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Now would be a good time to have a functional FTC commissioner. Doing a bait and switch like on a product that was sold with a set of features should be illega

Now would be a good time to have a functional FTC commissioner. Doing a bait and switch like on a product that was sold with a set of features should be illegal. If I buy a car and the sales guy stops by my house the next day to take back the wheels, it would rightfully be seen as ridiculous.

amelius 2y ago
I'd be surprised if FTC had any teeth left after DOGE was done with them.
protocolture 2y ago
[flagged]
- benrutter 2y ago
  To continue the metaphor, shouldn't someone close down or regulate "wheel stealing jimmies wheel theft funded auto retailer" so that they don't keep stealing people's wheels?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Waterluvian 2y ago
  “Reputation” as a free market remedy is such a poor solution, though, as it lags behind the events that change it. A badly tuned PID loop is better than nothing, I guess.
  - Paul-Craft 2y ago
    Pardon my French, but fuck "free market" remedies. The actual "free market remedy" here should theoretically be a lawsuit. But, you and I both know that Amazon's TOS are locked down pretty hard to pre-empt this sort of thing. Even if they weren't, it would take either an individual with deep pockets to pursue such a suit, or it would have to be a class action. Except that neither of those would be likely to succeed, because there's no law that says once a company offers a feature or feature toggle that they have to continue to offer it for the life of the product. And, if there were, that, by definition, wouldn't be a "free market" solution. The solution here is regulation. Edit: I forgot to mention that a lawsuit would take years to resolve. Meanwhile, Amazon would continue to benefit from their unfair tactics.
  - protocolture 2y ago
    This is actually part of our (Australia's) Australian consumer protection laws, which are considered pretty beastly. Its simply a test of reasonableness. If you had another source of information about a likely fault and you purchased anyway, it can reduce your protection. If you have a reasonable expectation that a brand is really good and often lasts 7 plus years it can also go the other way. Netting you government guaranteed replacements by manufacturers far longer than their competitors.
- observationist 2y ago
  They aren't wheel stealing jimmies, but they're definitely data railing bit bangers itching for their next fix. I think choosing to do business with Amazon comes with the same sort of reasonable assumptions. Lie down with dogs, and all that. Y'all got some more of that data...?
- therealpygon 2y ago
  Some people will say just about anything to blame the consumer. You know, like “it’s your own fault for buying a thing from a company.”
  - isoprophlex 2y ago
    Yes! You knew this was coming, why didn't you buy something from any other huge monopolistic tech-cloud-everything-store?! Oh wait...
    - protocolture 2y ago
      Why didnt you just buy an ESP32 or Arduino option. Or like, not purchase the in house recording device. YMMV.
- simion314 2y ago
  >Yes but reputation is a factor. If you bought that car from wheel stealing jimmies wheel theft funded auto retailer you might need to shoulder some of the blame. You think the same for food and medicine? remove the "evil" regulations and let the reputation be a factor and every individual should do their research ?
  - protocolture 2y ago
    This is actually part of our (Australia's) Australian consumer protection laws, which are considered pretty beastly. Its simply a test of reasonableness. If you had another source of information about a likely fault and you purchased anyway, it can reduce your protection. If you have a reasonable expectation that a brand is really good and often lasts 7 plus years it can also go the other way. Netting you government guaranteed replacements by manufacturers far longer than their competitors. I wasn't applying any free market assumptions here, but the (very popular) regulatory framework I already live under.
- imoreno 2y ago
  It doesn't sound like a good idea to blame the victim more if the offender is a repeat offender. If anything repeat offenders should be treated harsher.
imoreno 2y ago
Don't these usually come with ToS or something that has you agreeing that they can change the service any time?
- yaur 2y ago
  When you buy a car there is a lot of required paperwork that they don't really give you time to read, so maybe.
  - briandear 2y ago
    That’s generally loan paperwork. And you can take all the time you want to read.
  - mort96 2y ago
    They're not gonna refuse to sell you the car if you take the time to read the paperwork. And it's probably a large enough amount of money that you should take the time to at least skim it.
  - throwaway48476 2y ago
    You shouldn't sign things you don't read. Cue the centipad.
- Taek 2y ago
  ToS have limits, people in a practical sense aren't really able to read and understand the ToS of every product they buy, which means a ToS can only go so far in the ways it allows companies to be predatory against consumers.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
    Has that been tested in court? I would have thought a user wilfully or negligently misreading a ToS would not be a good legal defence (not that I agree with how I think the law would play out)
    - 2y ago
evrimoztamur 2y ago
America's lack of customer protection will hurt continue hurting its people. Ladies and gentlemen, please do something about it.
- labster 2y ago
  I’m afraid the only thing we can do at this point is gun for an economic depression, ride out three years of that just like with Hoover (1929–33), and upgrade to New Deal 2.0 beta. There’s no amount of protests that can convince the median Trump voter that anything is wrong in America unless it affects him personally. And no amount of protest will convince Trump that he has made a single mistake in his entire life.
  - xmprt 2y ago
    I should have a bit more faith but at this point I feel like the median voter might see their world getting worse but still be convinced somehow that Democrats are behind it because Republicans have their messaging on point and Democrats are doing the equivalent of a silent protest.
    - zonkerdonker 2y ago
      Turns out, propoganda really does work. Just takes a few billionaires, a few hostile nations states, and some exploitable algorithms
      - alabastervlog 2y ago
        And a multi-decade effort to shift courts toward a certain flavor of right wing perspective, so you can get a ruling like Citizens United, among others.
      - amelius 2y ago
        We need to have a close look at free speech, especially now that techniques from psychological warfare are being used, not only in political propaganda but even in advertisements.
z3t4 2y ago
It was not yours to begin with. Think of it as a service. Just give it back and go to a competitor. Ohh wait, there are no competitors! Monopolies suck! Especially if they are world-wide.
- firtoz 2y ago
  There are competitors, even open source ones
  - beezlewax 2y ago
