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Steam Fined $3 Million For Refusing Refunds (smh.com.au)
Gaming company Valve Corporation has been hit with a $3 million fine after the Federal Court found its online games site Steam breached Australian Consumer Laws. From a report: The court imposed the maximum fine requested by Australia's competition regulator because of Valve's disregard for Australian law and lack of contrition. Valve's general counsel, Karl Quackenbush, told the court the company did not obtain legal advice when it set up in Australia, and did not check its obligations until the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission got involved in April 2014. It only provided staff verbal instructions. This lack of interest in Australian laws and lack of cooperation encouraged Justice James Edelman to impose a pentaly 12 times more than Valve Corporation suggested it pay.
What kind of idiots are the people running this company? Do they actually think they're running a Mom and Pop store?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Nope. This is just more No Man's Sky backlash.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
How could ANYONE be stupid enough to not check local laws when opening in a new COUNTRY? I see that Valve is privately held, and apparently the owners aren't really very good at the detail work on things like this.
I've said before that you can't run a company only by listening to lawyers (and quite frequently you need to ignore them when they get too protective), but that doesn't mean you don't need them at all!
I applaud Australia for levying a fine high enough that someone will perhaps notice and wish to avoid a repeat.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
It is a penalty, which is divisible by five.
Damn straight. Let's get the government out of the affairs of business entirely. No more consumer protection and no more business protection. Including no more court-enforced debt collection, garnishment, or intellectual property rights. If a business can't pry the money out of my hands, market itself out of "consumer confusion" by counterfeit products, and make their product uncopyable, them screw 'em. It should be the consumer's choice on how they deal with business, and businesses are free to decide whether they wante to enter the market or not.
Legal protections are part of a compact between businesses and their customers. They must protect both sides. Otherwise, there's nothing to convince the unprotected side to respect the protected side except raw force.
"During the case the court heard Valve did in fact offer more than 15,000 refunds if a customer was unable to install a game, or unable to play it, or where a subscriber purchased the wrong version of a game by mistake."
So WTF are Aussies fining Steam $3M? Because they can't beat Pac-Man?
Gaming may not be a right, but under the Australia Consumer Law, refunds on products that fail to meet reasonable expectations are. Valve was being stupid.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's when you get screwed over five different ways.
I support strong consumer protection laws. These are simply a group of people getting together and saying, collectively, if you want to do business with us, then these are the overall guiding terms by which you need to do that business. This is, essentially, just an umbrella contract. Steam didn't look at the umbrella contract for the group of customers it was dealing with, and now has to pay the penalty specified in that contract. How is this anti free market? Every market has rules. Look at the insider trading laws, or anti competition laws in your own country - they are almost incomprehensibly complex. They exist because left to itself, business (which exists solely to line the pockets of its shareholders) left to its own devices is an amoral entity that will literally do anything to make money.
The fact is, it was Valve's choice to do business with Australian customers. They could have chosen not to. Doing business in Australia is not Valve's right.
Unless Valve has branches in Austrailia, I wonder how they intend to collect the fine if Steam decides not to pay up?
Actually, due to agreements between the US and Australia they can now be pursued in US courts. Its similar to if an Australian company violated US laws whilst selling digital product to Americans would be able to be sued in Australia for violating those laws. Ignorance of those laws is not a defence.
Its actually quite an open and shut thing. Pulling out of a country after the fact is not a defence either. Also even if they had branches in Australia, the legal path via another country is the preferred method. Seizing property is the absolute last resort.
It's similar to if you committed a crime in Germany, you cant run back to the US and say "ner, ner, you cant catch me". You can bet your arse the American courts will enforce their judgement, Its just that it's not worth the German courts time and money chasing you over a 30 Euro speeding fine.
Besides, Australia is worth more than $3,000,000 to valve which is actually quoted in Australian dollars so it's closer to US$2,150,000.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It stands to reason since the countries that put words like "democratic" or "people's republic" in the names of their countries tend to be authoritarian dictatorships that we shouldn't simply trust that a country with the word "socialist" in it is some kind of utopia for workers. However, the authoritarian aspect of a country should be removed from their economic policies. The Nazis were far from socialist and their economic policy something that changed though out their reign. Early on their 25-point plan contained a lot of points that have more in common with communist or socialist positions such as nationalizing industries, more equitable sharing of profits for workers, and the like. It also contained a lot of aspects of nationalism (e.g. a German people, limiting immigration, etc.) which is why it had the name National Socialism in the first place.
