[pydry]

There needs to be some sort of institution that can verify these claims that these companies can use.

The reason all of these things happen is because it's easy to slip into them in a tight financial spot and there's usually no instantaneous backlash.

[ardacinar]

> There needs to be some sort of institution that can verify these claims that these companies can use.

A government?

[Proziam]

This is the least efficient answer. A more efficient answer is an independent entity that simply has the public trust and the capability to verify such claims. I can imagine a non-profit that pulls this off, if the will to execute were there.

[rswail]

Why is the idea of government regulation of fitness for purpose the "least efficient" answer. That's one of the primary purposes of governments, to ensure the quality and safety of what citizens consume and how it is delivered.

Otherwise, why are there regulators for advertising or for food or government standards for anything?

I'm not talking about censorship or somehow evaluating the quality of content, I'm talking about if a company is delivering a service and I am paying for it, then the conditions under which they deliver that service should be regulated to ensure a fair and competitive marketplace.

Apple shouldn't be getting plaudits for making privacy a unique selling proposition.

All the other companies should be getting told that their business is unfair and exploitative. Privacy should be a right, the control of my personal information should be mine and consent to have it should be able to be withdrawn at any time.

[Proziam]

> Why is the idea of government regulation of fitness for purpose the "least efficient" answer.

Government requires thousands (literally) of people and political will in order to move any solution forward. In terms of cost and time, it is substantially less efficient than independent entities.

An independent entity could theoretically start immediately, with a small team, and focus explicitly on the stated goals of the team.

> Apple shouldn't be getting plaudits for making privacy a unique selling proposition.

Absolutely agree. The average citizen has no idea how hard they're being exploited.

> Privacy should be a right, the control of my personal information should be mine and consent to have it should be able to be withdrawn at any time.

Also agree, but the government has shown they have an interest in making that not happen. The ties between 3 letter agencies and large tech companies are just the tip of that iceberg.

[pydry]

EU government might be trustworthy enough to run an institution like this. US definitely isn't.

In the UK the soil association is a private charity which mostly decides which food is "organic" and which food is not and it does a pretty good job. In the US, the USDA decides whether you can call your food organic and from what I understand it's kind of meaningless.

I think a private charity would work better here.

[mattcwilson]

The number of people that would need to coordinate their actions to acheive the outcome is almost certainly fewer.

The formation of something new, and independent, means it would also be less susceptible to corruption.

Given that this is one of the primary purposes of governments, what do you suppose has been keeping them from stepping in so far?

[TeMPOraL]

> Given that this is one of the primary purposes of governments, what do you suppose has been keeping them from stepping in so far?

Businesses are much faster at inventing ways to abuse people than governments are to regulate them away, even if we ignore lobbying and corruption.

Such a hypothetical organization we seek needs to be both swift and impactful. This automatically suggests some ties to government, as it's the best way to fulfill the criterion of impact. Not sure how to handle the "swift" part, though. Can't do it through regular market mechanisms, because ultimately price trumps all on mass market. The government reacts slowly for (among others) a good reason - while an unscrupulous businessman needs to invent just one weird trick, the government regulates away whole classes of tricks by default, and they need to take care to not outlaw perfectly legit new ideas.

[kaibee]

> The formation of something new, and independent, means it would also be less susceptible to corruption.

"independent" is doing a lot of work here. Government regulators are, at least in theory, independent because they're paid from taxes collected, and have no incentive . What mechanism is supposed to keep the new 'independent' entity, actually independent?

[Proziam]

I can think of a few mechanisms that work but they all go after the money. It can be direct (betray the public trust, don't get donations) or indirect (betray the public trust and lose the beneficiary status on the trust that the government dumps your budget into...)

How it's designed is important, but even under the most elaborate schemes it would be less costly and human resource intensive than having the government directly take charge of it.

[morelisp]

Who ensures the auditors aren't fucking up then?

It's not that a private entity can't do it - I largely trust the TÜVs and UL and other NRTLs for example. It's that most auditors - especially once you leave the "ship a physical product with verifiable physical properties" sector - instead look like E&Y, which I trust less than most of the companies they have audited.

You eventually need to have someone who will be substantially at risk if the audit is insufficient - "skin in the game" to use the modern idiom - controlling the audit. In the case of UL that's insurances companies (which are highly regulated by... the government), for other NRTLs it's the government directly.

[hagibborim]

How are you defining "efficiency" here?

[Proziam]

Capital to get started, how many people need to be involved, how many people need to be convinced to get started, how long will it take to start, etc

[thetanil]

A search engine which only lists sites which adhere to a set of rules / quality standards is the only answer I see here. The question is would people use it? I don't think so. They won't even use DuckDuckGo and similar which attempts to address the issue for themselves but at the same time provide a complete index. Not enough care / awareness.

[s3tz]

Audits can do that. Maybe a voluntary audit where they can then say they're compliant with NoBullshitForYourMoney.org