Comment by hilbert42

"This is a failure of regulation,"

Despite my comments I cannot agree more. When it comes to IT, computers and the internet governments have failed abysmally to protect consumers from exploitation, both online and otherwise.

I've been in tech since the IBM-360 and the 4004 uP days and I am still staggered by what's happened—how governments have deserted their citizens and sided with Big Tech. To me, what has happened is the biggest failure of democracy in my lifetime.

It would take a book for me to expand that further. Suffice to say when governments abrogate their primary responsibility of protecting their citizens then it's everyone for themselves—there is no other practical option.

By now, the evidence is clear that people have to protect themselves as they're not going to be helped by governments.

The bitterness in my original post comes from the fact that it is now 49 years since the launch of the first truly consumer IT products such as Tandy's TRS-80 and Apple's Apple-II in 1977—that's one year shy of half century and there's still stuff-all regulation to protect consumers.

We perhaps can forgive the fact that regulation is a 'cuss' word—a profanity—in the US but when it comes to computer tech the 'regulations' deficit is worldwide. Up until 2000—nearly a quarter century after computers had become popular—govermnents could be forgiven for not regulating tech but by then it was already abundantly clear regulations were needed.

For instance, the three-year long US antitrust proceedings† against Microsoft which commenced in 1998 resulted in little more than a slap over the wrists with a feather for Microsoft. The world watched this case with interest and essentially nothing happened to protect consumers. Despite at the time it being patently obvious consumer protection was needed over a quarter century later they're still not forthcoming (except at the very margins).

That said, the rich and powerful had no trouble getting laws to protect themselves—witness the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That tells you who is in charge and actually running the country.

The Citizenry isn't doing itself any favors by sitting on its hands doing SFA. We need citizens in the streets demanding that governments enact laws to protect consumers' privacy, and from exploitation, etc.—laws that not only effectively penalize corporations and their shareholders but also target those within the corporations who set corporate policy (we will never get to the root of these problems whilst those responsible are able to hide behind corporate walls).

Those who are not old enough to remember the anti-Vietnam war rallies of the late 1960s ought to take note. When millions take to the streets legislators move very quickly to change things (check YouTube for videos from those times/1968-72).

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...