>thinly veiled legal threats
How is asking someone questions a legal threat?
How is asking someone questions a legal threat?
From the email:
>My questions are about your process for when I do submit a request.
It's really easy to read this as "I am going to be submitting a request."
>I look forward to your reply without undue delay and at most within 45 days of this email, as required by Section 1798.130 of the California Civil Code.
So I'd say there is some legal threat here.
This reads as a thinly vieled command to respond, not a mere request, citing legal code and (incorrectly) asserting it's applicability as a basis for the authority to give such a command, with the implication being the possibility of legal action if the demanded response is not provided.
Random blogger who's not a business does not have any connection to this. It's more like if I tell you I'll sue you for murder, high treason and collusion with the Martian invasion, is it really a legal threat? There's literally no legal way for me to sue anybody like that.
>These FAQs provide general consumer information about the CCPA and how you can exercise your rights under the CCPA. They are not legal advice, regulatory guidance, or an opinion of the Attorney General. We will update this information periodically.
I understand that someone can do cursory research and be overly confident in their understanding of a law that spans 46 pages. I hope you can understand that people can be underconfident in their understanding of a law that spans 46 pages, is bound by the entirety of a state’s statutes and case law, and feel overwhelmed by someone asking for a response on their compliance with said law. Regardless of what their interpretation of the original email should or shouldn’t be.
>It's more like if I tell you I'll sue you for murder, high treason and collusion with the Martian invasion, is it really a legal threat? There's literally no legal way for me to sue anybody like that.
Comparing a reasonable fear that one may not be in compliance with a complex legal system to something absurd does not invalidate that fear.
And, as someone also pointed out in that thread, being on Hackernews and having IP logging may be enough to trigger that requirement.
Further, with the absolute shitshow that is the US court system, if someone brings a frivolous suit you're looking at thousands of dollars in legal fees, because you're going to need a lawyer (or previous experience in law) to properly explain to the judge why this suit is utterly ridiculous. And there's no guarantee if you'll get compensated for that, even if you file counter-suit--and even if you do get compensation, it's likely going to happen several years later, after the guy who tried to sue you does everything in his power to avoid paying up, because he knows you're eventually going to run out of money.
There’s a reason patent trolls, copyright trolls, ADA trolls, etc. go after small entities: they’re more like to pay a small settlement out of fear than risk taking it to court and being bankrupted.
It isn't. Being paranoid about lawsuits against some personal blog shows a lack of legal sophistication and this type of sensationalism promotes an irrational fear of being somehow financially vulnerable to almost any legal predation. That's simply not how the US system works. There have to be actual damages for a court case to go forward to the worst-case expensive end (depending on what most people consider "crippling"). Courts aren't pernicious and are very sensitive to anyone attempting to waste court time on exploitation (except in Texas courts supporting patent trolling, obv).
Any judge would have this resolved by giving the parties a 15 minute sidebar to come to an actionable resolution or sanction both sides in some motivating manner. The US legal system has a vested interest in not taking everything to a long drawn out fight, due to limited court time, even if it is presented differently in media (or the comments in these threads, which are laughable).
And yet, many people reacted just like this writer. Perhaps, given that the reaction was widespread, it could and should have been anticipated, instead of expecting every person to have your evident legal knowledge.
Nope. A legal threat is a statement by a party that it intends to take legal action on another party. GL with whatever.
Asking questions is an implied threat often enough that a question can indeed effectively be a threat.