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"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of
by ummonk 3y ago
"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent."
$615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
- jasonm23 3y agoTheir "suspected" employers just inhaled that amount of money before I finished this comment.
- asdadsdad 3y agoI kinda refuse to believe the US gov doesn't undertake astroturfing for its own needs
- heavyset_go 3y agoIf an individual committed fraud by impersonating millions of people, they'd be in prison.
- EGreg 3y agoIt seems the thing to do, before you dump toxic chemicals into the water or whatever, is to open a corporation. "Mistakes were made", after all. This is only trumped by by sovereign immunity, for starting wars or oil spills or releasing viruses or whatever. "Bush is gone, let's move on - why are you still on that?" State Power is great isn't it?
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoLet's put some shareholders in prison.
- jonathankoren 3y agoJust the executives
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoIf my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies--otherwise there's no incentive to avoid funding shady behavior. Stock ownership is rewarding because it's risky. Let it be risky.
- pooper 3y agoI will not silently go to prison because my 401k worth under USD 20k owns 0.0015 shares as a part of some mutual fund. The CEO and the board do not do my bidding. Send them to prison.
- labster 3y agoTechnically you own shares of a mutual fund, and the mutual fund owns the stock. Unless the mutual fund only owns its shares via ownership share in a bank, which owns a derivative which owns the 0.0015 shares. Which is generally why responsibility stops with the board of directors, because there’s no way there was criminal intent through four layers of indirection. (Except shell companies, of course.)
- 8note 3y agoIntent sure, but negligence?
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoPractically speaking, I'd expect the courts to round up the top 10 shareholders or something like that. In principle though, I think partial ownership of a harmful company should expose you to some liability, whether or not the CEO listens to you.
- anovikov 3y agoNot really. Vast majority of the crypto money made in 2021-2022 was by swarming ICOs and launchpads with sometimes hundreds of thousands (among people i personally know) and probably millions among those i don't, fake accounts - all having real names, addresses, IPs, passport scans etc. - getting in onto highly deficit launches when like 1 in a 100 trying gets in, and then the coin goes 10x because of immense demand. You do it with 100K accs, 1000 get in and buy coin for $500 each, you get $4m profit spending $500K for buy-ins and another $500K for accounts themselves ($5 apiece). Until even that stopped working because apparently, these fraudsters simply ran out of people worldwide. Some rather ordinary people made north of $100M this way, and i'm sure there are those i don't know (i'm not really in crypto at all, just like hanging out with smart guys) tho made billions. No one went to jail as far as i heard.
- csomar 3y agoMany went to jail and some celebrities got fines. I'm pretty sure some went under the radar but the prosecution is still working on the years 2016-2019. If you are in the US and you've been involved in such sh*t, you are in really bad position.
- anovikov 3y agoPeople who defrauded "investors" by advertising shitcoins - sure! But that was a purely anonymous, scripted activity.
- mysterydip 3y ago"but it says right here in article 5 paragraph 20 section b of the EULA you agreed to that we may use your personally identifiable information to improve our service."
- whitemary 3y ago[flagged]
- clnq 3y ago[flagged]
- savant_penguin 3y ago[flagged]
- maxbond 3y agoAuthoritarianism will reliably produce such outcomes regardless of the economic system or ideology at play, and violent revolution/vanguardism will reliably produce authoritarianism. Vanguardism and violent revolution are a failure, that doesn't make capitalism the only alternative. Indeed, that's entirely orthogonal. Plenty of capitalist states have committed similar atrocities. An obvious example being the early United States - the transatlantic slave trade and the various death marches inflicted on Native Americans are every bit as horrifying as the crimes of the USSR, and were committed explicitly to obtain labor and real estate (notice these are both forms of capital) for our burgeoning capitalist economic system. Yet the people who claim the USSR proves communism is necessarily violent don't seem to take this as evidence that democracy or capitalism are similarly irredeemable.
- KyeRussell 3y ago[flagged]
- clnq 3y agoYou are describing totalitarian authoritarianism, not communism. This is why I felt that the distinction between communism and the failed USSR experiment was necessary. Sadly, whenever many people from the US hear the word communism, they immediately assume it means the Soviet Union. Communism was one of many aspects of USSR, many of which were much less desirable by its people.
- wly_cdgr 3y agoSlap on the wrist? Lol. $61.5m would be a slap on the wrist. $615k is a tip.
- Waterluvian 3y ago$615k is a stern look by a grandma whose eyes cannot help but betray just how much she loves you.
