this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
412 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
60082 readers
3329 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is a start, but the fact that they come up with this:
Suggests that they are not being serious.
And I doubt the fine will be sufficient for them to re-evaluate their attitudes. What we need is full asset seizure (every last cent, home, car, everything) and to send them to do a decade as junior support personnel at a late stage Alzheimer's care facility (my dad had Alzheimer, so I am not being callous for the sake of it).
They can also do 20 years in prison with no parole if they are too good for community service.
I'm not sure how that's indicative of the FTC not being serious? You're quoting a defense argument, of course they're going to argue the agency is wrong.
With respect to the US regulatory/judicial actions, I find it difficult to believe that they will be sufficient to nudge the criminals towards genuine self-reflection and a desire to change their behaviour. Similarly, other criminals are likely see enforcement action as more of a "risk to be managed" as opposed to a strong incentive to re-evaluate their approach to criminal schemes.
This is of course not a US only problem, albeit there are countries were consumer rights and business criminality is less socially acceptable.
I didn't interpret their argument as stating "the agency is wrong". More like "we weren't told this was wrong, we were one of the caught ... so this claim should be dismissed."
I would even go as far as saying that this is a sign of disrespect towards judicial processes.
It's a fairly routine argument by the defense (we're being singled out/the regulations are unclear). And regarding federal enforcement, there's a lot of hamstringing by Congress.
All that to say, this is arguably a good sign of the FTC properly enforcing, not a reason for pessimism.
I hope you're right. :)