Slashdot Mirror
EU Bans Sock-Puppet Blogs
PhilipMarlowe9000 writes in with news of a new EU directive that will take effect in the UK at the end of this year to ban "sock-puppet" reviews or websites, part of an EU-wide overhaul of consumer laws. From the article: "Businesses that write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be created by customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from 'falsely representing oneself as a consumer.' From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court. The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon."
Please keep in mind that fraud is not generally protected speech, particularly when it relates to commercial speech.
Technology seems to be lacking, here...
Regulating the internet usually works incredibly well. This is sure to do everything it is intended to do.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42 /Carlb-sockpuppet-02.jpg
I don't think 'sock puppet' is a particularly good term to describe what's apparently being described. You want 'astroturfing', I think, or maybe some subspecies of marketing virus.
...an additional account of an existing member of an Internet community to invent a separate user. (Not well-worded either, alas, but the point is there under the clumsy verbiage.)
The sock meme has always been personal rather than corporate, as in the Wikipedia entry:
Are corporations considered legal persons in Europe in general? If not - then good on you, Europe - you have the possibility of standing up to corporations and being legally consistent in cases like this.
Here, in order to enact a law like that, we'd have to take away the right from everyone, else have it overruled by courts.
Ryan Fenton
P.S. Yes, I do want to 'oppress' corporations, whenever they are in contest with the interests of most citizens.
Better question: why only US politics? Oh, that's right, because Slashdot is run by americans and they think they're arrogant enough to think they are the only country that matters.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I guess this seems to be aimed at astroturfing as well, but without the text of the law it's hard to tell if this is aimed strictly at reviews or statements of opinion...I think there is a fine line. If you're on a website posting a rating of something versus a fanboy website there is a difference - I think few people would have taken the Sony PSP website seriously had it even been from a real fan, just as those flame wars that happen on message boards everywhere rarely sway a person one way or the other. But if you're purporting to review something with all seriousness, I think that's blatantly misleading with intent to influence someone. Astroturfing can be more subtle even if they have the desired effect.
I'm not defending them, I'm just anticipating possible arguments from high paid lawyers if the text isn't specific enough.
and that is so sad...
"The Times has learnt that the new regulations also will apply to authors who praise their own books under a fake identity on websites such as Amazon.""
Slashdot is wonderful!
I know a few politicians I consider sock puppets for other entities. Can we ban them too?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
... at the request of City-TV and Ed the Sock, the CNBC are to ban the import of European TV programming.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
socks out, paper bags in.
there going to ban The Muppets...
It's going to cost thousands of corporate jobs and eliminate whole departments. What do they expect companies to do? Depend on actual positive feedback from customers?
you have a pointless life don't you.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
How easy would it be to get a competitor sued to oblivion by faking an IP addy?
put the what in the where?
The US recently arrested British citizens for the crime of visiting the US between connecting flights (oh, and having founded and subsequently retired from a money transfer company used by online gambling sites at one time before such a thing was made illegal).
It might be of interest to Americans to know that should they, or their company, or their former employer (all the way back to that job you worked evenings in high school), or any company that they might own stock in (or hold funds that hold stock in, etc) ever post any kind of positive review of themselves on the internet where it can be read in Europe, then you probably should schedule your flights to make sure none of them stop there.
So it's still related, even if only on the idea that one of these days some European agency is going to decide to play tit-for-tat for some of the stupid shit America does to them.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The interesting thing about thinking you're the only country that matters is that you are automatically right. After all, if you're from a country that doesn't matter, then why should I worry about what you're saying?
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I just want to say that without Slashdot, I would never have made it to where I am today. Kudos for a great website.
Sincerely,
Captain Burritto
Apparently there is no "outside the US" to a lot of American Citizens or their Politicians for that matter.. heh.
- paul
http://www.paulpichugin.com.au/
Pmp @ DeviantArt
At least the other guy had the sense to post anonymously. Feel like telling the world how much of a racist you are too?
How we know is more important than what we know.
This --is-- a joke, right?
What time limit would you suggest, before the US can arrest people in the US who have broken US law? Maybe they have to be in the country for 24 hours? Or should all criminals be allowed to leave the US freely? It would keep the prison population down, anyway...