    These are not viable options for the vast majority of users. Most peppe don't have a clue how to set up open source options, let alone set them up with usable hardware. The average consumer wants out of the box solutions that don't require a degree in Computer Science to use.
    - zettabomb 2y ago
      Home Assistant is getting far easier to set up than you might expect, especially because they now do in fact have out of the box devices. It's not quite as ridiculously simple, not quite yet, but they're rapidly improving and it won't be long until they're better than Amazon Alexa/Google Home/other commercial solutions.
      - serial_dev 2y ago
        What are these "out of the box devices"? I looked into things a couple of years ago, and back then it was all too much effort to set things up and keep things running and integrated, so I just went with Smart Life stuff from AliExpress. But would love to have Home Assistant if it means I don't need to spend weekends just reading docs, pairing, setting things up, connecting stuff...
        zimpenfish 2y ago
        I've got HA set up (nearly 2 years now with a whole host of things connected: Bluetooth, WIFI, iOS devices, Zigbee, etc.) and I think I'm only just getting to the point now of two weekends worth of reading docs (primarily because their documentation seems to be written by developers rather than technical writers). Most time I've spent tinkering with HA was modifying their embedded `mastodon.py` to make it work with GotoSocial (but I think someone upstreamed a fix for that and it's no longer required.)
atoav 2y ago
Yeah but the ridiculously anti-consumer US has opted to elect politicians with so much billionaire miney, they'd rather get their moneys worth. Who needs anti-coruption laws with a society like that? And who expects not to get fucked by coorporations when they have lost every incentive not to? And the free market isn't the incentive you think it is when your're the monipolists that can crush or buy out the competition.
jonathanstrange 2y ago
IANAL but I thought bait and switch is illegal? It definitely is in the EU. Is it not in the US?
- DFHippie 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - kevincox 2y ago
    It effectively died a long time before that.
    - DFHippie 2y ago
      I have no idea what you mean. The executive branch didn't routinely ignore court orders and disregard the constraints set out in the Constitution before that date. The government broke laws, but it was a scandal when it did and people -- the perpetrators, not random civil servants doing the jobs they were hired to do -- got fired for it and sometimes jailed. Now it's just another day that ends in y. In theory Biden could have taken the SCOTUS grant of immunity to disregard the Constitution as Musk and Trump are doing, but he didn't. Trump's taking power was a step change. We still have laws, but the executive branch under Musk/Trump regards them as mere words on a page. They bind others, not them.
- amelius 2y ago
  It is illegal, but suing is too costly.
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
And yet this is what Tesla did. They sold a car and added a surcharge for full self-driving as a future option, or they added it as an upgrade option. But they never delivered. That's like buying a car with the promise of wheels but the wheels are never delivered (except you actually need the wheels etc). I'm amazed there haven't been major class-action lawsuits raised against Tesla yet, both from consumers for not delivering what is promised (full self-driving), and from shareholders for not delivering what was announced years ago (semi, new roadster). And from shareholders for artificially inflating the stock value of Tesla to use as leverage to buy Tesla and / or fund SpaceX.
- szundi 2y ago
  That’s different, delivering later (for example probably never) is not the same. This is about removing a privacy feature.
- rusk 2y ago
  Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Tesla floating on a cushion of private Saudi wealth?
  - johnhaltonx21 2y ago
    that's rivian ...
    - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
      I thought that was Lucid Motors. Source e.g. https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64-3-of-lucid-motors-sec-filing-reveals/ https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64...
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    Funding confirmed.
TZubiri 2y ago
Chill man. Just send back the product and ask for a refund.
- disattention 2y ago
  This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. It's ok for people to feel things, and it's ok for people to want laws addressing anti-consumer behavior.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. None of these comments are fixing issues or trying to make a difference. Sending the product back is a really good idea, especially if this change in terms means you can get a refund even if you've had it a long time.
    - flawn 2y ago
      Still not an argument against people being allowed to be mad regarding this. You just can't give a fuck about data privacy and expect people to not oppose this and speak up.
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        > being allowed to be mad No one can stop you being mad. No one's saying it's not allowed. It's possible someone is still young enough to misinterpret adult interactions as parental fiat, but it's not the case.
    - unethical_ban 2y ago
      "We should have a framework that prohibits companies from selling a product with a certain agreement, then changing the agreement unilaterally" That isn't trying to make a difference? Excuse me? Read that back.
_heimdall 2y ago
The car is no longer usable without the wheels, I believe the argument for Alexa would be that the core functionality is still usable without the privacy setting. I don't see why we would need the FTC to fix this. If someone bought Alexa from Amazon and honestly expected it to be privacy focused, they just made a mistake and can learn from it. Problems don't always have to be solved by running to the biggest authority that can be found and demanding they solve it for you.
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  "Do not send voice recordings" back to Amazon HQ =/= "privacy focused." It's arguably a necessary feature for minimal privacy in one's home, and I expect that a lot of people bought those devices with that in mind. If the FTC doesn't fix this kind of spontaneous downgrade, I'm not sure what they're for at all. If somebody falls for a criminal's fraud, I suppose "they just made a mistake and can learn from it"? No need for anybody else, or any authority, to do anything?
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Jumping to criminal fraud feels a bit hasty in this context. It'd be important to know whether Amazon ever marketed this feature specifically, promised privacy, defined what that privacy they promised meant, and whether there's any legal argument to be made that this setting should be considered core to the basic functionality of Alexa. IMO no one should have ever expected Alexa, or products like it, to be private. The meet fact that it has a microphone, and potentially a camera, and promises to respond simply by you saying something to it means they're always listening. I don't really care what they say they'll do with the recordings, I care what they can do with the recordings without me ever knowing about it.

