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I understand the sentiment but have no idea how this could be carried out. What happens to gift cards? What happens to in game digital currencies, what happens

I understand the sentiment but have no idea how this could be carried out. What happens to gift cards? What happens to in game digital currencies, what happens to ad accounts, what happens to AWS credits.

Waterluvian 7y ago
I'm not an economist and really don't know how to articulate this well so forgive how dumb this might sound. I think the difference is if the financial component is the product. All of those things, Steam wallet, Ebay, etc. are all trying to use the money moving tools to sell products that aren't money. Your Steam wallet cannot be used to give someone $20USD who can then go spend it on Pop Rocks. Ultimately it all funnels into buying games. When your product is the money storage, transfer, removal services, that's when you become a "financial service."
onetimemanytime 7y ago
They can fine tune the law as much as they want
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  If they'd make a simple HIPAA-like law that just criminalizes outright the sharing of personal data for commercial purposes, we wouldn't have to worry about fine tuning to catch privacy corner cases. No one even tries to wiggle or weasel out of HIPAA violations because the law is simple and none of the big shot hospital CEO's want to spend any time in prison. All the hospital employees are well aware of what will happen if they violate a patient's privacy as well. We need that same thing for all personal data, not just our medical data. Perfect example of politicians giving us truckloads of junk we never asked for, like this "Keep Big Tech out of Toilet Paper Printing" or whatever, while at the same time giving us absolutely no part of what we do want, privacy protection.
  - cmiles74 7y ago
    I do think part of the reason that health service companies and insurance companies adhere to HIPAA is because it helps them keep their customers "locked in" to their product. It is often used as an excuse to prevent the digital transmission of health care data from one provider to another ("they gave me a CD with my data to give to my new doctor") and to prevent people from leaving "the network". These are companies that have very real incentives to avoid sharing data with each other, indeed, the more data each holds hostage the more powerful it becomes (hence the consolidation in the field). That seems very different to me from how advertising companies function and make money.
    - aj7 7y ago
      Perfectly put.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > If they'd make a simple HIPAA-like law So, I've been working fairly intimately with HIPAA for close to 20 years, and I have to ask: on what planet can a law both be “simple” and “HIPAA-like”, even if you are only talking about the original 1996 Act and not all the subsequent additions? > No one even tries to wiggle or weasel out of HIPAA violations Yes, they do (well, for privacy violations, not, say, the Administrative Simplification side, but only because that side isn't enforced with any seriousness so they don't need to bother.) That's why we got things like HITECH to make that harder.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      Look man, I've worked intimately with HIPAA for a long time too. (Full disclosure, I've taken medical imaging companies public before. My SO runs a swath of hospitals down in Texas.) The reality is, dealing with the FDA side of things was about 15000 times more complicated for us than HIPAA compliance. I'm pretty sure anyone who's ever shipped a medical diagnostic product would call HIPAA compliance simple compared to what the FDA puts their products through. The regulatory affairs people at most medical companies are FDA compliance experts that know how to comply with HIPAA, rather than HIPAA experts that some how penetrate the FDA requirements. There's a reason for that.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > The reality is, dealing with the FDA side of things was about 15000 times more complicated for us than HIPAA compliance. [...] > The regulatory affairs people at most medical companies are FDA compliance experts that know how to comply with HIPAA, rather than HIPAA experts that some how penetrate the FDA requirements. Well, yeah, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is centrally a law regulating insurance provision whose rules and regulations most significantly impact payers; the parts impacting providers (while there is some compliance effort required, particularly regarding privacy and security) were actually designed to reduce the burden on providers; the privacy/security elements of HIPAA were included to mollify fears about the incentivizing and standardization of electronic billing transactions, they aren't the central focus of HIPAA though they are the part that (now that the “number of the beast” fearmongering has faded) remains in the public consciousness. EDIT: And even then, the HIPAA privacy rules aren't all that simple; if you want simple privacy rules, the rules for privacy of federally-funded drug and alcohol treatment patient data are much simpler, and also stronger privacy protections.
paulryanrogers 7y ago
Anything directly exchanged for money (like a gift card) is subjected to a patchwork of laws in the US. Unused funds are considered "breakage" and the merchants love it. Some states prohibit fees while others require the breakage to eventually go to the state itself. "Loyalty" rewards that are 'earned' or awarded are less regulated. Hence the airlines miles that expire.