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
...as long as Stick Stickly is safe, the world will continue to be a pure and unsullied place.
and apparently bigotry and ignorance exist outside the US too...heh.
I'm sorry, I should have been a little more explicit in that I wasn't expressing an opinion, just a thought about the logic box expressed in your statement.
Also, calling me a racist is an interesting turn. I have no idea what race you are, but I am of pan-European heritage, so it would be sort of silly for me to hate Europeans on the basis of race. I'll assume you were just a little emotional when you typed that.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Europe has got it right. Sites like these should be eradicated from the face of the internet. Please, think of the children!
Apparently there is no "outside the US" to a lot of American Citizens or their Politicians for that matter.
Don't be so ridiculus. Americans are educated to a very high standard of Geograhpy. There's Canada up North, and Mexico down South, go any further and you fall off the edge. Oh yeah, and there's Iraq and France too, that's where the baddies live, mind you have to fall off the edge to get to those places. OK I missed a few places, like China (that's where the Chinese come from), and Australia (which is a giant desert without any intelligent lifeforms) but that, basically is the rest of the world. It's no wonder they are all trying to move here!
If they're not in the US when they do it, they didn't break the law, and shouldn't be arrested. If I drive 60 in a 60MPH zone, does that mean I should be ticketed anytime I drive 35MPH in a 35MPH zone? If they did it years before the activity was made illegal and stopped doing it before it was made illegal, they didn't break the law.
Personally, I think that DAs and prosecutors that push such cases should be forced to pay the costs of it out of their own pockets. They made it personal, they should be personally punished. Take the Duke case, or better yet the case of the kid in Texas who was arrested for pulling the fire alarm but the prosecutor refuses to drop the charge despite the fact that the fire alarm log shows that the kid couldn't possibly have pulled the alarm. That'll fix the prosecutors who think that arresting everyone and letting the courts sort things out (at taxpayer and victim expense) is the solution to all of our problems.
They have hundreds of sock-puppet blogs, many of them with stale pages pretty much the same. (They thought they could bomb the search engines, ha ha!)
Does this law, in effect, prohibit companies like 4orty2wo entertainment from making alternate reality games? What exactly defines "falsely representing oneself as a consumer." and what authority decides this? I'm not a major ARG-player but I've enjoyed Haunted Apiary (ILoveBees) and ourcolony .. both of which were, pretty much, viral marketing schemes for Microsoft.. but were a lot of fun in the process.
Finally someone that gets it. This isn't about free speech, it's about false representation.
I was suggesting that you were openly admitting that "only the US matters" and, seeing as you're publically proclaiming something for which you should be ashamed, perhaps you'd like to admit to something else equally shocking. If you weren't admitting to such, please accept my apology.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is an EU political story that does not belong on slashdot at all.
True it has been mislabeled and doesn't belong in the 'Politics' section however the FAQ also says
This looks like an interesting story, which is technology related. It probably won't cause too much psychic distress, even for US residents, to keep informed about how the internet is being regulated in other jurisdicitions.
See this is the problem when you put a site up on the big bad internet --you are publishing internationally and your audience will be an international one (unless you have specifically restricted access). What's more some of these nasty foreigners will have the impertinence to answer back via commenting mechanisms or, horror of horrors, to submit content. So deal with it! ... or if you don't want to, just skip over the stories you have no interest in reading ... works for me!
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Either speech is free or it isn't, no matter what convenient label you want to put it under.
That's an easy position to take, because it is the expression of an ideal. In the real world, rights clash all the time. The rights of Individual A, when they come into conflict with those of Individual B, or of society at large, can't be absolute.
My right to defend myself does not give me the right to shoot someone in the head when they try to pick my pocket. My right to own property doesn't mean that I can drill down and inject anthrax into the groundwater. My right of free speech doesn't mean that I can spam millions of email users without consequence. It also doesn't mean that I can advertise Fruit Loops cereal as a cure for cancer. In Abstract World it sounds great to let the buyer beware, but just imagine how much of a drag that would be on society. Transaction costs would go up, because much more due dilligence would need to be done, just to conduct a simple purchase. Those with more free time and more resources would be able to conduct due dilligence. Everyone else would be put at a substantial disadvantage. That's a perversion of free speech, which is designed to protect political speech, not the fleecing of other citizens.