- rozal 3y agoHaha
- slushh 3y agoIt works, because you love her. An almost absurd question, but would it be possible to add love to company interactions?
- dotancohen 3y agoUnless you're Subaru, then no. For every other company, there is public opinion and public goodwill.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI don’t believe so for my definition of “love” because it includes wanting to do kind things for someone without needing anything at all in return. A company might emulate love, but it’s really just veiled manipulation.
- foo-bar-bat 3y agoStart with the idea "somebody" is making $1T/yr because of the status quo. Qui bono? Then factor time: 1000000000000÷12÷30÷24÷60÷60 Somebody is making $32k profit per second. Who? That's about 5% margin/tax on $615k, so yeah, it's happening per second.
- hayst4ck 3y agoIn the game of prisoners dilemma, they defected and won. This means their strategy of corruption is a winning strategy. It means our law has failed and we can expect more people to practice a strategy of corruption and flouting the law rather than a strategy of adherence to the law or ethical principles.
- fnimick 3y agoBreaking the rules and cheating has been a celebrated strategy here and in the startup community. Remember that Uber and AirBnB were blatantly illegal when they launched and made millions. Remember how YC was encouraging people who advertised how to lie to skip covid vaccine wait lines as a "social hack"?
- boomerango 3y agoPuts on conspiracy hat What if killing net neutrality was a given, but the administration wanted the appearance of due process… God, I’ve grown jaded.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ZoomerCretin 3y agoWhat if? That's almost certainly what happened.
- ajross 3y agoAre you really positing that the NY State AG was colluding across four years of time with the Trump administration's FCC? That's getting a big beyond "jaded" and into tinfoil territory, to be honest. No, there's no collusion here. These are just state laws that are insufficient to compel the behavior we want. She got what she could and called it a victory. But a very progressive AG is clearly not in the pocket of the internet content industry.
- explorer83 3y agoI mean, the rhetoric for net neutrality was pretty extreme. According to the rhetoric of the time, we would be living in a world of internet "fast lanes" right now if net neutrality didn't pass. Only services affiliated with the big greedy telcos were going to be given a pass while all the other services on the web were going to require additional fees to get adequate bandwidth to/from. That was a major fear mongering argument that hasn't come to pass. All the major tech sites were publishing the same rhetoric.
- latchkey 3y agoI just watched the Nike/Air Jordan movie... kind of reminds me of the part where they just pay the $5k fine and have him wear the red shoes.
- cavisne 3y agoInterestingly the actual judgement is significantly higher (still single digit millions). I dont really know what a "Statement of Financial Condition" is but I assume it means they are taking basically all the money these companies + their directors have. These are not big operations, they were charging 7c a "lead", so each company made ~100k, and the CEO was running the script to send fake data himself.
- ummonk 3y agoYeah I mean without looking into specifics of what criminal laws would or wouldn’t be applicable, that definitely seems like something the CEO should do a bit of prison time for.
- rapsacnz 3y ago$615k... feck. More like a gentle caress.
- dclowd9901 3y agoRight. They need to reopen commentary and unrepeal net neutrality. How is it that we have a system that rewards endless appeals in the judiciary but the equivalent of a mistrial in public policy is treated with a barely-there fine?
- dragonwriter 3y ago> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did. It is. But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. [0] [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
- hulitu 3y ago> But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda. Propaganda (a.k.a , advertising/marketing) is broadly legal (though some specific methods and certain actors participating in certain kinds are restricted), deliberately making materially false statements to the government in the course of, and in order to influence, a government proceeding is prohibited. Firmly drawing the line between those things is a good thing.
- gpvos 3y agoNot prosecuting it is a dangerous precedent. Especially now we have AI text generation, such actions should lead any company to be sued into bankruptcy, and jail time for its leaders.
- jackmott42 3y agoGood, I hope any such companies and agencies are eliminated and their leaders jailed.
- LoganDark 3y ago> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did. No fine has ever been a threat to any company. The entire system is such a joke.
- footlose_3815 3y agoSuch a disheartening outcome. They perpetuated fraud at a scale we've never seen, they get away with it, they changed history, and now we have to live with it. More consequences are due.
- nurettin 3y agoIt is probably more than what they made as a "fake comment provider".
- levidos 3y agoLess than $1 / fake comment.
- thayne 3y agoAnd a small slap at that.
- hoppla 3y agoDoes this set precedence? Under $1 dollar fine for each identity impersonation is a bargain!
- hulitu 3y ago> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did. Justice was served.
- euroderf 3y agoViewed as an investment, it probably had a quite good ROI.