amelius 2y ago

I'd be surprised if FTC had any teeth left after DOGE was done with them.

protocolture 2y ago

[flagged]

benrutter 2y ago
To continue the metaphor, shouldn't someone close down or regulate "wheel stealing jimmies wheel theft funded auto retailer" so that they don't keep stealing people's wheels?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Waterluvian 2y ago
“Reputation” as a free market remedy is such a poor solution, though, as it lags behind the events that change it. A badly tuned PID loop is better than nothing, I guess.
- Paul-Craft 2y ago
  Pardon my French, but fuck "free market" remedies. The actual "free market remedy" here should theoretically be a lawsuit. But, you and I both know that Amazon's TOS are locked down pretty hard to pre-empt this sort of thing. Even if they weren't, it would take either an individual with deep pockets to pursue such a suit, or it would have to be a class action. Except that neither of those would be likely to succeed, because there's no law that says once a company offers a feature or feature toggle that they have to continue to offer it for the life of the product. And, if there were, that, by definition, wouldn't be a "free market" solution. The solution here is regulation. Edit: I forgot to mention that a lawsuit would take years to resolve. Meanwhile, Amazon would continue to benefit from their unfair tactics.
- protocolture 2y ago
  This is actually part of our (Australia's) Australian consumer protection laws, which are considered pretty beastly. Its simply a test of reasonableness. If you had another source of information about a likely fault and you purchased anyway, it can reduce your protection. If you have a reasonable expectation that a brand is really good and often lasts 7 plus years it can also go the other way. Netting you government guaranteed replacements by manufacturers far longer than their competitors.
observationist 2y ago
They aren't wheel stealing jimmies, but they're definitely data railing bit bangers itching for their next fix. I think choosing to do business with Amazon comes with the same sort of reasonable assumptions. Lie down with dogs, and all that. Y'all got some more of that data...?
therealpygon 2y ago
Some people will say just about anything to blame the consumer. You know, like “it’s your own fault for buying a thing from a company.”
- isoprophlex 2y ago
  Yes! You knew this was coming, why didn't you buy something from any other huge monopolistic tech-cloud-everything-store?! Oh wait...
  - protocolture 2y ago
    Why didnt you just buy an ESP32 or Arduino option. Or like, not purchase the in house recording device. YMMV.
simion314 2y ago
>Yes but reputation is a factor. If you bought that car from wheel stealing jimmies wheel theft funded auto retailer you might need to shoulder some of the blame. You think the same for food and medicine? remove the "evil" regulations and let the reputation be a factor and every individual should do their research ?
- protocolture 2y ago
  This is actually part of our (Australia's) Australian consumer protection laws, which are considered pretty beastly. Its simply a test of reasonableness. If you had another source of information about a likely fault and you purchased anyway, it can reduce your protection. If you have a reasonable expectation that a brand is really good and often lasts 7 plus years it can also go the other way. Netting you government guaranteed replacements by manufacturers far longer than their competitors. I wasn't applying any free market assumptions here, but the (very popular) regulatory framework I already live under.
imoreno 2y ago
It doesn't sound like a good idea to blame the victim more if the offender is a repeat offender. If anything repeat offenders should be treated harsher.