As a side note, your slippery slope argument may apply in some countries, but not in the United States.I don't know how it is elsewhere, but in the United States, commercial speech has been granted more 1st Amendment protection over the past few decades, not less.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"I'll assume you were just a little emotional when you typed that."
:)
You'll get use to the hormonal swings.
Hey all, I've been browsing Slashdot the other day and I discovered this amazing poster! He is smart, funny, very professional-sounding-like, always knows what he is talking about. I even went as far as moderating up some of his older posts, LOL!!!
posting from my crackberry. This thing needs a bluetooth keyboard.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Lol. ok I deserved that one :)
- paul
http://www.paulpichugin.com.au/
Pmp @ DeviantArt
There also goes any kind of marketing that was actually interesting (ARGs and the like)
It's funny how America treats airports as non-US territory when it suits them, such as when they don't want to carry the can for some asylum seeker or other undesirable, yet, do a complete about face when it does suit them. For a country that chest beats over its God inspired absolute morality it's just another weasel when you look at the detail. One way of sorting this out would be to sanction America. There might be a little short-term difficulty but the numbers show that Europe and Asia would just shrug it off. I'm all in favour of banning travel, trade, and the internet between America and the rest of the world. It's broken enough treaties, funded enough terrorists, and invaded enough countries to justify it.
I'll miss the press releases from entrepreneurds masquerading as news for nerds.
NOT!
Apparently there is no "outside the US" to a lot of American Citizens or their Politicians for that matter.
Don't be so ridiculus. Americans are educated to a very high standard of Geograhpy. There's Canada up North, and Mexico down South, go any further and you fall off the edge. Oh yeah, and there's Iraq and France too, that's where the baddies live, mind you have to fall off the edge to get to those places. OK I missed a few places, like China (that's where the Chinese come from), and Australia (which is a giant desert without any intelligent lifeforms) but that, basically is the rest of the world. It's no wonder they are all trying to move here!
I realized the rest of your post was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but what's the deal throwing the truth in there as a curve ball?Just kidding.
Should a drug manufacturer be able to advertise their product as a cure for everything from cancer to AIDS, even if the pill is nothing but sugar? Should they be allowed to air a television commercial on Fox news that looks just like a Fox news report about what a miracle this drug is? Or, should this company be allowed to use the same tactics to claim their competitors products have horrible (and completely made-up) side effects?
This is not about freedom of the press or individual expression. It's about keeping advertisers in check, to make sure their products do exactly what they claim- and to keep them from slandering their competitors with complete untruths. There's a good reason these laws exist; they didn't for the much of the twentieth and most of the nineteenth centuries and advertisers lied, fought dirty, made impossible claims, bought articles in the newspapers and laughed all the way to the bank. A reasonable amount of consumer protection is something a society should expect from their government, because the alternative is never knowing if that pill was tested, or what exactly is in that package of food...
There is no "slippery slope" where protecting you from corporate snake-oil salesmen will take away your personal freedom to express your opinion. This law regulates commerce, not speech.
OK I missed a few places, like China (that's where the Chinese come from),
What you should have said here is, "that's where all the stuff we buy at Wal-Mart is made".
I just finished creating a few dozen gmail accounts to prop up my Wikipedia entry and now this!!
Oh, and by the way could you please tell Howard to STFU and stuff a sock in his mouth regarding Obama?
Thanks.
Did not a big fat pantsless red guy named Allen not teach us that sock puppets hold the key to world peace?
Shame on the EU.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
wesbites? ouch!
What about the independent reports done by various companies with 'institute' in their name funded (often undisclosed) by the company they're reporting on? Does that come under this law?
t hink_tank_propagates_opensource/
They've been a few incidents with Microsoft where the 'institute' has put out a hatchet job report on one of their competitors, but without indication of funding. You can see they've been funded by MS in the past but what investigative tools would this law provide to allow us dig into that and see if it's sock puppet report?
