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Comment by jakeogh | Hacker News Reader

Your argument is to let corporations effectively make law.

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.

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.

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.

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.

how did you get that out of my post? My argument is that people should make laws that ends the business model of companies like hiQ, and that LinkedIn, although obviously acting in self-interest, is legitimately defending its platform here against third parties who are trying to use public information in privacy-violating ways.

By letting ToS have the force of law...

What is a contract if not something backed by the force of law?

There's a big difference between "I want a public profile so colleagues and employers can contact me about opportunities" vs "I want a public profile so some third party I have no knowledge of can enable others to discriminate against me".

Try contacting the police if someone breaches your tos. They will tell you to get a lawyer and not bother them.

You have to sue for breach of contract. It's a civil matter rather than a legal one if breached.

hiQ didnt sign a contract. It's public info. They broke the ToS, but unless the ToS get inserted into a contract, and signed by both parties we arent even in Civil Law terratory, which is what this excellent court decision confirmed.

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