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It may be true, but why a judge or jury would accept it as justification is beyond me. "My business model requires me to break the law." is a condemnation of t

It may be true, but why a judge or jury would accept it as justification is beyond me. "My business model requires me to break the law." is a condemnation of the business model, not a justification.

Nextgrid 4y ago
The problem is that the legal system is flawed in such a way that the wronged parties rarely have the time & resources needed to actually put the issue in front of a judge. If it actually does get in front of a judge (in reality it would get settled out of court if it actually gets anywhere close) I would indeed expect their argument to fall apart. This is something that ideally the government (its consumer protection branches like the FTC) should be policing proactively, filing suits preemptively against systems that are trivially exploitable.
- ISL 4y ago
  Agreed -- there's also little recourse for many forms of online fraud, as there's no capacity for law-enforcement to investigate at scale.
- MereInterest 4y ago
  Definitely agreed. I think it also stems from laws that define explicit and measurable harm as the only types of harm. For false advertising and fraud, it usually requires proving that they was financial harm done as the result of the false statements. Because creating an environment in which fraud is cheap and easy doesn't count as "harm". Because false advertising doesn't count as "harm" in itself, even as imposes the burden of scrutinizing all claims from previously trustworthy sources.
Aerroon 4y ago
Because if you tried to actually police this then everything in life would grind to a halt. It would be like expecting the government to deal with every single crime. It's particularly problematic when a business is providing a platform for other entities to post a message. We don't hold the post office liable for transferring copyrighted/trademarked content, do we?
- yakubin 4y ago
  This case is more akin to a TV network, since the ad is publicly broadcasted based on what people are watching/reading. It’s not private correspondence.

It may be true, but why a judge or jury would accept it as justification is beyond me. "My business model requires me to break the law." is a condemnation of the business model, not a justification.

Nextgrid 4y ago

The problem is that the legal system is flawed in such a way that the wronged parties rarely have the time & resources needed to actually put the issue in front of a judge. If it actually does get in front of a judge (in reality it would get settled out of court if it actually gets anywhere close) I would indeed expect their argument to fall apart. This is something that ideally the government (its consumer protection branches like the FTC) should be policing proactively, filing suits preemptively against systems that are trivially exploitable.

ISL 4y ago
Agreed -- there's also little recourse for many forms of online fraud, as there's no capacity for law-enforcement to investigate at scale.
MereInterest 4y ago
Definitely agreed. I think it also stems from laws that define explicit and measurable harm as the only types of harm. For false advertising and fraud, it usually requires proving that they was financial harm done as the result of the false statements. Because creating an environment in which fraud is cheap and easy doesn't count as "harm". Because false advertising doesn't count as "harm" in itself, even as imposes the burden of scrutinizing all claims from previously trustworthy sources.

Aerroon 4y ago

Because if you tried to actually police this then everything in life would grind to a halt. It would be like expecting the government to deal with every single crime. It's particularly problematic when a business is providing a platform for other entities to post a message. We don't hold the post office liable for transferring copyrighted/trademarked content, do we?

yakubin 4y ago
This case is more akin to a TV network, since the ad is publicly broadcasted based on what people are watching/reading. It’s not private correspondence.