Waterluvian 7y ago

I'm not an economist and really don't know how to articulate this well so forgive how dumb this might sound. I think the difference is if the financial component is the product. All of those things, Steam wallet, Ebay, etc. are all trying to use the money moving tools to sell products that aren't money. Your Steam wallet cannot be used to give someone $20USD who can then go spend it on Pop Rocks. Ultimately it all funnels into buying games. When your product is the money storage, transfer, removal services, that's when you become a "financial service."

onetimemanytime 7y ago

They can fine tune the law as much as they want

bilbo0s 7y ago
If they'd make a simple HIPAA-like law that just criminalizes outright the sharing of personal data for commercial purposes, we wouldn't have to worry about fine tuning to catch privacy corner cases. No one even tries to wiggle or weasel out of HIPAA violations because the law is simple and none of the big shot hospital CEO's want to spend any time in prison. All the hospital employees are well aware of what will happen if they violate a patient's privacy as well. We need that same thing for all personal data, not just our medical data. Perfect example of politicians giving us truckloads of junk we never asked for, like this "Keep Big Tech out of Toilet Paper Printing" or whatever, while at the same time giving us absolutely no part of what we do want, privacy protection.
- cmiles74 7y ago
  I do think part of the reason that health service companies and insurance companies adhere to HIPAA is because it helps them keep their customers "locked in" to their product. It is often used as an excuse to prevent the digital transmission of health care data from one provider to another ("they gave me a CD with my data to give to my new doctor") and to prevent people from leaving "the network". These are companies that have very real incentives to avoid sharing data with each other, indeed, the more data each holds hostage the more powerful it becomes (hence the consolidation in the field). That seems very different to me from how advertising companies function and make money.
  - aj7 7y ago
    Perfectly put.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If they'd make a simple HIPAA-like law So, I've been working fairly intimately with HIPAA for close to 20 years, and I have to ask: on what planet can a law both be “simple” and “HIPAA-like”, even if you are only talking about the original 1996 Act and not all the subsequent additions? > No one even tries to wiggle or weasel out of HIPAA violations Yes, they do (well, for privacy violations, not, say, the Administrative Simplification side, but only because that side isn't enforced with any seriousness so they don't need to bother.) That's why we got things like HITECH to make that harder.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Look man, I've worked intimately with HIPAA for a long time too. (Full disclosure, I've taken medical imaging companies public before. My SO runs a swath of hospitals down in Texas.) The reality is, dealing with the FDA side of things was about 15000 times more complicated for us than HIPAA compliance. I'm pretty sure anyone who's ever shipped a medical diagnostic product would call HIPAA compliance simple compared to what the FDA puts their products through. The regulatory affairs people at most medical companies are FDA compliance experts that know how to comply with HIPAA, rather than HIPAA experts that some how penetrate the FDA requirements. There's a reason for that.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > The reality is, dealing with the FDA side of things was about 15000 times more complicated for us than HIPAA compliance. [...] > The regulatory affairs people at most medical companies are FDA compliance experts that know how to comply with HIPAA, rather than HIPAA experts that some how penetrate the FDA requirements. Well, yeah, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is centrally a law regulating insurance provision whose rules and regulations most significantly impact payers; the parts impacting providers (while there is some compliance effort required, particularly regarding privacy and security) were actually designed to reduce the burden on providers; the privacy/security elements of HIPAA were included to mollify fears about the incentivizing and standardization of electronic billing transactions, they aren't the central focus of HIPAA though they are the part that (now that the “number of the beast” fearmongering has faded) remains in the public consciousness. EDIT: And even then, the HIPAA privacy rules aren't all that simple; if you want simple privacy rules, the rules for privacy of federally-funded drug and alcohol treatment patient data are much simpler, and also stronger privacy protections.

paulryanrogers 7y ago

Anything directly exchanged for money (like a gift card) is subjected to a patchwork of laws in the US. Unused funds are considered "breakage" and the merchants love it. Some states prohibit fees while others require the breakage to eventually go to the state itself. "Loyalty" rewards that are 'earned' or awarded are less regulated. Hence the airlines miles that expire.