Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by perl4ever 2434 days ago
Corporations do effectively make law, at least in the US. Politicians have neither the time nor the expertise. There have been some widely read articles about how sometimes that law is not even freely available to the public.
1 comments
jakeogh 2434 days ago
Sounds like we agree that's a bad thing. To your first sentence, no, they propose laws. They dont get to revise their ToS and have it be a violation of the law when you ignore it. That would be like the EPA making a rule, because they were granted that power by congress.
link
perl4ever 2433 days ago
My impression is that effectively, they do. Officially, the laws have to be approved, just like you have to click "ok" when you see a user agreement, but it doesn't mean you have any effective control. Control on paper doesn't mean control in reality, just like accounting is different from economics.

It's possible the current system is "the worst, except for all the others". I don't think you can do without expertise in making policy, but you also can't do without good faith/intent, so I don't know how you can resolve that.

link
jakeogh 2433 days ago
If it was really that easy then we would have SOPA, ACTA, CISPA, PIPA, TPP and about 20 other bad ideas put on paper.

All of those failed, if they had not, MegaCorp would have significantly more power. Heck TPP had ways for a foreign corporation to sue a local government if they didnt like them banning fracking (for example).

Same thing with NN, if it was named honestly it would be called "The More Government Regulation of The Internet Act of 2019". Next up will be some sad attempt at a US GDPR, but fortunatly our beautiful 1st Amendment throws a wrench in that, it's effictively the gov telling people (corps are made of people:) what they can and can not remember.

But in general, I agree with your sentiment, and if it's more than half a page long (written in crayon) it shouldnt even be considered.

link