The part about setting up special credit policies for these pharmacies so that FedEx wouldn't lose money when said pharmacies were shut down is pretty clear that they knew there was something wrong, but they turned a blind eye anyway.
One can imagine how any reasonable automated classificator working over previous history would put a business with 2 such attributes like "business: pharmacy" and "location: foreign" into the category with higher risk.
As a side note - we have a "reasonable person" test in courts today, and, as more and more of things are being automated, i think we'll have a "reasonable automated classificator/learning system" tomorrow :)
beginning in June 2004, FEDEX established an Online Pharmacy Credit Policy that applied only to its Internet pharmacy shippers. Under this policy, all Internet pharmacy shippers had to be approved by the Credit Department prior to opening a new account. Existing Internet pharmacies had to be reviewed by the Credit Department to ensure that they had adequate financial security. In arguing for the Online Pharmacy Credit Policy, FEDEX's Managing Director of Revenue Operations stated "[a]s the past few weeks have unfolded it is becoming more apparent to us that many of these companies are fraudulent and doing business outside Federal regulations."
This is different than if FedEx was just accepting packages regularly from someone that kept dropping by at the local FedEx b&m store.
I don't have the full story, so I'll I can do is say that it raises the likelihood (even just a little bit) that FedEx could have known. I guess one of the relevant questions to ask would be: "Is it standard for FedEx to be so hands-off when signing these businesses up that they have no clue what the business even does?"
As far as I'm concerned it certainly should be. Is it next going to be illegal to sell snack foods to someone with munchies? Let the police be the police.
> Is it next going to be illegal to sell snack foods to someone with munchies?
Why do you feel the need to trot out strawmen already?
I was just saying that FedEx entering into such agreements just increases the likelihood that they knew something. I didn't even say by how much. I definitely said nothing about whether they should be criminally or civilly liable for anything. The question that you posted wasn't even meant to be rhetorical. I was actually raising the question because it's relevant information.
I'm basically siding with no one here, and just making passing observations. It would be nice to not be attacked for it.
[Edit: I guess I should add that the 'something' they might have known need not have been actionable information, or even information that makes them liable for anything. I'm just stating that it makes them more involved with said companies than, say, me if I ship a package from a FedEx store. FedEx, for example, probably knows about their revenue and shipping logistics to be able to evaluate their risk-management formulas...]
However, I stand by my position that it shouldn't matter what FedEx knows or "could/should have known." FedEx is not the police. I also stand by my slippery slope straw man, because history has already shown that this type of expansion of civilian liability and law enforcement powers doesn't have an end goal. There is no "enough."