For example:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/10/msfunded_
"In our original story we mentioned that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution takes money from Microsoft, but we couldn't say whether or not the company actually sponsored this report. We still don't know; but if style and FUD are any guide, and we were to venture a guess, we'd say this one's got "Redmond" written all over it."
Right. By that definition of free speech, any work of fiction could be banned. The government could ban Animal Farm, 1984, V for Vendetta, and any other dystopic works that haven't actually happened--and deprive us of many of our cautionary tales.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Sure, next time I see him.. Oh wait.. We have freedom of speech too... funny that.
I have to agree with Prime Minister John Howard on this point (not many of his other points though), Setting a date to pull out of Iraq is insane. The country needs to be properly stabalised first.. That said I think we need to more clearly define our goals in Iraq and one of them should be to pull out of Iraq after certain criteria have been met.
Whether or not he should have said it is up to his PR people to decide I guess.
- paul
http://www.paulpichugin.com.au/
Pmp @ DeviantArt
Uh, no, we don't have such laws. Those ADVERTISEMENT markings have nothing to do with the government. They are put there by the publishers, who are trying to protect their own reputation with their readers. (And of course, they are missing from publications that do not care about that.)
I am shocked that you (and presumably other people) are wandering around thinking that ADVERTISEMENTs are carefully labeled by the government to protect you, and imagining that things which are not labeled must be... what, non-commercial? True?
On radio, there are some restrictions about this, but they are extremely fast and loose.
You're a total fucking idiot. Really.
So, uttering a false cheque is protected free speech?
Bilking your grandmother out of her savings through a NIgerian scam is free speech?
Lying to someone so that they give you money is fraud, you fucking nitwit.
It doesn't matter if I pretend to be the deceased Prince Mobutu of Nigeria's wife trying to smuggle out his drug money or if I'm a corporation astroturfing. It's the act of trying to deceive people into giving you their money that is the crime.
The speech itself is a means to that end, but it's the totality of the circumstances that matter.
In other words: fuck you, you fucking fuck.
His website http://www.lowlandsdepowlands.nl/ will have to go!
This is called guerilla marketing.
There was a great documentary on UK TV last night by Jeremey Clarkson about America. His conclusion was that Americans often mate with vegtables, carry guns, are stupid and that no one should visit if they can help it.
One particular incident in Alabama where they encountered rock throwing sub-humans in a petrol ( or as they call it 'gas' ) station who didn't agree with them that "Country & Western music is rubbish, Nascar sucks and that Man Love Rules OK" is probably indicative of the moronic level of most American citizens.
Without intelligent lifeforms? We're a country of bloody Einsteins compared to New Zealand!
Comming from a country you wouldnt find on a map, I find this hilarious and true.
Olly: Folks, we here at the Precious Roy Home Shopping Network know how hard it can be to maintain a blog in the EU.
Sifl: Oh, you know the problem I've been having with my blog!
Olly: Sifl, you've got some serious-ass blogging-in-the-European-Union problems. But folks, with the new Precious Roy (R) Stealth Blogging Kit, you can self-aggrandize like there's no tomorrow!
[Olly continues with lots of outrageously false claims and eventually has yet another psychotic episode.]
I've just bought a new Microsoft Zune portable media playing device. I don't make snap purchases and like to decide carefully what products will offer the most benefits to me at a price point I can afford.
The new Microsoft Zune ticked all the right boxes during my reasearch, I am a stylish upwardly mobile kinda guy and it's stylish exterior styling suits my image perfectly whilst its carefully crafted hard drive and audio components are all constructed lovingly by the finest Microsoft craftsmen.
When I heard about the groundbreaking squirt feature I realised this unique new innovation set the Microsoft Zune head and shoulders above it's competitors ( such as the now old hat iPods ).
I like to feel I'm doing my bit to support my favourite artists so imagine my delight when using the Microsoft Music Store to find Microsoft are taking their obligations seriously and making sure groundbreaking artists ( in my case the amazing Phil Collins ) have the full support of Microsoft to continue producing new product.