However, once they were in power there wasn't a clear push in either direction. The Nazis privatized some parts of the existing government while at the same time nationalizing companies, particularly those that would be used to fuel their war machine. They also outright took over the labor unions to the extent that they were controlled by the party and essentially made them functionally useless. There wasn't a clear cut push for outright government (or worker) control of industry nor was there a hand's off free market approach.
Trying to lump Nazi Germany into one basket (left) or the other (right) ignores a lot of the fine detail. In some regards they leaned left, and in others right. On the whole they probably came closer to the center than most people would care or like to admit and I think it had less to do with any sense of economic ideology and more with doing whatever was most effective in terms of building their army or supporting the war effort.
Hahaha... Actually, you leftist progressive nutjobs skewed the political spectrum a while back because it was really hard to sound reasonable when you were arguing against conservative centrists as a left wing socialist progressive. The correct and original political spectrum looks like this:
- Left wing: totalitarian government involved in all aspects of daily life
Examples: Nazi (new socialists), socialists, fascists, progressive left, etc
- Centrists: limited government to do what is needed for the common good (military, legal system, roads, etc.)
Example: conservatives (those advocating for minimal change from status quo)
- Right wing: minimal or no government (Libertarians)
Extreme examples: anarchists
Nazi/fascist/socialists are all cut from the same cloth. They all want totalitarian governments that have massive power and control over your daily life. How someone marked the AC post above informative just shows how effective the propaganda and brainwashing of the main stream media and higher education together are.
The sad truth is that the Aussies and UK for example are both less free than they were 40 years ago, with a bigger nanny state. They both gave up their guns as one example, but violent crime increased dramatically, doubling in the UK from pre ban years. (The gun grabbing facists try to conflate and confuse by citing "gun crime" as down, which is true when all guns are confiscated, but as a citizen, do you care if you are robbed or murdered with a machete or a gun? no you care that you were assaulted, which is twice as likely after gun bans).
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Companies often try to use licenses and agreements to get around laws. It can be amusing when they find out that this doesn't actually work. The laws specifying the circumstance where a refund is required are very simple and not unreasonable. A customer that just changes their mind has no legal right to a refund. A product that does not live up to the claims there were made by the seller, is defective or not fit for purpose must be refunded. A truthful seller has nothing to fear.
The ACCC regularly goes after companies for breaches of Australian corporate law and $3M is not a big fine when you consider Steam refused a lot of refunds where it was legally required to give a refund. Only weeks ago a drug company was fined $6M over misleading claims. Individual offences can be up to $10M per breach.
In Australia it is actually an offence for seller to put up sign stating that no refunds are give under any circumstances.
When it comes to software being fit for purpose and living up to the original claims there are extra complications compared to a physical product. An update that changes functionality so that the original claims are not met or that makes the software no long fit for purpose could leave the buyer with a right for a refund. It might not be a complete refund, depending on the time it was in use and actual changes but it give sellers something to consider. Again, an honest and truthful seller that does not screw their customers has nothing to fear.
To determine whether Nazism was a Leftist or Rightist movement, just look at whether they believed in limiting the size and scope of government. Answer is a huge 'NO'. They were big believers in big government, but since Communists were one of the groups that they decided to persecute, nobody ever recognized them as being Left Wing
Nazi's were Fascists, the epitome of right wing politics. Anyone who has studied any history would recognise that and the parallels in politics today.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Irrelevant. The Nazi governments, repealed German Citizens rights, shutdown the constitution with the 'Reichstag Fire Decree' and threatened those who opposed the legislation with the SS and the SA. The Socialist democrats that you are demonizing are the only Germans who stood *against* Hitler. Case in point is that under these regimes left wing opponents like union and community leaders were rounded up and put in concentration camps by right wing fascists who bought us history like the mass murder of Jews.
That you bring up Mussolini, the very template of right wing fascism that believes that any form of liberal democracy should be replaced with totalitarian one party martial government, shows the vapid little thought bubble you have had, has burst. Go and learn some history instead of trying to re-write it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.