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Comment by jonhohle | Hacker News Reader

It seems like stalking laws in most jurisdictions should already cover this. Is there any legal precedent that could help without the need for new laws?

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In a different legal environment this would be a good approach, but currently I don’t think the courts would accept this argument, as they are trying to push Congress to legislate rules on things like this (which Congress steadfastly refuses to do). Prior courts were more willing to “legislate from the bench” but current justices have expressed concern that Congress is abdicating its rulemaking responsibility.

That’s a hilarious idea. Given the Supreme Court of today, afraid of legislating from the bench? Are you serious?

Yes. The majority of their decisions seem to bear that out. While the current court isn’t run by strict constitutionalists, the direction of the court seems to be in favor of rolling back previous precedent that overstepped constitutional boundaries and restoring constitutional balances based on originalist interpretations. This doesn’t please anybody, of course, because both political “teams” have lost major fights in this process.

Not that every decision bears this out, of course, and it’s also a slow process.

IMO this restoration is a necessary step in restoring the operation of the constitution. As a country we need to decide if we’re going to actually follow it (including making use of the long-dead amendment process) or throw it out (amounting to a revolution). Selectively ignoring parts of it depending on who is in power, or based on whatever the bipartisan intelligence/defense agenda requires, is unworkable and needs to end ASAP.

Most of the contentious SCOTUS decisions these days are the opposite of that, where they defer to Congress or the executive.

Yes. Why do you disagree?

i am not a lawyer, but to the best of my knowledge there are specific criteria for "stalking", one of which being that the stalking causes fear or distress.

the average person (i.e. a "reasonable person" by legal definition, even if us tech folk don't consider it reasonable) is not particularly scared or distressed by targeted ads. some people even like them.

a good lawyer might be able to make something out of it, but i'm not convinced that stalking laws are the right avenue.

Not to mention you “opted in” by the terms and conditions of the service, which would certainly argue that if you didn’t agree to the terms, you didn’t have to use their website.

I don’t think stalking laws cover it. Laws are largely about intent and I don’t think anyone could say that Google is planning to attack everyone.

Law isn’t code. You can’t reduce stalking laws down to “it’s illegal to track people” and then extrapolate back up into ad tech. That’s what gets you “we should jail surgeons for cutting people with knives”. Context and intent matter.

Laws won't help against foreign actors, which are, after all, the main adversaries of the military.

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