Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

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Usually I'm not a big fan of legislation, but in this case I completely agree. Companies unilaterally taking away anything you've paid for is effectively no different from theft, and ToS shouldn't be able to escape that. Or even if it's a free service but it's something you've built up value in -- a history of photos, messages, emails, etc. -- it's similarly effectively theft.

I agree there absolutely needs to be a form a habeus corpus here with arbitration to hear from both sides. And what's more, even when an account gets shut down, an export of all data must be provided, and a full refund of the purchase price of any digital licenses/credits still active. So even if a spammer takes over your account and Megacorp isn't convinced it wasn't you yourself that decided to spam, you still don't lose your data or money spent -- it's ultimately just a (very big) inconvenience.

> Usually I'm not a big fan of legislation

Corporations need to be heavily regulated. They won't just do the right thing for its own sake.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Corporation/Joel-...

I mean obviously that's what things like environmental and safety regulations are for, as well as things like antitrust. You have to set the "rules of the game."

I just mean that otherwise, usually competition ensures good outcomes for consumers, because the corporations that produce bad outcomes go out of business once consumers catch on.

But there are definitely exceptions, especially around rare events that are difficult to foresee or that can't reasonably be expected to be part of product comparison. The likelihood of your account being shut down without recourse and losing things you've paid for falls into that category perfectly. Predatory surprise fees with things like credit cards and bank accounts, and that change without warning, also fall into that. Also minimum warranties, since consumers can't easily inspect quality on the inside of a product.

> Usually I'm not a big fan of legislation, but in this case I completely agree.

Yeah, I mean it's just basic rules of commerce, not very different from laws about false advertising.

As it happens, in the U.S. consumer protection policies always top the lists of policies with the most bipartisan support.

Legislation is how we hold the powerful to account, ideally. It turns out, when people have billions of dollars, sometimes you have to stand up as a society and tell them "no".

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