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I hate how despite all the rhetoric on HN surrounding how much better ethics companies in the EU must have to comply with regulation, as soon as that regulation

I hate how despite all the rhetoric on HN surrounding how much better ethics companies in the EU must have to comply with regulation, as soon as that regulation slips, they turn out to be equally scummy as the rest of the world.

jhbadger 1y ago
Companies anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that have negative consequences to others (squatting on domain names, polluting the environment, etc.) the only way to do it is to have laws against the behaviors and enforce them (ideally with fines that exceed the financial gain the companies get from the behavior so they don't just see the fines as a cost of doing business).
- gloosx 1y ago
  Lawmakers and enforcers anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that harm the public (passing corrupt laws, selectively enforcing rules, ignoring corporate crimes, etc.), the only way to stop it is to have strict accountability systems and enforce them; but wait, they are the accountability system and the enforcers. Uh-oh.
- skrebbel 1y ago
  > Companies anywhere have no ethics This is bullshit, plenty companies have plenty of ethics. I don't disagree that laws are important, but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. To behave as scummy as Lieferando has been doing here is a choice and plenty similarly successful companies have not done things this bad. People make up a company and when these people behave badly, we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!"
  - Draiken 1y ago
    How is it bullshit? > but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. That's literally what happens today everywhere. Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. But what I think GP means is that companies don't inherently have any ethics since they are not people. If a company behaves ethically it's because its owners and employees are doing so, but the company can't have any ethics of its own. Regular people doing their day to day jobs on these criminal health insurance companies, for example, will perform acts that are extremely unethical as an individual, but since they're representing "the company" all that goes out of the window. > we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!" We can call them out but we, the people, can't enforce anything. Maybe we could collectively try to sue them, but at best that's a civil lawsuit and they'll have to pay a bit of money (likely an already accounted cost for businesses that use shady tactics). But to make that criminal, as many times it should, then only the government is empowered to. But we should never forget that we are the ones that keep the government accountable. If they don't do their job and we let them, it's all of our faults. I mean, one of the reasons companies exist in the first place is to allow individuals to behave unethically IMO. Anyone can do bat shit crazy things that they would never get away with when they're behind the protection of a company.
    - skrebbel 1y ago
      > Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. As the co-owner of a small company I'm more than a little offended. We're not evil at all, we try our best to do right by our customers, our people, and our community. The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). Companies are groups of people. Yes we need laws to restrain badly behaving companies but that does not mean people running badly behaving companies get a pass until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together.
      - Draiken 1y ago
        I'm happy that there are exceptions, but the fact is that most companies will throw ethics out of the window the second it hits profits. It's easy to be ethical when it's for free. > The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). I never said that. What I said is merely what we see in today's capitalism: barring a few exceptions, companies are almost never held responsible. Probably one of the most egregious examples of this is the health care industry in the US but we often forget how banks ruined millions of people's lives in 2008 and almost nobody from the big banks went to jail. We bailed those criminals out and they felt zero consequences. They got a pass. I agree with you that nobody should get a pass, but I'd be naive if I said they don't. > until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together. How else are we going to do anything? Aside from taking justice into our own hands like Luigi Mangione, the best we can do is try to sue them and spend huge amounts of money to maybe get them to pay a small fine. Or perhaps employees inside of these companies can be whistleblowers and blow up their own lives trying to get some sort of justice. I hate that this is the reality we live in but we can't pretend it's not.
        skrebbel 1y ago
        I'd wager the the majority of small and medium business in my hometown act ethically. You pick out the worst behaving faceless bigcorps and generalize that to every company out there. But the vast majority of the world's economy is small local companies. By and large, these companies aren't evil. Also some larger companies try their best (eg eco-banks, brands like Patagonia, etc). I'm not saying they always succeed but to blanket call all of these "evil" as you keep on doing is ridiculous.
sam-cop-vimes 1y ago
Wherever there are human beings, a subset of them behave unethically. The EU is a more regulated place, but stuff like this happens all the time. It is a continuous process of improvement. The status quo is never going to be ideal - it should be the trajectory of change that we always have to be mindful of.
- klez 1y ago
  > It is a continuous process of improvement Or, to be less charitable, a cat-and-mouse game.
the_gipsy 1y ago
I hate your rhetoric, it's defeatist AND builds on a strawman. Nobody implied that companies would get "better ethics" from regulation.
- mariusor 1y ago
  I guess I should have said "need to have" better ethics in order to comply with legislature. :)
jeroenhd 1y ago
If there were regulation, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is no regulation against typosquatting, Google is free to trust whoever they wish for compiling their database of trusted addresses, and DENIC has no policies preventing someone from doing this with .de names. The best restaurant owners can do is file a trademark lawsuit, maybe call the cops on Lieferando for fraud, and hope for the legal system to decide in their favour. Also, nobody is saying companies are more ethical in the EU. In many cases the existing legislation forces unethical companies to comply with ethical regulations, but they don't do it because they're nicer than companies outside of the EU.

