[eznzt]

>By what mechanism could Google prevent themselves from ever being able to do this?

The law.

[gcbirzan]

The law cannot prevent you from doing something, it can only punish you if you do it.

[FigmentEngine]

that is a nonsense statement. "doing something" = "do it"

if you mean, cant stop you considering it, then thats fair, but then the point has no value?

[gcbirzan]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

[waheoo]

What's difficult about this? The law prevents people from doing the wrong thing every day using the threat of jail time or worse.

Claiming laws only punish actions taken so they can't be "preventitive" by preventing others from taking those actions is either naive or just plain intellectually dishonest.

[chaps]

The US is a country that has laws inaccessible to the public with no way of knowing whether you're breaking those laws. It's either naive or just plain intellectually dishonest to think that these laws exist as a preventative measure.

[spicybright]

But one can break a law and get away with it. It's selectively enforced.

[UncleMeat]

But the claim I was responding to was that it does not matter whether Google is doing this now, what matters is that they can do it. A law which imposes penalties on what you can do rather than what you are doing seems fraught.

[efreak]

> >By what mechanism could Google prevent themselves from ever being able to do this? > The law.

I'd really rather not see companies like Google (it any other, for that matter) making laws. Lobbying is bad enough.