4 ms·

I think the insane part is that this is not criminal and the executives are not jailed for it.

by afarah1 10d ago

account42 9d ago
That's exactly why this keeps happening. If I bug your house I'd be charged with all kinds of crimes. If LG does it at scale nothing happens.
- ryandrake 9d ago
  We need to climb two very difficult hills for there to be any change here: 1. We need our governments to actually start charging companies with crimes, when what they are doing would be illegal for an individual to do, and 2. We need the penalties to be something other than fines, which are ultimately treated by companies as routine costs of business.
  - DPDmancul 9d ago
    > We need the penalties to be something other than fines, which are ultimately treated by companies as routine costs of business. It's true that fines are nothing more than predictable costs, so maybe an option would be fines in percentage of the incoming of the company: this way it could make a real impact. I know in some north Europe countries the speed limit fines are in percentage on the personal net worth.
    - rustcleaner 9d ago
      Income is too small, how about in terms of the highest market capitalization between deciding to do the bad thing and being convicted of the bad thing? Maybe some of these penalties should result in bankruptcies for the most egregious big players, and when I say bankruptcies I don't mean restructuring but actual corporate financial death: firesale auction the assets, debt holders lose much of their value, equity holders get squat, and all employees are out on their asses having been let go. Do it to a Microsoft or Google sized company, scare the piss out of the rest! Then implement protection policies to make it impossible to move headquarters out of the country without having product prices end up 2-4x higher, so domestic competition (which could be let to run tax free) can come up and fill the void. Also tax the hectomillionaires+ more heavily on assets, income, and capital gains!
    - selcuka 9d ago
      > maybe an option would be fines in percentage of the incoming of the company You are overengineering it. Just throw the CEOs in jail for a few months and observe how these practices disappear overnight.
      - DPDmancul 9d ago
        > Just throw the CEOs in jail for a few months It's not that easy: with bail and well payed lawyers they spend quite no day in jail and it is no more than a fine
        selcuka 8d ago
        Bail only works while waiting for the court date. I was talking about the actual sentence if found guilty. Going after individuals instead of fining the company is still a better deterrent. Corporate fines are paid by shareholders and customers, not by the people who made the decision. As a side note: If we believe that well paid lawyers can win all cases, there is nothing to discuss under this thread anyway. No fine or sentence can save us.
    - zzo38computer 9d ago
      I think that the fines should be the amount per crime that is being fined, plus the total amount of all revenue from whatever the fines are related to (including indirect, but only counted once).
  - likeclockwork 9d ago
    Flogging or prison time for whoever has the highest salary.
    - washelterskelte 9d ago
      Why not both?
  - anon7000 9d ago
    So step one is a constitutional amendment to ban corporate money in politics, which is going to be suuuper hard to accomplish. But yeah similar to how humans are put in jail and it can easily ruin their life, the punishment for a severe crime needs to ruin a company’s life. It’s an absurd double standard.
  - hdgvhicv 9d ago
    If the fine is higher than the revenue they get from it then that would presumably work.
  - daemin 9d ago
    Simplest thing to say is: find all the people responsible for this, from the bottom to the top, and charge them with the same crime as an individual would be. I would include everyone in the chain from the programmers that implemented it, to the VP that authorised it, and finally to the CEO because all responsibility ends with them (that's why they get paid the big bucks right?). I'd like to say look at Volkswagen for an example but I don't know if all the necessary people were charged.
    - rustcleaner 9d ago
      I don't blame VW because EPA's requirements were killing diesel cars in the US. There haven't been any new model diesel passenger cars in about ten years now. Similar policy is why American trucks and SUVs are ridiculusly massive transformer-looking behemoths and there're really no 'small' trucks anymore. The Ford Ranger of today is of similar size to the Ford F-150 of 25 years ago.
- deleted 9d ago
  [deleted]
jdprgm 9d ago
Seriously. This was my first thought too, the audacity to implement a system like this and the deterioration of a society that seems to give any fucks about privacy where this will be a minor news story that gets some buzz then disappears fairly quickly... I don't know what the fuck has happened. At the very least something like this should result in devastating class action lawsuits towards LG.
jopsen 9d ago
Who is to say they won't? For the record, it's not all the big corps that are this bad. Many are borderline paranoid about privacy, both for appearance and compliance perspectives.