With Phils latest and greatest securely housed in my new Microsoft Zune I was delighted and my friends were amazed when I "squirted" my particular favourite track to their Zunes ( everyone I meet is awestruck and wants one too just like mine ! ). I find 2 listens is plenty for someone to decide if they like a product and then it's simply a matter of a few clicks in Microsofts extremely easy to use and value for money Music Store to buy either the whole album or the track for themselves and lets Phil stop worrying about the evil pirates using their iPods to steal his music and allows him the freedom to plan his next magnificent opus free from worry.
Gosh I'm so excited by new Microsoft Zune ! This is probably the best day ever of my varied and exciting upwardly mobile and aspirational life ! Check in tomorrow when I take my Microsoft Zune off piste heliboarding to see how it shapes up on the slopes.
Now that it's illegal I admit that in 1997 I created hundreds of accounts on Slashdot to propagate Open Source as the best thing since sliced bread. I recall all I said - use Windows, it's awesome.
Hmm, if some US policy maker reads how advanced the laws are in the EU, they might consider copying it. Therefore it could be relevant to US government politics. Not like I expect they would create laws against lying companies.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Huh? No; all parts of the Constitution are considered to have basically equal weight, in terms of forming a document which itself is the supreme law of the land. It's not just the First Amendment that's law, it's all of the Constitution, which includes parts giving Congress the authorization to implement copyright and patents. While this may be literally contradictory, it just means that when viewed as a whole, the First Amendment right isn't unlimited, but constrained by other parts of the document.
You can't pull out certain Amendments and view them as if they were in a vacuum. You have to view them as portions of a greater whole.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
at first i thought shows like the muppets, freggles, triumph the insult comic dog, ...
would be banned in europe!
but now it seems that there's a whole new meaning to the word sock-puppet
I would essentially divide adverts and claims into one of five categories:
Only the first deserves total protection under commercial free speech. (Incidently, for those who have forgotten, the EU is not subject to the US Constitution. Yet. That military invasion is scheduled for next week on thursday.)
The second and third deserve a mild reprimand and maybe some assistance in clearing up confusion. Nobody deserves to be censured for doing their best, but inaccuracies that can cause greater harm need to be prevented. This shouldn't require censorship. Mutual respect, a little compassion and a little assistance would be to the benefit of everyone - society, company and government alike. You cannot outlaw ignorance, but you can get someone a library card.
The fourth and fifth have no place in society. Nobody - nobody at all - is so skilled in all subjects and all disciplines that they can accurately identify such lies, and far too often, one lie is sufficiently lethal. A fully-qualified neurologist can call bullshit on an anti-depressent claim, but is completely unqualified to tell you if a car advert is being honest. A mechanical engineer might be able to tell you about the car advert, but are unlikely to have the material science expertise to judge wood-treatment products.
Society isn't willing to pay each and every member within it to hold a dozen PhDs, so should not be expecting individual members to have earned them. Society is only willing to pay for education to the level of a sixteen-year-old, in many countries, and should set the standards of what the members of society can fully comprehend accordingly. If it gave better education, those standards would rise accordingly, but if they are to be meaningful, they must also be achievable. Personally, I think that moving the baseline up to a masters level in at least one subject would go a long way to removing the harm of bad advertising, and that if education were to such a standard, laws on commercial free speech could be more relaxed. You can expect more of people when they're capable of giving more. However, as long as ignorance and lack of education is not only the norm but a cost-effective way to live in many countries, standards on commercial speech have to be sufficiently restrictive for these artificial sheep to be kept alive.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"While England doesn't spell out its free speech rights as absolutely as the US"
Au contraire :
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
All those free speach advocates should keep in mind that in other parts of the world, only natural persons - read: people - have protected free speach, while companies have not.
Watch me as I telephone the police
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Just sit behind a Tor Network (http://tor.eff.org/) and post away. All this work by the EU will be wasted.
Matthew 10:21
Corporate personhood is a term used to describe the legal fiction used within United States law that a corporation, under the concept of legal entity, has a limited subset of the same constitutional rights as a human being
Here in the EU, there is a very clear distinction between a person and a company.
