5 ms·

One of the simplest functions of a justice system - before impartial judgement, before detailed laws, before qualified advocates - is simply the right to summo

by ajb 5y ago

One of the simplest functions of a justice system - before impartial judgement, before detailed laws, before qualified advocates - is simply the right to summon a powerful person to justify their actions. Increasingly it seems that we will need this to be applied here, ideally in some simpler and less costly way than a full trial. It is just wrong for companies to make money by inviting people to rely on them , and then ghosting if something goes wrong.

no_butterscotch 5y ago
I agree. But I'm not sure what the solution is. A lot of people will say "Hey, it's a private company", and as a libertarian minded person I tend to agree. But increasingly these private companies have more power of my life than my own government does, and it's accelerating further it seems.
- amznthrwaway 5y ago
  Candidly, these companies have far, far less power than the government does. The government has the ability to make literally _every_ company do this to you, simultaneously, and if they use an NSL, to do it secretly. The reason the government feels less impactful is because Google is much more likely to ban you than the government. Google has essentially no incentive to behave well.
- cube00 5y ago
  They only gain as much power as you allow them to have. You can still use your own domain. You can still back up to external drives in your house. You can still leave encrypted copies of those drives at a friend's house.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    You can still only get one or two, if you're lucky, high speed Internet service providers.
    - no_butterscotch 5y ago
      Right, in my apartment building I don't have a choice. It's all through Comcast.
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        I feel bad for you. Comcast recently accidentally disconnected my service twice now 2 weeks before my move because their internal systems are screwed up and then told me they couldn't fix their own issues because of their system, thus leaving me without Internet for multiple days.
      - southerntofu 5y ago
        As a person residing in France, that's alien to me. We've had government regulations for ISP choice for almost two decades now. I'm very critical of them because they're actually not enforced (still very hard/impossible for smaller non-profit ISPs to use big corp fiber despite the law saying so), but at least they enable me to choose whatever xDSL provider i'd like, or even start my own for somewhat-reasonable prices.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  The solution is government regulation. It should not be legal for Google to host peoples important data and yank it without any way for the person to get their data back.' Google should be legally required to either provide a phone number to call, or make the Takeout feature always available regardless of account bans.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
  If these private companies have such power, it's because you handed it to them.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  This is where libertarianism ends up abutting to anarchism (or left libertarianism if you prefer); the recognition that governments are not the only power structure capable of trampling the individual. Fun fact! The word “libertarian” was self consciously co-opted by the libertarian right in the 1960s by Murray Rothbard, who viewed that co-option as an important part of his war with the left.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This is only true since the governments are ran by congress people that openly trade stocks based on insider info and take 'campaign gifts' from the companies. This isn't new, by the way. Companies have had their way since the advent of the telephone, it was just in the shadows since the internet wasn't around and we didn't have companies attaching their brand name to every consumer-unfriendly act committed.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  As a libertarian, you would surely agree that leveling the playing field (with regulations and technical solutions) is a good thing. What do you think about hosting coops such as those listed on libreho.st or chatons.org federations? Your capitalist reflex might be to dismiss self-organized, user-oriented coops... but they seem to provide better service and support than most commercial services i've dealt with.
Gigachad 5y ago
IMO there needs to be some kind of minimum allowed customer support when handling user data. If you can't provide real support for free, then remove the free plan. If everyone has to then they are all equal again. It's just wrong to trick people in to trusting a service with their data and then yanking it with no support contact.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  Having recently dealt with what I’m assuming are a meatbag support team from Microsoft (specifically their business partnership program), I can honestly say there’s not much difference between a bunch of useless meatbags and no support whatsoever. It took me 4 weeks to sign up for a service which requires few business details and proof of a domain by form of an invoice. For a reason I don’t understand, it has no bearing on the rest of the registration process whatsoever, I just gave them proof of some unrelated random domain I own.
  - Gigachad 5y ago
    That's easy to fix. You have a government body that takes complaints and if a company receives too many complaints over their customer service, they must pay a penalty.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      That’s basically the US banking system, and it’s notoriously consumer un-friendly.
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        On the contrary, the CFPB has rave reviews from what I have read: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ I had a problem where my spouse’s employer’s Health Savings Account custodian (PNC bank in this case) was simply giving us the run around on charging a fee that was not on their fee schedule, which the employees of PNC even acknowledged was an error, but no one could get in touch with a person with enough power to fix the problem. I submitted a request on the CFPB website asking them to look into it and within 48 hours I had a boss call me from PNC bank to confirm that my error was resolved and provided me her email address and phone number if there were further issues. Trump did neuter the CPFB though, but hopefully Biden will bring it back: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-01-11/column-cfpb-biden https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-01-11/column-cfp...
southerntofu 5y ago
I think that's the wrong answer to a real problem. Instead of trying to prop up an equally-powerful entity to address power abuses of another powerful entity, why not decentralize power in the first place? Why should there be megacorporations or nation-states to begin with? They seem to be causing more problems (massive inequality, environmental destruction) than they are solving.

