This is an interesting answer to a question I always wanted to ask - how does the first law of Thermodynamics play into harnessing tidal/wave energy? Very interesting, and I'd love to see a citation if available.
I suppose the next question would be, What's the overall supply, and can/should we focus on not depleting it like we have done with hydrocarbons?
Again, the fact that you can use your PC for things other than running Valve's software is not a credit to Valve at all. They don't have anything to do with that.
You're absolutely right - I'm not defending Valve here (you could probably have found similar language in any other EULA), but rather bashing the bundled hardware/software model. The difference is that Steam's EULA applies to its software only, while Sony's applies to both its software & hardware by virture of the fact that you can't run their software on any other hardware.
You and I clearly have different priorities with how to spend our money, and that's just fine. The cost of installing the Steam client on a PC is $0, while the cost of bringing home a PS3 is $a few hundred. Should Valve alter their EULA to require all of my children & pets to be renamed "GLADOS", I'm out the money I spent on games in Steam. My other games still work, and I still have a killer frame rate in PowerPoint. If (as somebody suggested> the Sony EULA requires you to rename your kids "Sonny", then you're out the money you spent on games ($10 more than PC version in most/many cases) plus the cost of the box (and extra controllers, etc). You can probably sell that stuff for half of what you paid, but given your initial investment, you're still out more than the money I've spent on steam.
If I buy a factory sealed Widget, I expect the advertised features to work...at least for as long as the warranty lasts. The manufacturer retains the right to turn your PS3 into a paperweight. I understand a software license, and I accept it - software is intangible. I don't accept (or understand) a EULA for a machine that I have purchased.
Suppose Toyota figured out that they could fix their gas/brake pedal problems by installing software that incidentally also disables the radio. An functional radio is not central to operating a car, but it is a feature that I expect to work if it worked when I bought the car.
While the terms of the EULA are quite similar, the context is very different.
I don't see how that's Sony's apples and Valve's oranges. You can say PC versus PS3 is apples and oranges by your argument.
Fair enough, let's call it Valve's oranges to Sony's hammer. My point is that agreeing to an EULA in order to install software on hardware that I control is very different from buying hardware with a feature set that the manufacturer can change on a whim with absolutely NO recourse. Steam can be run on any supported hardware, while PS3 buyers have to shell out hundreds of dollars for the specific hardware Sony will support. If you don't like what Sony has done with their software updates, then your options are as follows:
1. Suck it, or
2. See option 1.
Companies treat their customers like this because their customers allow it.
Maybe PS3's/360's/ipods/etc should come with Surgeon General style warnings on the package, "FTC Commissioner's Warning: By purchasing this item, you consent to being treated like shit by the manufacturer for as long as you own the item."
Steam is software that runs on hardware you own and control. Decide after the fact that you don't like their software? Delete it from your hardware and lose the games you paid for. End of story.
PS3 is a black box (literally & figuratively) of both hardware & software. If you buy the hardware, you *should* have some semblance of control over that hardware. In fact, unless you bought that hardware very recently, you had the option of installing another OS on the hardware (which you bought, and presumably own). Now users are faced with the choice of which features they want to live without - lose PSN or lose running another OS.
Ironically, it could be that Valve is moving towards Steam running on Linux that may have been a motivating factor in the decision to remove the other OS feature in the first place.
Regardless of Sony's motivation, the hardware/software lock-in is what keeps me away from consoles, Ipods, etc. I prefer to own the hardware that I have purchased.
To your point that just because $x is not enough to live on in one place doesn't mean that it's not enough anywhere - I agree. However, given the rest of the information about conditions, it's an easy conclusion to draw that the wage is, in fact, not 'fair'. Economic relativity should not be used to justify moral relativism.
As a consumer of Chinese (and other developing nations') labor, it is on my conscience whether I support these practices by spending my fair wages on stuff assembled by people who get treated like livestock. I had no idea that it was cheaper to employ a person to stick the feet on a mouse than to have a machine do it. If the overall treatment (including wages) of employees was fair, would an automated assembly line be more cost effective?
Ok, wages are a piece of the puzzle here, but for a moment, take wage out of the equation, and consider the working conditions from TFA.
"We are like prisoners," one worker told the NLC. "It seems like we live only to work. We do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work."
I can relate to that from time to time, but when it's gotten really bad, I've been able to spruce up my resume & find a new (often better-paying) job with the skills that I've learned while 'imprisoned.' That's not the case here:
The workers - mostly women aged 18 to 25 - work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC.