...gets tiresome. Almost all modern countries have some sort of "legal personhood" instituted for corporations, independently of any US legal peculiarities. Why? Because it's damn practical, that's why.
Of course, the bonus rights of corporate persons (limited liability, etc.) is everywhere balanced by bonus obligations - i.e. huge amounts of regulation that normal persons are not subject to.
You would assume there could be a rationale for having this also apply to politicians falsely representing themselves as voters.
Then you know that it would never pass, as several political parties in Europe do it. Last year, a Swedish politician was caught operating with at least three different personas (single mother etc) writing teardripping stories on forums and to the press about the cruelty of the opposition. And I cannot imagine they would be the only party to do so.
The last thing politicians want is criminal prosecution. Therefore, no go.
Perhaps we could do a thing where companies voted on what would be illegal and punishable for politicians, and vica versa?
they should ban sock-puppet lobbying groups such as the "Initiative For Software Choice"...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
If the idea catches on, Sites like digg.com will have a lot less traffic. ;-)
n _to_be_named_and_shamed
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/UK_fake_bloggers_soo
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
It does have some effect -- though it's not enforced as well as I'd like -- for example movies with paid product-placements are accepted, despite imho being a straigthforward violation of the above law. No idea why.
Hos about "fake" reviews by gaming sites or hardware sites (many of them having a deal with publishers/manufacturers), or TV shows which present new cars?
It's all fraud marketing with lots of praising and hiding of facts.
Just to let any interested astroturfer know that I am available for posting whatever and whereever you want me to; for a modest fee obviously. Thank [$DEITY] for the EU bureaucrats! New business opportunities just keep popping up...
When a new law is written and put into action, people's debate center around two opposing opinions: is it good, or is it bad.
/for example/ face public humiliation and mockery before they decide that this wasn't a good idea to begin with?
Granted, every law can be bad or good, but we're missing the big picture. Have you seen the proposed European consitution? The Bible's both testaments are nothing compared to it.
Every time you put a law about something, you need to be really friggin sure that the right solution is *legal*. Otherwise we end up in a system so complicated and flawed (every law is imperfect, you know this), that nobody understands it at all, and the rules are so many and in many cases conflicting with each other, that the only way to apply them is selectively and "with a spin", depending on the lawyer/prosecutor/citizen bias.
We all fall pray to lawyers and the juridical system setting traps for us on every step to doing something.
Should fake blogs and reviews be banned? They shouldn't be encouraged, but a law is excessive. I mean, how many times should Sony
Fake marketing right now is, in most instances, easily recognizable. If we decide to patch the situation with a bunch of "moral" and "smart" laws, then the corporations in question will just get stealthier, and hire few more lawyers to let them workaround the law.
In the end, we gain nothing, except more complexity, and more lawyers. Great.
How come everyone's saying in response to the viral marketing post that viral marketing (or indeed any marketing) is Bad and Something Ought To Be Done About It, yet when Something is proposed to be Done About It, everyone is yelling about 'free speech'?
(Of course, free speech actually has nothing do to with this situation; the 'rights' (an artificial concept in any event) are to allow people to express opinions without retribution, not to assist them to deliberately deceive.)
Y'know, for a moment (after I read the headline, before I read the description), I thought they were referring to sock puppets literally. I was rather confused as to why the EU would outlaw something so (usually, anyway) innocent.
As for banning astroturfing, that, I can understand.
I had the same first thought too.
"What the? Sock puppets? Is this a problem in Europe?"
Lorry / Truck; Sock-puppet / Astroturfing, I suppose.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
How else are the politicians supposed to get Brib..er.. tip$?
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Wonder if it covers interested parties saying great things about companies they then want to sell shares in? Have to go and read it I suppose.
No they'll be running the country as usual....
Which isn't surprising considering you're mainly going up against sheep :P
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
But I liked the Pets.com sock puppet commercials.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
This sounds like a good idea at first sight, until you realize how intrusive enforcement can become, and how much collateral damage enforcement may take.
In some countries in the EU, some lawyers have made it their business to send out letters claiming they are injured parties and demanding recompense from you if they think you violated some regulation; you have a choice of paying these bloodsuckers or wasting your time in court even if the accusations are groundless. The more senseless regulations you get, the more you are going to see abuses like that. If this law were really effective consumer protection, it might be worth it on balance, but I just don't believe it will help much.