by ajb 5y ago

no_butterscotch 5y ago

I agree. But I'm not sure what the solution is. A lot of people will say "Hey, it's a private company", and as a libertarian minded person I tend to agree. But increasingly these private companies have more power of my life than my own government does, and it's accelerating further it seems.

amznthrwaway 5y ago
Candidly, these companies have far, far less power than the government does. The government has the ability to make literally _every_ company do this to you, simultaneously, and if they use an NSL, to do it secretly. The reason the government feels less impactful is because Google is much more likely to ban you than the government. Google has essentially no incentive to behave well.
cube00 5y ago
They only gain as much power as you allow them to have. You can still use your own domain. You can still back up to external drives in your house. You can still leave encrypted copies of those drives at a friend's house.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  You can still only get one or two, if you're lucky, high speed Internet service providers.
  - no_butterscotch 5y ago
    Right, in my apartment building I don't have a choice. It's all through Comcast.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      I feel bad for you. Comcast recently accidentally disconnected my service twice now 2 weeks before my move because their internal systems are screwed up and then told me they couldn't fix their own issues because of their system, thus leaving me without Internet for multiple days.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      As a person residing in France, that's alien to me. We've had government regulations for ISP choice for almost two decades now. I'm very critical of them because they're actually not enforced (still very hard/impossible for smaller non-profit ISPs to use big corp fiber despite the law saying so), but at least they enable me to choose whatever xDSL provider i'd like, or even start my own for somewhat-reasonable prices.
Gigachad 5y ago
The solution is government regulation. It should not be legal for Google to host peoples important data and yank it without any way for the person to get their data back.' Google should be legally required to either provide a phone number to call, or make the Takeout feature always available regardless of account bans.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
If these private companies have such power, it's because you handed it to them.
ashtonkem 5y ago
This is where libertarianism ends up abutting to anarchism (or left libertarianism if you prefer); the recognition that governments are not the only power structure capable of trampling the individual. Fun fact! The word “libertarian” was self consciously co-opted by the libertarian right in the 1960s by Murray Rothbard, who viewed that co-option as an important part of his war with the left.
judge2020 5y ago
This is only true since the governments are ran by congress people that openly trade stocks based on insider info and take 'campaign gifts' from the companies. This isn't new, by the way. Companies have had their way since the advent of the telephone, it was just in the shadows since the internet wasn't around and we didn't have companies attaching their brand name to every consumer-unfriendly act committed.
southerntofu 5y ago
As a libertarian, you would surely agree that leveling the playing field (with regulations and technical solutions) is a good thing. What do you think about hosting coops such as those listed on libreho.st or chatons.org federations? Your capitalist reflex might be to dismiss self-organized, user-oriented coops... but they seem to provide better service and support than most commercial services i've dealt with.

Gigachad 5y ago

IMO there needs to be some kind of minimum allowed customer support when handling user data. If you can't provide real support for free, then remove the free plan. If everyone has to then they are all equal again. It's just wrong to trick people in to trusting a service with their data and then yanking it with no support contact.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
Having recently dealt with what I’m assuming are a meatbag support team from Microsoft (specifically their business partnership program), I can honestly say there’s not much difference between a bunch of useless meatbags and no support whatsoever. It took me 4 weeks to sign up for a service which requires few business details and proof of a domain by form of an invoice. For a reason I don’t understand, it has no bearing on the rest of the registration process whatsoever, I just gave them proof of some unrelated random domain I own.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  That's easy to fix. You have a government body that takes complaints and if a company receives too many complaints over their customer service, they must pay a penalty.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    That’s basically the US banking system, and it’s notoriously consumer un-friendly.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      On the contrary, the CFPB has rave reviews from what I have read: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ I had a problem where my spouse’s employer’s Health Savings Account custodian (PNC bank in this case) was simply giving us the run around on charging a fee that was not on their fee schedule, which the employees of PNC even acknowledged was an error, but no one could get in touch with a person with enough power to fix the problem. I submitted a request on the CFPB website asking them to look into it and within 48 hours I had a boss call me from PNC bank to confirm that my error was resolved and provided me her email address and phone number if there were further issues. Trump did neuter the CPFB though, but hopefully Biden will bring it back: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-01-11/column-cfpb-biden https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-01-11/column-cfp...

southerntofu 5y ago

I think that's the wrong answer to a real problem. Instead of trying to prop up an equally-powerful entity to address power abuses of another powerful entity, why not decentralize power in the first place? Why should there be megacorporations or nation-states to begin with? They seem to be causing more problems (massive inequality, environmental destruction) than they are solving.