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Comment by qwertox | Hacker News Reader

In other words, it would be enough for the chamber of commerce to offer a one-page-per-company index. Pre-populated automatically with all the legally binding contact information and offer a field or two where the company can put their Instagram-like profiles with lots of pictures. And allow people to comment on them.

One of the nice things in DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) is the obligation to put an imprint on the website [0]. This is valid for every hosted site which runs commercially (even if it is a private blog displaying ads).

They must show a phone number, an email address which must be usable as a customer support email (even if it is just named info@...), physical address, who is in charge of the company and other things.

Whenever I try to find out whom a website offering some "new AI stuff" belongs to, I'm baffled to see that other countries don't require this.

[0] https://www.porsche.com/germany/legal-notice/

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I have a mildly entertaining story for you! We have something just a little like this in Viet Nam.

It's designed as a public good that lets you look up businesses by their tax ID. It's mandatory for the company owner to put their phone number and address there. The address is periodically verified by an actual person. It gets scraped heavily, and inserted into a whole sub-genre of similar websites with mostly identical features but with faster and better search. I've even seen people print it out to make "phone books" that are sold at trade shows!

As you might expect, the resulting increase in (fairly sophisticated) scam calls makes me unlikely to pick up my phone. So I'm not actually reachable there with a call, but I might get a text! For my websites, registrar info for those ties in to the system above using digital signatures. So using only a domain name, you get the company license, a theoretically valid phone number, and a very probably correct address.

It's a mix of good and bad, but overall I really like the system. Looking up other companies before doing business with them has saved me and my colleagues from a number of bad deals, e.g. not the real company owner, or misrepresentation of the scope of their company license.

This is exactly the stuff that prevents innovation and drives entrepreneurs out of those economies. Physical address?!

It can be a letterbox. The point is that there needs to be a way to contact a company in such a way that message delivery is provable and legally binding.

AFAIK no universally adopted modern form of communication fulfills both.

How do the US solve this problem ?

I'm not so sure it can be a letterbox. When registering companies with the Handelsregister in Germany, I think there is a legal requirement to have a physical address. At least from my experience.

In the US, most (all?) states require a local registered agent with a non-PO box in the state. A lot of companies do good business as registered agents for out-of-state and foreign companies, where they file the paperwork and forward mail to the desired recipient.

In Australia, all companies must have a registered address, available on the register of companies (which isn't quite as open as I'd prefer, it isn't nearly as good as the UK's Companies House, for instance). This physical address must then have a plaque showing the registered company name roughly at the door.

In reality, just like in the Paradise Papers leaks etc, an individual accountant's office might have 4000 of these lined up next to their door.

Of course, for the vast majority of businesses, this is not much of a hurdle, and for most consumers it isn't all that helpful either, but end of the day, scammers are gonna scam, whatever the obstacles are. Even those that aren't outright scammers, will be paying accountants to have a plaque on their door to show that this is their "physical office" ...

Hopefully such efforts at least help courts assign some blame when the time comes.

It cannot be a letterbox. You must provide a real address that has capabilities to receive mail.

Luckily for a few euros per month you can rent quite nice addresses and the relative mail forwarding services (e.g., once a day, once a week, etc.)

You are right, that what I meant when I said letterbox.

I should have looked up the definition, before using the word.

Given how easy it is to do e.g. DMCA abuse, or claiming random videos on YouTube, I'd say they haven't solved it. There's even a lovely weird expression for it, fly-by-night companies.

Why would you need to hide your company if you are not running a scam?

maybe your company is just home.

When I see an imprint and see that it's a home address, I have no problems with that. It lets me know that this person is either just getting started or simply doesn't want to grow into a bigger company, probably because he/she has a real job, which are both great things, but if they scam me, I know where to contact them.

Why would I randomly show up at their house and ring their bell?

The “a sane person wouldn’t do this” argument is really not that good.

Neither is the "criminals might abuse it so we should make things worse for everyone else" argument.

Many companies start in the "garage" and if you have privacy concerns, you can't use your home address as company address. This requires you to rent a spot in a coworking that allows you to use their address as company address. Also, you need to get a second phone.

Too many small inconveniences for a small unprofitable startup that you need to worry about, instead of focusing on finding product market fit.

Why do you think the company needs its right to privacy but the customers that deal with that company don't need the right to know who they're dealing with ?

For your startup, aren't you setting up your DNS, webhosting, etc? aren't these small inconveniences that you're doing instead of "focusing on finding product market fit" ?

Each company, nay, each person has to do some amount of "paperwork" in order to create society that functions. Why should your startup admin be easier then my filling of personal taxes ?

One isn't a customer until they decided to get something from the company. But the website is available to everyone.

At least here in Germany, you shouldn't use your home address for your business at all, because of Tax obligations, at least when you are not renting.

Because if you want to move your business later, when it grows, the tax office will regard your home as part of the business. Things will get complicated that way.

Dont start a company if you are so poor you cant afford a postbox.

Disagree with everything you said. These are all self-created non-issues.

Out of all things that prevent innovation, this is probably the simplest with a "pay to fix it" solution. And the amount is not even that high.. we're talking about a few euros per month.

Unfortunately, in Germany, there is a legal requirement for a business to have a physical address when registering it with the commercial register.

How is that unfortunate? What would we gain from letting businesses opt out you being able to contact them?

It not only prevents innovation, but it also enables fake industries, such as companies that harass and "fine" you (not legally binding) for not having an imprint even when not required, or otherwise coming up with irrelevant "problems" with your imprint and reporting you to authorities.

Something where you're reachable for any legal purposes- in Germany this sadly remains a physical address.

There are various service which offer a 'virtual' address with digital forwarding of letters for less than 10Eur/Month, so it's not an insurmountable obstacle.

The same stuff prevents massive scams

Huh? Why would that be harmful at all??

Entrepreneurs hate responsibility

I imagine that most people hate random Internet crazies showing up at their homes.

When one starts in a garage, one doesn’t have an office yet.

It also defends against random internet crazies who are mad at you because you scammed them.

That's probably most of what it does, because how much attention of any sort does the average garage startup get?

> It also defends against random internet crazies who are mad at you because you scammed them.

Or think you scammed them! Crazies gonna crazy.

> how much attention of any sort does the average garage startup get?

I think that anyone who has dealt with the general public in any organisation (scouting, church, business, government) will tell you that a surprisingly large number of people (I have seen estimates as high as one in four!) are crazy to one degree or another.

I would very much rather not have my home address out there for every Tom, Dick & Harry who thinks that my software is making the aliens send radio transmissions to his teeth.

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