4 ms·

> Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract? It is not ambivalent. Most places have an account number. (It is needed because you might have more t

> Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract? It is not ambivalent. Most places have an account number. (It is needed because you might have more than one contract with the same company)

shoo 5y ago
i can imagine intentionally useless UI for this. require the account number to be entered in a particularly stupid format. 12345 -> one TWO 3 four FIVE. add heavy input validation. make the validation give no hint about what is wrong with the input. defer validation as late as possible in the process "processing cancellation request --- something went wrong, we could not match the entered account, name, blood type against our records. please try again". route all requests for cancellation to a particular backend server bathed in cosmic rays. hopefully there is a regulator to monitor and enforce the new legislation, and it will be treated as an adversarial iterative game, where v2 of the legislation will eliminate some of the more malicious interpretations of how to comply
- germanier 5y ago
  FWIW laws like that are not enforced in Germany by public regulators but by competitors and associations sending out endless of the infamous costly cease-and-desist letters ("Abmahnung"). So just one competitor (or business/consumer association) with enough will and money to fight that question through courts will be enough to settle such questions. Happens all the time with consumer protection laws. There is a large industry of lawyers for both sides. Your online shop says it offers "insured shipping"? Cease-and-desist letter in your mailbox next day. You don't give a price per unit (kg, l, etc.)? Cease-and desist. Send the required information on the mandatory 14 day return period in the email body instead of a PDF attachment? Cease-and-desist. Don't comply to just one of the other ever changing consumer protections laws? Cease-and-desist.
AlphaGeekZulu 5y ago
OK, so I just tried to look up my Prime account number. All I can find, pretty hidden, is an order number, which changes with every prolongation. Legally, I have one contract, that prolongs every year if I do not cancel. This contract has no ID (it is my email address, sort of). So if I enter the Prime order number in the new cancellation form, would I cancel the entire contract or just the running instance? My parents wouldn't know what to fill in the contract identification field of the cancellation form. Plenty of room for dark patterns.
- valenterry 5y ago
  I don't think lawmakers are that dumb. They will have used words like "easy" in the law. If it's taken to a court, then the judge might very well deem the technical solution to not be easy if he is convinced that it was intentionally or even accidentally made much harder than necessary. And that could get expensive.

> Topic 3 is ambivalent, how do you identify an contract? It is not ambivalent. Most places have an account number. (It is needed because you might have more than one contract with the same company)

shoo 5y ago

i can imagine intentionally useless UI for this. require the account number to be entered in a particularly stupid format. 12345 -> one TWO 3 four FIVE. add heavy input validation. make the validation give no hint about what is wrong with the input. defer validation as late as possible in the process "processing cancellation request --- something went wrong, we could not match the entered account, name, blood type against our records. please try again". route all requests for cancellation to a particular backend server bathed in cosmic rays. hopefully there is a regulator to monitor and enforce the new legislation, and it will be treated as an adversarial iterative game, where v2 of the legislation will eliminate some of the more malicious interpretations of how to comply

germanier 5y ago
FWIW laws like that are not enforced in Germany by public regulators but by competitors and associations sending out endless of the infamous costly cease-and-desist letters ("Abmahnung"). So just one competitor (or business/consumer association) with enough will and money to fight that question through courts will be enough to settle such questions. Happens all the time with consumer protection laws. There is a large industry of lawyers for both sides. Your online shop says it offers "insured shipping"? Cease-and-desist letter in your mailbox next day. You don't give a price per unit (kg, l, etc.)? Cease-and desist. Send the required information on the mandatory 14 day return period in the email body instead of a PDF attachment? Cease-and-desist. Don't comply to just one of the other ever changing consumer protections laws? Cease-and-desist.

AlphaGeekZulu 5y ago

OK, so I just tried to look up my Prime account number. All I can find, pretty hidden, is an order number, which changes with every prolongation. Legally, I have one contract, that prolongs every year if I do not cancel. This contract has no ID (it is my email address, sort of). So if I enter the Prime order number in the new cancellation form, would I cancel the entire contract or just the running instance? My parents wouldn't know what to fill in the contract identification field of the cancellation form. Plenty of room for dark patterns.

valenterry 5y ago
I don't think lawmakers are that dumb. They will have used words like "easy" in the law. If it's taken to a court, then the judge might very well deem the technical solution to not be easy if he is convinced that it was intentionally or even accidentally made much harder than necessary. And that could get expensive.