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So the penalty for ongoing repeated lies and fraud is.... nothing. Zero. The FTC has investigated, and the settlement is zero money and zero penalties. Not

So the penalty for ongoing repeated lies and fraud is.... nothing. Zero. The FTC has investigated, and the settlement is zero money and zero penalties. Not one dollar. Whew! I'm glad they were punished! They won't do THAT again! The U.S. is really in late-stage empire breakdown. I don't think there is any significant enforcement of any laws whatsoever against companies and people that are reasonably well connected. The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia.

deleted 15y ago
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deleted 15y ago
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mgummelt 15y ago
Care to fill in the logical leap from your second to third lines?
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  I think that third line was probably more of an "impotent howl into the void in futile pursuit of catharsis" kind of comment than an "attempting to advance the cause of mutual human understanding" kind of comment. In this day and age I think we can let it slide.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Possibly something like "Corporations can get away with anything because they run the country and there's no turning back." Just a guess.
  - dreamdu5t 15y ago
    Facebook didn't break the law. So I'm not sure what people mean when they say "get away with anything."
    - jellicle 15y ago
      The FTC disagrees with you. But maybe you know better?
      - spindritf 15y ago
        I'm not American but isn't that court's decision to make, not FTC's or dreamdu5t's? Also, wouldn't Facebook's actions rather constitute a breach of contract with their users? Which would mean that users can sue regardless of FTC's decisions?
tokenadult 15y ago
On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?
- rhizome 15y ago
  The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).
  - dreamdu5t 15y ago
    You choose to divulge any information you consider to be private. Absent an actual formal agreement contingent upon giving that information (which an internal policy is most definitely not), I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me. Unless you're going to argue that you own anything you happen to know, even after other people know it? Unless you're going to argue that a posted policy on a free website constitutes a binding agreement?
    - rhizome 15y ago
      I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me. If that was true in all cases, the story we're commenting on wouldn't exist.
      - dreamdu5t 15y ago
        How is that? Please explain how I am obligated to restrict information people freely share with me?
        rhizome 15y ago
        In your example, in this context, there would be no privacy violation possible.
dreamdu5t 15y ago
Privacy policies are not binding agreements or contracts. Facebook didn't lie. They simply don't have to follow their privacy policy exactly, since it's not a binding agreement.
- Bud 15y ago
  No. They lied. The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.
  - dreamdu5t 15y ago
    Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud. Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there. You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.
    - Silhouette 15y ago
      > You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future. Fortunately, the law in many countries does not permit such one-sided terms.
    - Bud 15y ago
      You're dodging the question of whether it is a lie, which is unsurprising. I say again: Facebook lied. You didn't mention fraud, and I made no comment on fraud. I said they lied. They did. As for the clumsy smokescreen analogy about Subway, allow me to point out the obvious: Facebook made promises to users about how FACEBOOK would handle the personal property of said users. These are concrete, easily-definable promises...the kind which are easy to analyze to see if the promise was kept. It wasn't kept. Furthermore, as the FTC documented in plain English, there was a pattern of behavior, over and over again, that shows any reasonable person that not only did Facebook lie, they lied with prior intent. They never had any intention of keeping those promises and they broke them in the most egregious ways possible. By contrast, when Subway implies that customers can lose weight by eating certain foods there, they are, obviously, making no promises about how Subway will behave in the future, except an implied promise to be honest about how many calories are in their food (required by law), and to provide some lo-cal options (which they do). Really bad analogy, in every way.
daenz 15y ago
> The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia. I know, society is breaking down, kids are getting more disrespectful, things are more expensive, the end of the world is upon us, etc :) You taking your lifetime to come to a realization about the state of the world does not make the realization less true before you had it. It's a memory glitch. Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  >Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit. Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire. And look what we became, a pointless, miserable lame-duck nation utterly yoked to the next empire that rose after us, the USA. Now you guys are gonna be yoked to the next empire, China. Have fun with that! I'll maybe catch you on a beach in Brazil, where hopefully things will be cool. Fingers crossed.
  - rhizome 15y ago
    The movie "Gosford Park" is a well-covered instance of this state of affairs.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire. You're off by several decades and two world wars. The British Empire was in full bloom in 1911, and there was little unrest in any of its colonies, never mind at home.
DanielStraight 15y ago
So... quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Perhaps the problem isn't that there's no one to watch the watchmen, but that we're over-reliant on watchmen. You don't need the FTC to keep Facebook from sharing your private information. I'm not saying Facebook did nothing wrong, and I'm not saying the FTC is doing nothing wrong now. I'm saying that none of it matters if you delete your own account. You don't need to worry about who's watching the watchmen when you watch out for yourself. (Can anyone translate that to Latin?)
- keenerd 15y ago
  I don't know Latin, but I can play around with google translate! Best I got was Noli loqui et non servant custodibus or "Watch your mouth instead of the watchmen". I guess this was a very complex way of disagreeing with you that "none of it matters".
  - missing_cipher 15y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3... "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase traditionally attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–8), which is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Also sometimes rendered as "Who watches the watchmen?""
    - keenerd 15y ago
      I dare say you missed the point. Were you replying to the wrong thread?
- jellicle 15y ago
  Look, here's the FTC's mandate: "Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful." The FTC exists to enforce that. Now, it's fashionable nowadays for the ill-informed to insist that government is worthless, but in fact this law and similar ones underly every aspect of American society and you owe everything to have to their existence. Without government anti-fraud efforts, commerce does not exist, full stop. Private enterprise are the applications. Government is the operating system. But let's take another look at your point: your argument is that I should right now go and delete my account a couple years ago because I know today that Facebook was lying a couple years ago. For everyone who has a time machine, that is a good remedy - it will solve the problem for those people admirably. For those that don't, we need effective government enforcement of anti-fraud laws.
mahyarm 15y ago
Throughout the entire history of the US, you can dig up these kind of antics, what makes this different from those antics that signals that this points to 'late-stage empire breakdown'?
pasbesoin 15y ago
You are omitting the chunk of "make-work" that the FTC just secured for itself. Mind you, I'm not arguing for a lack of regulation. Rather, that this is what much regulation seems to be reduced to, these days. Sadly.