The core of the offence is that the poster is being paid to mouth other people's opinions. That is miserable work, most people want to give voice to their own opinions. So they move on and talk in the pub about their old job. It all comes out.
Also UK law says that there is no confidentially in iniquity. If the conduct is illegal it is automatically not confidential, which makes it all the more likely to leak out.
"And that's exactly why COMMERCIAL speech is separated from NORMAL speech; commercial speech is telling people about a product, which could have a major impact on their life."
So, speech should be free only if it's about things that can't possibly have a major impact on someone's life?
I am for truth-in-advertising laws. I'm not crazy about snake oil either. But the laws shouldn't have to be legally enforced before the ads come out, and there should be a fair hearing when those laws are invoked. There's always a slim chance that the "snake oil" actually works--think of aspirin. (I don't encourage people to use snake oil on that basis, but...)
What this law would do in the UK would be to prevent things like a company putting out flyers in one part of the store to extol the benefits of a product which has not been legally proven to have benefits and thus cannot have those benefits written on the product's label. Avon ladies will not be allowed to distribute homemade flyers on the insect-repelling benefits of original Skin-So-Soft. Health food stores won't have racks of pamphlets on the benefits of herbs that are sold elsewhere in the store.
I object to "commercial speech should not be free because it can impact lives" because the same argument applies to some political speech. Freedom of speech was formalized in America for the benefit of life-changing political speech, so...
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Yes. You have the right to call yourself all these things. Just don't be surprised if no one believes you.
On the other hand, the gov. doesn't seem to think that people who aren't cops have the right to say they are cops...
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
The Emperor doesn't have any clothes on. The EU isn't such a good idea, are you starting to see why?
Now the EU has to ban sock puppets. I wonder what thoughts and forms of communications it will have to ban next. Frightened and vindictive little bureaucrats in little jobs always do things like this. Where my son works, he was told to "keep your feet off that trash can, it's company property!".
I do understand that it's traditional to blame America first, and to regard Americans as over-hasty nuclear cowboys. I would hate to break any traditions here. As Ted Taylor (the gifted nuclear weapon designer Taylor) noted, most of the theoretical group at Los Alamos were liberal Democrats. (from: The Curve of Binding Energy, John McPhee). It's a funny old world.
There is something just the littlest bit ironic about posts complaining of gullible Americans that originate in EU countries.
I read, I smile, I move on. -- thanks, Dave Small
Setting a date to pull out of Iraq is insane. The country needs to be properly stabalised first..
So, in other words, you'll never pull out.
That's quite possibly true as well. Nobody has successfully stabalised the area in the last 4000 years..
- paul
http://www.paulpichugin.com.au/
Pmp @ DeviantArt
Because "Simon Garlick" would know, since he pimps his kids out to every perv in the county for only 250 bucks a night...
See? That's all that's necessary to put a stop to such trash..Nothing more. But here, you're on the "right" side of the fence, and we can see how the point spread will go. Already evidenced by the above score. So be it. It's your world. Do with it as you wish. I'm just a visitor. I just find you people to be odd, in that you don't seem to mean what you say or say what you mean. I have trouble with latter, myself.
PS. Required disclaimer...just in case some whacko takes this too far:
My previous comment is, to the best of my knowledge, untrue..... and don't you dare restrict my right to say it!
Oh wait... maybe true free speech IS an absolute. Not only that, It couldn't be more clearly, undeniably stated in America's most "valuable" document. Or are we just supposed to keep on guessing how far it really goes? There's obviously still plenty of disagreement over such a simple statement. Who ever thought that the LAW industry would reap such huge profits over "...no law..."? That's quite a paradox!
What?
Even in countries like Canada, the UK, Germany and US which claim to treasure free speech, there's always some kind of pressure to suppress critics of those in power. In countries like the above, but especially the UK and US, suppression of free speech isn't carried out by governments as such, but by huge commercial entities, who threaten people exercising free speech rights with libel or slandel lawsuits.