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The standard solution is to exempt small organizations. It's why, for example, you can start a company with minimal accounting. When you hire your first employ

The standard solution is to exempt small organizations. It's why, for example, you can start a company with minimal accounting. When you hire your first employee, your requirements increase. Then above 50 employees the IRS considers you a Large Employer, etc. It would be reasonable to apply basic consumer protection laws to any service with more than, say, a million users. "Any subscription entered into online must be cancellable online," that kind of thing. Laws against dark patterns. Dorm room startups remain totally unencumbered. The fact that it's 2021 and a lot of very low-hanging-fruit protections like this don't exist, is evidence that our legislative apparatus is degraded. Maybe in a future decade we'll have better functioning institutions--it has happened before--but not today. Lina Khan running the FCC is a hopeful sign.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
This is a great point; I forgot entirely about exemptions. Do you happen to know of any existing regulation-with-exceptions that I can cite, to persuade others (and incidentally myself) that regulation isn't such a bad idea? Ideally something related to FAANG, but any software regulation with reasonable exemptions would be a fine example. To be honest, I'm worried that politicians would muck things up during the legislative process, and that the right exemptions won't get applied. Or that we'll run into yet another law where you're required to pop up a banner saying "This site uses cookies, just like everyone else, lol." But if it's been done successfully, I'd like to know about it.
- squiggleblaz 5y ago
  > Or that we'll run into yet another law where you're required to pop up a banner saying "This site uses cookies, just like everyone else, lol." Is there any such law? I always understood that to be a widespread misunderstanding. Just like the way every website pops up a dialog box asking you to approve tracking or click through some complex flow to disapprove. They aren't required to do that. But business people are trying to make regulation seem like a burden on users to discourage legislators from creating new regulations.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Mm, I think as long as you’re not using the cookies for advertising purposes, you don’t have to pop up a banner. But if you’re using any kind of cookie for ads, you do. GitHub recently published a post called “no cookie for you” or some such, which made that distinction clear. They said they were able to get rid of the popup by not doing any ads. But still, it feels… wildly unhelpful to inform users that cookies are being used for ads. I’d love to understand the other viewpoint, though.
lioeters 5y ago
> Lina Khan running the FCC I think you mean the FTC. https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/biographies/lina-khan https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/biographies/lina-khan

sillysaurusx 5y ago

This is a great point; I forgot entirely about exemptions. Do you happen to know of any existing regulation-with-exceptions that I can cite, to persuade others (and incidentally myself) that regulation isn't such a bad idea? Ideally something related to FAANG, but any software regulation with reasonable exemptions would be a fine example. To be honest, I'm worried that politicians would muck things up during the legislative process, and that the right exemptions won't get applied. Or that we'll run into yet another law where you're required to pop up a banner saying "This site uses cookies, just like everyone else, lol." But if it's been done successfully, I'd like to know about it.

squiggleblaz 5y ago
> Or that we'll run into yet another law where you're required to pop up a banner saying "This site uses cookies, just like everyone else, lol." Is there any such law? I always understood that to be a widespread misunderstanding. Just like the way every website pops up a dialog box asking you to approve tracking or click through some complex flow to disapprove. They aren't required to do that. But business people are trying to make regulation seem like a burden on users to discourage legislators from creating new regulations.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Mm, I think as long as you’re not using the cookies for advertising purposes, you don’t have to pop up a banner. But if you’re using any kind of cookie for ads, you do. GitHub recently published a post called “no cookie for you” or some such, which made that distinction clear. They said they were able to get rid of the popup by not doing any ads. But still, it feels… wildly unhelpful to inform users that cookies are being used for ads. I’d love to understand the other viewpoint, though.

lioeters 5y ago

> Lina Khan running the FCC I think you mean the FTC. https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/biographies/lina-khan https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/biographies/lina-khan