deleted 15y ago

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deleted 15y ago

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mgummelt 15y ago

Care to fill in the logical leap from your second to third lines?

JonnieCache 15y ago
I think that third line was probably more of an "impotent howl into the void in futile pursuit of catharsis" kind of comment than an "attempting to advance the cause of mutual human understanding" kind of comment. In this day and age I think we can let it slide.
freehunter 15y ago
Possibly something like "Corporations can get away with anything because they run the country and there's no turning back." Just a guess.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  Facebook didn't break the law. So I'm not sure what people mean when they say "get away with anything."
  - jellicle 15y ago
    The FTC disagrees with you. But maybe you know better?
    - spindritf 15y ago
      I'm not American but isn't that court's decision to make, not FTC's or dreamdu5t's? Also, wouldn't Facebook's actions rather constitute a breach of contract with their users? Which would mean that users can sue regardless of FTC's decisions?

tokenadult 15y ago

On what legal basis would you expect a financial penalty for a free, voluntary-participation online service that did the things that the FTC found that Facebook did? What does the law on the subject give the FTC authority to do?

rhizome 15y ago
The law has long been castrated on your points. The legal basis would be, of course, that private information is property, but that one doesn't exist in this country (yet?).
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  You choose to divulge any information you consider to be private. Absent an actual formal agreement contingent upon giving that information (which an internal policy is most definitely not), I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me. Unless you're going to argue that you own anything you happen to know, even after other people know it? Unless you're going to argue that a posted policy on a free website constitutes a binding agreement?
  - rhizome 15y ago
    I have no obligation to restrict who I share the information you chose to share with me. If that was true in all cases, the story we're commenting on wouldn't exist.
    - dreamdu5t 15y ago
      How is that? Please explain how I am obligated to restrict information people freely share with me?
      - rhizome 15y ago
        In your example, in this context, there would be no privacy violation possible.

dreamdu5t 15y ago

Privacy policies are not binding agreements or contracts. Facebook didn't lie. They simply don't have to follow their privacy policy exactly, since it's not a binding agreement.