jhbadger 1y ago

Companies anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that have negative consequences to others (squatting on domain names, polluting the environment, etc.) the only way to do it is to have laws against the behaviors and enforce them (ideally with fines that exceed the financial gain the companies get from the behavior so they don't just see the fines as a cost of doing business).

gloosx 1y ago
Lawmakers and enforcers anywhere have no ethics. If you want them not to do things that harm the public (passing corrupt laws, selectively enforcing rules, ignoring corporate crimes, etc.), the only way to stop it is to have strict accountability systems and enforce them; but wait, they are the accountability system and the enforcers. Uh-oh.
skrebbel 1y ago
> Companies anywhere have no ethics This is bullshit, plenty companies have plenty of ethics. I don't disagree that laws are important, but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. To behave as scummy as Lieferando has been doing here is a choice and plenty similarly successful companies have not done things this bad. People make up a company and when these people behave badly, we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!"
- Draiken 1y ago
  How is it bullshit? > but to claim that companies can't behave ethically removes responsibility from the people who are, primarily, responsible. That's literally what happens today everywhere. Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. But what I think GP means is that companies don't inherently have any ethics since they are not people. If a company behaves ethically it's because its owners and employees are doing so, but the company can't have any ethics of its own. Regular people doing their day to day jobs on these criminal health insurance companies, for example, will perform acts that are extremely unethical as an individual, but since they're representing "the company" all that goes out of the window. > we should call them out and not only say "it's the government's fault for not making/enforcing laws about this!" We can call them out but we, the people, can't enforce anything. Maybe we could collectively try to sue them, but at best that's a civil lawsuit and they'll have to pay a bit of money (likely an already accounted cost for businesses that use shady tactics). But to make that criminal, as many times it should, then only the government is empowered to. But we should never forget that we are the ones that keep the government accountable. If they don't do their job and we let them, it's all of our faults. I mean, one of the reasons companies exist in the first place is to allow individuals to behave unethically IMO. Anyone can do bat shit crazy things that they would never get away with when they're behind the protection of a company.
  - skrebbel 1y ago
    > Companies are downright evil everywhere and nobody's held responsible. As the co-owner of a small company I'm more than a little offended. We're not evil at all, we try our best to do right by our customers, our people, and our community. The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). Companies are groups of people. Yes we need laws to restrain badly behaving companies but that does not mean people running badly behaving companies get a pass until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together.
    - Draiken 1y ago
      I'm happy that there are exceptions, but the fact is that most companies will throw ethics out of the window the second it hits profits. It's easy to be ethical when it's for free. > The idea that no company can ever be held responsible for anything is a weird ultracapitalist pipe dream (and consequently a marxist straw man). I never said that. What I said is merely what we see in today's capitalism: barring a few exceptions, companies are almost never held responsible. Probably one of the most egregious examples of this is the health care industry in the US but we often forget how banks ruined millions of people's lives in 2008 and almost nobody from the big banks went to jail. We bailed those criminals out and they felt zero consequences. They got a pass. I agree with you that nobody should get a pass, but I'd be naive if I said they don't. > until an inevitably slow and imperfect government gets their shit together. How else are we going to do anything? Aside from taking justice into our own hands like Luigi Mangione, the best we can do is try to sue them and spend huge amounts of money to maybe get them to pay a small fine. Or perhaps employees inside of these companies can be whistleblowers and blow up their own lives trying to get some sort of justice. I hate that this is the reality we live in but we can't pretend it's not.
      - skrebbel 1y ago
        I'd wager the the majority of small and medium business in my hometown act ethically. You pick out the worst behaving faceless bigcorps and generalize that to every company out there. But the vast majority of the world's economy is small local companies. By and large, these companies aren't evil. Also some larger companies try their best (eg eco-banks, brands like Patagonia, etc). I'm not saying they always succeed but to blanket call all of these "evil" as you keep on doing is ridiculous.

sam-cop-vimes 1y ago

Wherever there are human beings, a subset of them behave unethically. The EU is a more regulated place, but stuff like this happens all the time. It is a continuous process of improvement. The status quo is never going to be ideal - it should be the trajectory of change that we always have to be mindful of.

klez 1y ago
> It is a continuous process of improvement Or, to be less charitable, a cat-and-mouse game.

the_gipsy 1y ago

I hate your rhetoric, it's defeatist AND builds on a strawman. Nobody implied that companies would get "better ethics" from regulation.

mariusor 1y ago
I guess I should have said "need to have" better ethics in order to comply with legislature. :)

jeroenhd 1y ago

If there were regulation, this wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, there is no regulation against typosquatting, Google is free to trust whoever they wish for compiling their database of trusted addresses, and DENIC has no policies preventing someone from doing this with .de names. The best restaurant owners can do is file a trademark lawsuit, maybe call the cops on Lieferando for fraud, and hope for the legal system to decide in their favour. Also, nobody is saying companies are more ethical in the EU. In many cases the existing legislation forces unethical companies to comply with ethical regulations, but they don't do it because they're nicer than companies outside of the EU.