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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

I've been screaming about this for years. Maybe Malwarebytes will get them to listen. The fact that Microsoft delivers malware directly to people's default home screens for money is insane. And it's been happening since the original Edge launched.

And yes, in case you're curious, this is a Section 230 problem: As long as we grant platforms default immunity, there is no business risk to Microsoft to offset the profits gained. If the choice to include Taboola included the ability to be sued for damages, Microsoft would be more hesitant to do business with them.

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> this is a Section 230 problem

Can we really not draw a distinction between an internet service provider passing messages between users, and a tech company receiving money from a content company to show their ads to users who didn't ask for them? The latter seems much more like an activity that should create a liability than the former.

That's the core problem with Section 230: It was passed by fools who didn't consider that profit enters into things. Advertising is, ultimately, just speech. So what happened was they passed a law worried about users posting offensive forum/blog comments, but it is used to protect companies that serve malicious ads (Google, Microsoft, being absolutely top offenders) for profit, but claim no responsibility because they didn't write the ads.

Any content served to a platform in exchange for any sort of revenue, the platform should be liable for the content of.

Note that there's no meaningful distinction between a "tech company" and an "internet service provider". Google operates Fi and Fiber, Comcast operates email and streaming video services, it's just service providers ultimately, and Section 230 is a giant gaping immunity hole for holding any of them responsible for business decisions they're well aware is malicious.

Of course we can - an ISP is paid for by the customer, whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser. As soon as you are paid by the entity producing the content you are no longer a "dumb pipe", and are de-facto curating that content.

>whereas Microsoft in this case is paid by the advertiser.

Tangent to the publisher/platform debate, but can we stop for a moment to appreciate that Windows is a paid-for product?

The fact a paid-for product has ads in it is fucking nonsense.

It’s crazy that a company like Microsoft can’t screen the ads they show properly. For this kind of ads, there must be a very high security standard. Maybe even sandbox/disable some features on the websites they link to.

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