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Comment by rolfvandekrol | Hacker News Reader

I love how they don't tell the full name of Marco B. and Angelo K., but do tell that they companies were called "Bos IT Holding BV" and "Kreikamp IT Holding BV".

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> Good morning, class. A certain... agitator--

> For privacy's sake, let's call her Lisa S.

> No, that's too obvious. Uh, let's say L. Simpson--

I remember articles in the style of: "Dennis B., son of Jan Bredewold". I believe it was the Telegraaf newspaper.

Possibly the newspaper didn't even notice at first, though the abbreviation of the name is usual (and mandatory) in Europe.

It is NOT mandatory. This is courtesy of the press but there are no laws or regulations.

It's mandatory if the newspaper want to continue being a respected newspaper. So for all intents and purposes it's mandatory.

I can second this. You don't read the full names of suspects (!) in a newspaper in Germany. I believe this is actually due to the law here (e.g. if they're innocent, their name is not ruined). That is somewhat relaxed, as long as they're not a public figure (e.g. no one would say "Angela M. is suspected to be a physicist" if it's about the German Chancellor) and as long as it's clear from the article that they're not (yet) convicted.

Can't speak for the rest of Europe of course.

Well I dunno about germany but over here in the netherlands there's no real law about not using full names. However if a paper does use someones full name and then that person gets their reputation ruined they will usually get a lower sentence if guilty. The idea being that getting your reputation ruined is a punishment in itself.

There is currently a court case against a drugs kingpin where one of the reputable newspapers does mention his full name, but each time followed by "-- the suspect's lawyer has indicated the suspect has no objection to his full name being used" (once per article of course)

"Proper" newspapers don't, but yellow press (e.g. BILD) which is consumed by a large chunk of the German population doesn't really care that much about preserving privacy or correctly reporting on conviction status.

Bos means a forest, likely nothing to do with his name

It’s a normal Dutch last name. Also, the naming of the holdings is the same. So they probably registered it at the same time. Anyway, information can always be checked at the chamber of commerce

It costs 2.50 to check the names of the owners of these companies at the chamber of commerce if that makes you doubt whether or not it's actually the name. This means that the owners were effectively outed by the publication anyway.

Not really, the point of Dutch privacy law (and similar EU laws) in this context is not to deter a dedicated investigator, but to merely put enough of a hurdle in place that everyone reading the article won't see the names of suspects, and they won't show up in web searches etc.

The convention (I don't think it's actually a law) existed before web searches, but it's a nice side effect.

Iirc it's not even an actual law, more of an agreement between all news organizations to not publish names like that. I seem to recall Geenstijl(Dutch "news" site) publishing full names and not getting in trouble over it.

Geenstijl doesn't have high journalist standards.

But they do have to follow the law, which is his point.

Sometimes there is no law necessary because an industry regulates themselves. Which the Dutch press historically has done so, in this example.

Not true.

Not mentioning lastnames is only a convention by journalists and the media. Publishing lastnames in the media is not a violation of the law. News website geenstijl.nl regularly publishes full names of suspects or criminals.

The convention already existed before the internet.

Update: I should have read more comments...

If the bar for being a "dedicated investigator" is copy-pasting a string and paying 2.50, I think we just have different views on this. Your views about the intent of specific laws aren't relevant, as there are AFAIK no laws about news publications that apply to what we are talking about.

it costs google query.

Especially with the UBO-register* it will be very easy to see which (natural) persons are tied to a company.

* Ultimate Beneficial Owner

just google the company names, atleast one yields name of 'ceo'...

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