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Comment by WHATDOESIT | Hacker News Reader

You mean like when the KGB murdered my grandparent based on class origin and corporation ownership? Or the time when the Gestapo did the same to my great-grandparent, also based on ownership of the same corporation?

To me, it seems like there are much longer periods of problems than periods of peaceful life. Only 30 years out of the last 100 were in lived in relative freedom here, and still excesses are happening today. Protect yourselves people. Nobody will return your health and life back once an excess happens to you.

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Again, I get that bad things happen, but none of what you've brought up would have been prevented with better privacy in practice. It's well beyond "privacy" to believe that ownership of a corporation should be hidden information, that'd be exceedingly easy to abuse.

I'm sorry those things happened to your family, but they're not relevant to a modern privacy conversation.

It's nowhere beyond, it's exactly privacy. My country still (since the 90s) has numbered shares - meaning not tied to a person. The fight is not over yet, even though the EU is really trying hard to destroy all privacy here. And it's not really that simple to abuse - someone has to show up with the shares in hand to do that.

Nope, not privacy related at all. I should know who I'm doing business with.

You're doing business with a corporation - it's a legal person after all. There are reporting requirements etc so you can check all you need about that corporation very precisely. You don't need to know the owners at all. It's not like you can know with US/EU corps - go check and see how many paper trails end in Virgin Islands numbered corporations ;-)

That's your opinion, and fortunately not one that nearly anyone shares.

You're doing a common Internet Thing by twisting a conversation into the topic you actually want to talk about, even though it's wholly unrelated.

Just because something bad happened to your family doesn't mean the entire planet should adjust fundamental aspects of how humans interact. That's just your trauma speaking, and not a rational thought.

Regardless of opinions, you can't know the owners of many corporations today. Are you sure you're not doing business with businesses that have owners hidden behind Virgin Islands numbered shares? I wouldn't be, it's actually very common. And if you're actually doing business with them - where's the problem?

Yes, because you can easily know the owners of every American corporation today.[0] This policy was updated in December of 2021.

But, again, completely irrelevant to the broader topic of conversation, privacy.

[0] https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fact-sheet-benefic...

No who you were talking to. But all corporate shares should be bearer shares. Corporate and income taxes are the real "abuse."

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