Ahh yes, fine companies $1000 for each complaint received. Surely nothing will go wrong and nobody would ever think to do this to sink their competitors? Surely the government overhead of enforcing this would be cheap?
It’s so weird to read all of these HN comments that can’t take basic realities of the internet and regulation into account.
Suggesting automatic $1000 fines to companies for “complaints received” is the most obviously exploitable system, which is bizarre to see on a site that usually brainstorms ways something can be exploited.
Websites like Hacker News would disappear because they can’t risk $1000 every time someone complains or if someone posts something that might be an ad. Reddit gone, forums gone, Discord gone.
The internet would become a walled garden of pre-approved corporate content, viewable only after you verify your ID and add a credit card to confirm that you're an adult.
You're targeting this at the wrong end. Fine the advertisers for buying the ad space, not the platforms for showing it. Make disclosure of recipients of advertising expenditure mandatory for tax purposes. Hiding advertising expenditure? Fraud. Failure to disclose? Well, you don't get tax write-offs on undisclosed expenses, so nobody would do that.
Nah, let the tech companies figure it out while getting sued. It's a pressure on the market that gets the incentives aligned. Edge cases are a good thing here, as it leads to a desired outcome that age verification and permissioning are legit because you can be sued to pieces.
Can't run your social media without advertising or ad-funded content? Mission accomplished.
- Record a social media site advertising to a user who is under XX years old. Complain to a portal.
- Fine $1000 x complaint received each month.
- Continue to do so until the service's accounts satisfy some sort of auditing standard.
Come on, we do this for all kinds of things like credit card information and other data certifications.