4 ms·

It’s a great idea but my understanding is that they have not yet defined the term. And that sounds very hard to define.

by eli 5y ago

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
"I know it when I see it."
- eli 5y ago
  I’m just not a big fan of laws where just about everyone could arguably be breaking them in some small way. That’s a lot of faith to put in regulators to always act honorably. Vaguely worded laws can also lead conservative corporate counsels to make decisions like geoblocking all of the EU
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  in common law systems I know it when I see it is good enough, but I believe most of EU is under a Napoleonic system where you should define what you mean.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - XorNot 5y ago
    The requirement of "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" is a metric which you could argue about in court, but would be very hard to game. i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist and isn't accessible in as many clicks, with equivalent screen real-estate usage.
    - q-big 5y ago
      > i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist So you argue that to cancel a subscription, you should have to provide your credit card number again. If a check on the credit card fails for some obscure reason, you cannot cancel your subscription. This is what "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" also means.
      - XorNot 5y ago
        Sure: but if it fails, then the card is invalid, and the card no longer can be billed. Again - you wouldn't get away with saying "well we couldn't verify the number" as standard practice - you'd just get sued and then punitively fined if it was found to be a lie.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        I mean, that is precisely the court’s job to interpret the law. Your take is just a deliberately twisted one, it wouldn’t stand a chance in a court setting the same way as a willful offense can’t be defined that precisely, yet there is generally no problem with it.
  - jamesrr39 5y ago
    Nitpick: most of it falls under the Civil law system, some of which is Napoleonic. Wikipedia has a pretty nice map of the breakdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)#/media/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)#/medi...

It’s a great idea but my understanding is that they have not yet defined the term. And that sounds very hard to define.

by eli 5y ago

It’s a great idea but my understanding is that they have not yet defined the term. And that sounds very hard to define.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

"I know it when I see it."

eli 5y ago
I’m just not a big fan of laws where just about everyone could arguably be breaking them in some small way. That’s a lot of faith to put in regulators to always act honorably. Vaguely worded laws can also lead conservative corporate counsels to make decisions like geoblocking all of the EU
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
in common law systems I know it when I see it is good enough, but I believe most of EU is under a Napoleonic system where you should define what you mean.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- XorNot 5y ago
  The requirement of "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" is a metric which you could argue about in court, but would be very hard to game. i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist and isn't accessible in as many clicks, with equivalent screen real-estate usage.
  - q-big 5y ago
    > i.e. if signup is "email and credit card number" then you're going to be hard pressed to explain why a similar option to cancel does not exist So you argue that to cancel a subscription, you should have to provide your credit card number again. If a check on the credit card fails for some obscure reason, you cannot cancel your subscription. This is what "subscribe is as easy as unsubscribe" also means.
    - XorNot 5y ago
      Sure: but if it fails, then the card is invalid, and the card no longer can be billed. Again - you wouldn't get away with saying "well we couldn't verify the number" as standard practice - you'd just get sued and then punitively fined if it was found to be a lie.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      I mean, that is precisely the court’s job to interpret the law. Your take is just a deliberately twisted one, it wouldn’t stand a chance in a court setting the same way as a willful offense can’t be defined that precisely, yet there is generally no problem with it.
- jamesrr39 5y ago
  Nitpick: most of it falls under the Civil law system, some of which is Napoleonic. Wikipedia has a pretty nice map of the breakdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)#/media/File:Map_of_the_Legal_systems_of_the_world_(en).png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(legal_system)#/medi...