I think the insane part is that this is not criminal and the executives are not jailed for it.

by afarah1 10d ago

I think the insane part is that this is not criminal and the executives are not jailed for it.

That's exactly why this keeps happening. If I bug your house I'd be charged with all kinds of crimes. If LG does it at scale nothing happens.

ryandrake 9d ago
We need to climb two very difficult hills for there to be any change here: 1. We need our governments to actually start charging companies with crimes, when what they are doing would be illegal for an individual to do, and 2. We need the penalties to be something other than fines, which are ultimately treated by companies as routine costs of business.
- DPDmancul 9d ago
  > We need the penalties to be something other than fines, which are ultimately treated by companies as routine costs of business. It's true that fines are nothing more than predictable costs, so maybe an option would be fines in percentage of the incoming of the company: this way it could make a real impact. I know in some north Europe countries the speed limit fines are in percentage on the personal net worth.
  - rustcleaner 9d ago
    Income is too small, how about in terms of the highest market capitalization between deciding to do the bad thing and being convicted of the bad thing? Maybe some of these penalties should result in bankruptcies for the most egregious big players, and when I say bankruptcies I don't mean restructuring but actual corporate financial death: firesale auction the assets, debt holders lose much of their value, equity holders get squat, and all employees are out on their asses having been let go. Do it to a Microsoft or Google sized company, scare the piss out of the rest! Then implement protection policies to make it impossible to move headquarters out of the country without having product prices end up 2-4x higher, so domestic competition (which could be let to run tax free) can come up and fill the void. Also tax the hectomillionaires+ more heavily on assets, income, and capital gains!
  - selcuka 9d ago
    > maybe an option would be fines in percentage of the incoming of the company You are overengineering it. Just throw the CEOs in jail for a few months and observe how these practices disappear overnight.
    - DPDmancul 9d ago
      > Just throw the CEOs in jail for a few months It's not that easy: with bail and well payed lawyers they spend quite no day in jail and it is no more than a fine
      - selcuka 8d ago
        Bail only works while waiting for the court date. I was talking about the actual sentence if found guilty. Going after individuals instead of fining the company is still a better deterrent. Corporate fines are paid by shareholders and customers, not by the people who made the decision. As a side note: If we believe that well paid lawyers can win all cases, there is nothing to discuss under this thread anyway. No fine or sentence can save us.
  - zzo38computer 9d ago
    I think that the fines should be the amount per crime that is being fined, plus the total amount of all revenue from whatever the fines are related to (including indirect, but only counted once).
- likeclockwork 9d ago
  Flogging or prison time for whoever has the highest salary.
  - washelterskelte 9d ago
    Why not both?
- anon7000 9d ago
  So step one is a constitutional amendment to ban corporate money in politics, which is going to be suuuper hard to accomplish. But yeah similar to how humans are put in jail and it can easily ruin their life, the punishment for a severe crime needs to ruin a company’s life. It’s an absurd double standard.
- hdgvhicv 9d ago
  If the fine is higher than the revenue they get from it then that would presumably work.
- daemin 9d ago
  Simplest thing to say is: find all the people responsible for this, from the bottom to the top, and charge them with the same crime as an individual would be. I would include everyone in the chain from the programmers that implemented it, to the VP that authorised it, and finally to the CEO because all responsibility ends with them (that's why they get paid the big bucks right?). I'd like to say look at Volkswagen for an example but I don't know if all the necessary people were charged.
  - rustcleaner 9d ago
    I don't blame VW because EPA's requirements were killing diesel cars in the US. There haven't been any new model diesel passenger cars in about ten years now. Similar policy is why American trucks and SUVs are ridiculusly massive transformer-looking behemoths and there're really no 'small' trucks anymore. The Ford Ranger of today is of similar size to the Ford F-150 of 25 years ago.
deleted 9d ago
[deleted]

jdprgm 9d ago

Seriously. This was my first thought too, the audacity to implement a system like this and the deterioration of a society that seems to give any fucks about privacy where this will be a minor news story that gets some buzz then disappears fairly quickly... I don't know what the fuck has happened. At the very least something like this should result in devastating class action lawsuits towards LG.

jopsen 9d ago

Who is to say they won't? For the record, it's not all the big corps that are this bad. Many are borderline paranoid about privacy, both for appearance and compliance perspectives.