Bud 15y ago
No. They lied. The fact that there was, according to you, no binding contract, has no bearing on the question of whether they lied or not. They did lie. Case closed.
- dreamdu5t 15y ago
  Even if you accept it was a lie, it's not fraud. Facebook "lies" like Subway "lies" about losing weight by eating there. You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future.
  - Silhouette 15y ago
    > You're omitting the fact that Facebook has always stated they may change what they do with your information in the future. Fortunately, the law in many countries does not permit such one-sided terms.
  - Bud 15y ago
    You're dodging the question of whether it is a lie, which is unsurprising. I say again: Facebook lied. You didn't mention fraud, and I made no comment on fraud. I said they lied. They did. As for the clumsy smokescreen analogy about Subway, allow me to point out the obvious: Facebook made promises to users about how FACEBOOK would handle the personal property of said users. These are concrete, easily-definable promises...the kind which are easy to analyze to see if the promise was kept. It wasn't kept. Furthermore, as the FTC documented in plain English, there was a pattern of behavior, over and over again, that shows any reasonable person that not only did Facebook lie, they lied with prior intent. They never had any intention of keeping those promises and they broke them in the most egregious ways possible. By contrast, when Subway implies that customers can lose weight by eating certain foods there, they are, obviously, making no promises about how Subway will behave in the future, except an implied promise to be honest about how many calories are in their food (required by law), and to provide some lo-cal options (which they do). Really bad analogy, in every way.

daenz 15y ago

> The only thing keeping the society from total breakdown is inertia. I know, society is breaking down, kids are getting more disrespectful, things are more expensive, the end of the world is upon us, etc :) You taking your lifetime to come to a realization about the state of the world does not make the realization less true before you had it. It's a memory glitch. Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit.

JonnieCache 15y ago
>Jump back 100 years, it's the same shit. Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire. And look what we became, a pointless, miserable lame-duck nation utterly yoked to the next empire that rose after us, the USA. Now you guys are gonna be yoked to the next empire, China. Have fun with that! I'll maybe catch you on a beach in Brazil, where hopefully things will be cool. Fingers crossed.
- rhizome 15y ago
  The movie "Gosford Park" is a well-covered instance of this state of affairs.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  Yep. Jump back 100 years, and you're in the breakdown of the British empire. You're off by several decades and two world wars. The British Empire was in full bloom in 1911, and there was little unrest in any of its colonies, never mind at home.

DanielStraight 15y ago

So... quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Perhaps the problem isn't that there's no one to watch the watchmen, but that we're over-reliant on watchmen. You don't need the FTC to keep Facebook from sharing your private information. I'm not saying Facebook did nothing wrong, and I'm not saying the FTC is doing nothing wrong now. I'm saying that none of it matters if you delete your own account. You don't need to worry about who's watching the watchmen when you watch out for yourself. (Can anyone translate that to Latin?)

keenerd 15y ago
I don't know Latin, but I can play around with google translate! Best I got was Noli loqui et non servant custodibus or "Watch your mouth instead of the watchmen". I guess this was a very complex way of disagreeing with you that "none of it matters".
- missing_cipher 15y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3... "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? is a Latin phrase traditionally attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal from his Satires (Satire VI, lines 347–8), which is literally translated as "Who will guard the guards themselves?" Also sometimes rendered as "Who watches the watchmen?""
  - keenerd 15y ago
    I dare say you missed the point. Were you replying to the wrong thread?
jellicle 15y ago
Look, here's the FTC's mandate: "Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful." The FTC exists to enforce that. Now, it's fashionable nowadays for the ill-informed to insist that government is worthless, but in fact this law and similar ones underly every aspect of American society and you owe everything to have to their existence. Without government anti-fraud efforts, commerce does not exist, full stop. Private enterprise are the applications. Government is the operating system. But let's take another look at your point: your argument is that I should right now go and delete my account a couple years ago because I know today that Facebook was lying a couple years ago. For everyone who has a time machine, that is a good remedy - it will solve the problem for those people admirably. For those that don't, we need effective government enforcement of anti-fraud laws.

mahyarm 15y ago

Throughout the entire history of the US, you can dig up these kind of antics, what makes this different from those antics that signals that this points to 'late-stage empire breakdown'?

pasbesoin 15y ago

You are omitting the chunk of "make-work" that the FTC just secured for itself. Mind you, I'm not arguing for a lack of regulation. Rather, that this is what much regulation seems to be reduced to, these days. Sadly.