Comment by Spooky23
5 years ago
The problem with this sort of thing is that because it's interstate commerce, states usually do not have standing to regulate effectively.
The Federal government struggles to implement new regulatory authority because of political challenges. Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radical political agenda!"), biased against marginalized minority or cultural groups ("My marginalized constituency of blind, alcoholic yak herders have a religious prohibition against reading contracts"), or a unfair mandate restraint of trade ("The Chamber of Meme Commerce believes that this rule will cost 10,000,000 jobs in the meme industry and kill puppies."), etc.
This was addressed in the UCC and is pretty simple actually as each state implements laws to saw who has jurisdiction and how to handle.
It also bypasses the federal government in that the code is established by some big council and implemented in (most) states.
That’s why when I live in Missouri and buy something from a vendor in New York, they still have to accept returns, issue refunds, provide for basic warranties, etc. and if I have problems I can easily get remediation in state courts.
There’s 50+ years of where this works ok. Not perfect and lots of room for improvement. But better than the current shitshow that exists like this article describes. If we had the minimum level of legal structure, it would be so helpful.
Because of UCC, if I give away a product for free, I have to support it through its commercial life. So if I hand out knives, for free, and they explode after 20 years, I must still support it. Even if they come with a form that users have to click that says “I will not sue PrependCo if these free knives explode.”
Google’s free (and even non-free) services are causing harm to people and aren’t being supported.
> Because of UCC, if I give away a product for free, I have to support it through its commercial life. So if I hand out knives, for free, and they explode after 20 years, I must still support it. Even if they come with a form that users have to click that says “I will not sue PrependCo if these free knives explode.”
Why does the UCC covers free knives, but not paid Google services?
Because Google One, for example, is a service governed by a contract which details performance expectations.
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If it was sold to a resident in some state online currently that resident can sue in the local courts. The business is considered to operate in all states.
The alternative is all suits under ~$75k(?) don't get heard because they don't meet the requirements for federal court, which obviously can't be right.
I suspect that the major tech providers are so pervasive that the impacts of account-locking span all party lines.
> Various groups of stakeholders will declare any such regulation an infringement on free speech (ie. "The constitution gives me the right to sell fake penis pills to fund my radical political agenda!")
This is just an awful example. There is not a free speech right to pay for your own speech by committing crimes, and nobody claims or would claim that there is. Similarly, you don't see the argument made that vendors enjoy the constitutional right to sell fake pills. What spammers want to do, and what anti-spammers want to stop them from doing, is to advertise real pills, and yes, there are extensive free speech implications there.