There is some absurdity in the safe harbor provisions that cover people outside of US legal jurisdiction and also that provide protections even when the provider has no actual business relationship with the customer or even any idea who the customer actually is.
I've felt that an argument could be made that safe harbor provisions should only apply when the service provider can provide an actual identity associated with an account and that that person is within US legal jurisdiction.
> I've felt that an argument could be made that safe harbor provisions should only apply when the service provider can provide an actual identity associated with an account and that that person is within US legal jurisdiction.
1) How would they be able to verify that identity for a reasonable cost without being opened up to a DDoS vulnerability against their finances?
2) What happens when every country does it based on local jurisdiction and the internet gets balkanized?
#1 is like asking "how can this industrial chemical company be profitable if they can't just dump their waste in the sewers?" If a business model is only profitable because they can externalize some of the problems associated with that model, it does deserve certain scrutiny and those who are harmed by the model should have some recourse.
> #1 is like asking "how can this industrial chemical company be profitable if they can't just dump their waste in the sewers?" If a business model is only profitable because they can externalize some of the problems associated with that model, it does deserve certain scrutiny and those who are harmed by the model should have some recourse.
I'm not aware of any other business that is legally required to record every customer and link them to RL identities. You can still buy things with cash.
So yeah, that is a terrible and blatantly false analogy.
You are basically saying "Everyone has to be a subscription service with verifiable identities."
Why are you on a site you believe morally shouldn't exist?
>I'm not aware of any other business that is legally required to record every customer and link them to RL identities. You can still buy things with cash.
Go buy a gun sometime. Or non-prescription cold medications that contain pseudoephedrine. Or prescription medications. Or auto insurance.
However, my response was not about identities specifically, but about whether society should really care if the things that it requires organizations to do as a prerequisite of doing business are inexpensive. Sometimes we make the judgment that it really is worthwhile to require a pharma lab to spend half a billion dollars before we let them sell their new pill to the public.
>Not in the Western world.
Do you not consider Europe as part of the Western world?
>That isn't an example of what we are talking about and you should know that. If they can't enforce things as they do now, they'd need to block domains/firewall a la China.
It is exactly what is being talked about. Countries impose their laws on companies operating in their jurisdictions. Sometimes even on organizations that are outside of their jurisdiction as well. E.g. the pirate bay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_blocking_access_to_T...
The internet is already a mix of legal jurisdictions and you can face legal consequences for your word press blog in some random country.
>You really are missing the point. You are talking about one off transactions of a substantial dollar value and not short-term online accounts with values measured in pennies.
Cold medicine costs seven or eight bucks, but you still have to present ID to buy it. Regardless, your complaint reinforces the fact that there are business models that are only profitable because they can externalize the damages they cause or divert profits away from those who deserve the profits of a particular work to themselves as a service provider.
> Cold medicine costs seven or eight bucks, but you still have to present ID to buy it. Regardless, your complaint reinforces the fact that there are business models that are only profitable because they can externalize the damages they cause or divert profits away from those who deserve the profits of a particular work to themselves as a service provider.
So you want to expose people's IDs over the internet? o.O k
What is the benefit to requiring proof of jurisdiction, and do you really see that benefit being worth making most Internet forums — including this one — almost impossible to run legally?
It seems to me the end effect of holding hosts' liable for users' speech would be that only the rich are allowed to communicate anything on the Internet.
Those who are causing hurt remotely from a country outside any jurisdiction where the victim can realistically get help are already immune to justice.
This discussion is, in large part, about whether services that knowingly or unknowingly help such people to cause harm but are within a jurisdiction where the victim can realistically get help should be immune as well.
I wouldn't necessarily go as far as wang_li suggested in their first comment on this thread myself, but the general sentiment isn't unreasonable.
I've felt that an argument could be made that safe harbor provisions should only apply when the service provider can provide an actual identity associated with an account and that that person is within US legal jurisdiction.