able to talk to each other.
- mulmen 8y agoThe same law Google is accused of not following also applies to newspapers. Are you saying the law is unconstitutional? Is it still ethical for Google to not comply with a law because they believe it is unconstitutional? If this is the case why has Google not offered this defense? Is this a viable defense for breaking other laws? It looks to me like Google knew what they were doing, knew what the penalties could be and decided it was worth it.
- chasontherobot 8y agoThis is the whole point of outsourcing your ads to a company like Google, since they do it at scale they are able to do the due diligence of making sure the ads follow the law. That's one of the things you are paying them for.
- verbify 8y agoI think you're understating this potential breach in law. This isn't a local law of some city in the world - it is a state law in the country these companies were founded in. And it isn't some odd law that the company would easily forget about - FB and Google both get their revenue from advertising, and political advertising disclosure laws are pretty common. While Washington might have some stricter rules, I'd expect the companies to have a division working on compliance.
- mulmen 8y agoSo what? They’re still responsible for complying with the law.
- anameaname 8y agoFollowing the law isn't black and white. I'm sure each of us as individuals broke the several times today without even knowing it.
- decebalus1 8y ago> Google is everywhere, covering thousands of local places. It'd be hard to know all the different regulation. And that's why you hire an army of compliance officers, which is what Google already has. There is no excuse.