imoreno 2y ago

Don't these usually come with ToS or something that has you agreeing that they can change the service any time?

yaur 2y ago
When you buy a car there is a lot of required paperwork that they don't really give you time to read, so maybe.
- briandear 2y ago
  That’s generally loan paperwork. And you can take all the time you want to read.
- mort96 2y ago
  They're not gonna refuse to sell you the car if you take the time to read the paperwork. And it's probably a large enough amount of money that you should take the time to at least skim it.
- throwaway48476 2y ago
  You shouldn't sign things you don't read. Cue the centipad.
Taek 2y ago
ToS have limits, people in a practical sense aren't really able to read and understand the ToS of every product they buy, which means a ToS can only go so far in the ways it allows companies to be predatory against consumers.
- hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
  Has that been tested in court? I would have thought a user wilfully or negligently misreading a ToS would not be a good legal defence (not that I agree with how I think the law would play out)
  - 2y ago

evrimoztamur 2y ago

America's lack of customer protection will hurt continue hurting its people. Ladies and gentlemen, please do something about it.

labster 2y ago
I’m afraid the only thing we can do at this point is gun for an economic depression, ride out three years of that just like with Hoover (1929–33), and upgrade to New Deal 2.0 beta. There’s no amount of protests that can convince the median Trump voter that anything is wrong in America unless it affects him personally. And no amount of protest will convince Trump that he has made a single mistake in his entire life.
- xmprt 2y ago
  I should have a bit more faith but at this point I feel like the median voter might see their world getting worse but still be convinced somehow that Democrats are behind it because Republicans have their messaging on point and Democrats are doing the equivalent of a silent protest.
  - zonkerdonker 2y ago
    Turns out, propoganda really does work. Just takes a few billionaires, a few hostile nations states, and some exploitable algorithms
    - alabastervlog 2y ago
      And a multi-decade effort to shift courts toward a certain flavor of right wing perspective, so you can get a ruling like Citizens United, among others.
    - amelius 2y ago
      We need to have a close look at free speech, especially now that techniques from psychological warfare are being used, not only in political propaganda but even in advertisements.

z3t4 2y ago

It was not yours to begin with. Think of it as a service. Just give it back and go to a competitor. Ohh wait, there are no competitors! Monopolies suck! Especially if they are world-wide.

firtoz 2y ago
There are competitors, even open source ones
- beezlewax 2y ago
  These are not viable options for the vast majority of users. Most peppe don't have a clue how to set up open source options, let alone set them up with usable hardware. The average consumer wants out of the box solutions that don't require a degree in Computer Science to use.
  - zettabomb 2y ago
    Home Assistant is getting far easier to set up than you might expect, especially because they now do in fact have out of the box devices. It's not quite as ridiculously simple, not quite yet, but they're rapidly improving and it won't be long until they're better than Amazon Alexa/Google Home/other commercial solutions.
    - serial_dev 2y ago
      What are these "out of the box devices"? I looked into things a couple of years ago, and back then it was all too much effort to set things up and keep things running and integrated, so I just went with Smart Life stuff from AliExpress. But would love to have Home Assistant if it means I don't need to spend weekends just reading docs, pairing, setting things up, connecting stuff...
      - zimpenfish 2y ago
        I've got HA set up (nearly 2 years now with a whole host of things connected: Bluetooth, WIFI, iOS devices, Zigbee, etc.) and I think I'm only just getting to the point now of two weekends worth of reading docs (primarily because their documentation seems to be written by developers rather than technical writers). Most time I've spent tinkering with HA was modifying their embedded `mastodon.py` to make it work with GotoSocial (but I think someone upstreamed a fix for that and it's no longer required.)

atoav 2y ago

Yeah but the ridiculously anti-consumer US has opted to elect politicians with so much billionaire miney, they'd rather get their moneys worth. Who needs anti-coruption laws with a society like that? And who expects not to get fucked by coorporations when they have lost every incentive not to? And the free market isn't the incentive you think it is when your're the monipolists that can crush or buy out the competition.

jonathanstrange 2y ago

IANAL but I thought bait and switch is illegal? It definitely is in the EU. Is it not in the US?

DFHippie 2y ago
[flagged]
- kevincox 2y ago
  It effectively died a long time before that.
  - DFHippie 2y ago
    I have no idea what you mean. The executive branch didn't routinely ignore court orders and disregard the constraints set out in the Constitution before that date. The government broke laws, but it was a scandal when it did and people -- the perpetrators, not random civil servants doing the jobs they were hired to do -- got fired for it and sometimes jailed. Now it's just another day that ends in y. In theory Biden could have taken the SCOTUS grant of immunity to disregard the Constitution as Musk and Trump are doing, but he didn't. Trump's taking power was a step change. We still have laws, but the executive branch under Musk/Trump regards them as mere words on a page. They bind others, not them.
amelius 2y ago
It is illegal, but suing is too costly.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

And yet this is what Tesla did. They sold a car and added a surcharge for full self-driving as a future option, or they added it as an upgrade option. But they never delivered. That's like buying a car with the promise of wheels but the wheels are never delivered (except you actually need the wheels etc). I'm amazed there haven't been major class-action lawsuits raised against Tesla yet, both from consumers for not delivering what is promised (full self-driving), and from shareholders for not delivering what was announced years ago (semi, new roadster). And from shareholders for artificially inflating the stock value of Tesla to use as leverage to buy Tesla and / or fund SpaceX.

szundi 2y ago
That’s different, delivering later (for example probably never) is not the same. This is about removing a privacy feature.
rusk 2y ago
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t Tesla floating on a cushion of private Saudi wealth?
- johnhaltonx21 2y ago
  that's rivian ...
  - SideburnsOfDoom 2y ago
    I thought that was Lucid Motors. Source e.g. https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64-3-of-lucid-motors-sec-filing-reveals/ https://eletric-vehicles.com/lucid/saudi-pif-now-controls-64...
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  Funding confirmed.

TZubiri 2y ago

Chill man. Just send back the product and ask for a refund.

disattention 2y ago
This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. It's ok for people to feel things, and it's ok for people to want laws addressing anti-consumer behavior.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > This is a kind of stoic virtue signal that may make people feel more mature for agreeing, but fails to fix issues while mocking people who try to make a difference. None of these comments are fixing issues or trying to make a difference. Sending the product back is a really good idea, especially if this change in terms means you can get a refund even if you've had it a long time.
  - flawn 2y ago
    Still not an argument against people being allowed to be mad regarding this. You just can't give a fuck about data privacy and expect people to not oppose this and speak up.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      > being allowed to be mad No one can stop you being mad. No one's saying it's not allowed. It's possible someone is still young enough to misinterpret adult interactions as parental fiat, but it's not the case.
  - unethical_ban 2y ago
    "We should have a framework that prohibits companies from selling a product with a certain agreement, then changing the agreement unilaterally" That isn't trying to make a difference? Excuse me? Read that back.

_heimdall 2y ago

The car is no longer usable without the wheels, I believe the argument for Alexa would be that the core functionality is still usable without the privacy setting. I don't see why we would need the FTC to fix this. If someone bought Alexa from Amazon and honestly expected it to be privacy focused, they just made a mistake and can learn from it. Problems don't always have to be solved by running to the biggest authority that can be found and demanding they solve it for you.

A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
"Do not send voice recordings" back to Amazon HQ =/= "privacy focused." It's arguably a necessary feature for minimal privacy in one's home, and I expect that a lot of people bought those devices with that in mind. If the FTC doesn't fix this kind of spontaneous downgrade, I'm not sure what they're for at all. If somebody falls for a criminal's fraud, I suppose "they just made a mistake and can learn from it"? No need for anybody else, or any authority, to do anything?
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Jumping to criminal fraud feels a bit hasty in this context. It'd be important to know whether Amazon ever marketed this feature specifically, promised privacy, defined what that privacy they promised meant, and whether there's any legal argument to be made that this setting should be considered core to the basic functionality of Alexa. IMO no one should have ever expected Alexa, or products like it, to be private. The meet fact that it has a microphone, and potentially a camera, and promises to respond simply by you saying something to it means they're always listening. I don't really care what they say they'll do with the recordings, I care what they can do with the recordings without me ever knowing about it.