They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
Add in a rich industrialist who adopts one of the spunky factory workers, sprinkle in a few production numbers, and we have Annie. Seriously though, I've worked as many hours for a week or two on end, but hey, I'm salaried, and sometimes I have to suck it up.
If they were paid whatever a reasonable wage is, then the rest of this crap wouldn't be going on. If it was a reasonable wage, then they could save up, send themselves to college & make a better life for themselves, and the factory would eventually run itself out of labor. Sweatshops don't retain employees with morale-boosting team activities or high wages. Instead employee loyalty is had by paying them just enough to maintain their state of poverty.
Hey, people in the work place have to keep their mouths shut already about politics without Facebook.
Maybe so (depending on where you work and what type of assholes you work for), but you can speak openly about your opinions at home or in a public place (even if your coworkers are there). The problem here is that it doesn't matter where you are when you post your rants, there's a possibility that your employer has subscribed to some service that will trawl the internets for your posts, similar to a pre-employment google search (which the last time we discussed it on/. we all agreed is bad too).
My biggest problem with the census is that the government is actively trying to include illegal immigrants in the process. My issue with that is that I don't want them counted. They have no right to vote and thus should have no influence on the number of congresscritters each state gets.
This sounds like Lou xenophobia (which is a strange in a country created by immigrants). Should we not count children under 18 then? They sure can't vote. Convicted felons? Maybe we can count every 3/5 of an illegal immigrant. That seemed to be how the Framers of the Constitution wanted to treat adults without the right to vote. http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=three+fifths+compromise
Members of Congress (should) represent their constituents regardless of whether they have the right to vote.
There are plenty of examples of 'stuff the government knows that I don't want others knowing.' How to build a nuclear weapon comes to mind. Watchdog organizations help to ensure that the line between National Security and Embarrassing Fuckup stays in an appropriate place. As a clearinghouse for evidence of embarrassing fuckups, Wikileaks is subject to Gestapo-esque tactics from time to time. That there appears to be no charges pending for treason indicates that this is an embarrassing fuckup, and not a breach of national security. I'm not proud of my government in this respect, but when you wield as much power as the US military, you're bound to lose perspective once in a while. It probably ought to be prosecuted as an attempt to deny civil liberties in order to help the government regain its perspective.
The problem statement here has been so incredibly glossed over, that the solution proposed fail to solve any root causes of the problem. What exactly is the problem? IMHO, health care costs too much.
Why does health care cost so much?
Nobody (who has the authority to do anything about this) has acknowledged the existence of a root cause of this problem so I'll make an attmpt. As evidence to health care costing 'too much,' I submit that regular chek ups (annual physicals, well-baby visits, etc) are covered by medical insurance. Why? Because the cost of walking past the reception desk at a doctor's office is more than my budget can handle. How is it that I can't afford to walk past the reception desk, but my insurance company can? Does car insurance cover oil changes?
To me, the primary cause of health care costing too much is that when a new treatment is developed, providers and insurers agree on how much this treatment costs, they codify it, and they never speak of it again. To put this into geek terms, what if the cost of an 80386 CPU was the same today as it was when it was released? Wouldn't an i7 have to cost more money? After all it has higher performance. This is precisely how the cost of a visit to a doctor's office or ER is determined, then the insurance company determines how frequent those visits will be spread out across their customers, so they'll have an idea how much they'll need to have to cover their costs. They then apply premiums, copays, deductibles, coverage maximums, etc in such a way that their costs are covered (more than covered in the case of for-profit insurance companies).
Not being a lawyer, I can't say for certain that the arrangement between providers and insurers amounts to illegal price-fixing. I would be very interested to see the DOJ explore this with the sort of vigor that they have with other industries run by abusive monopolies and oligopolies (railroads, steel, telecommunication, software, etc). Open-market competition *should* lead to lower prices, making insurance more affordable, leading to more people being able to afford insurance if they so choose.
The status quo allows providers & insurers make money hand over fist. Consider the ratio of hospitals in your area that have had a major addition/renovation in the last 5 years to those that haven't. Chances are that the hospitals that have had construction are non-profits, so they have to reinvest their profit back into the hospital. For-profits are doing just as well, as evidenced by the cars driven by the executives (for-profits give out bonuses, and thus are less likely to add a new wing). Insurers & providers have been successful in preserving the status quo by pointing the finger at each other in order to distract us from the fact that they control the costs that we're forced to pay if we want to receive modern medical care. They further hedge their bets by hiring lobbyists to distract lawmakers from attending to their constituents' concerns. I have to wonder who wrote that 10,000 page health insurance reform bill anyhow.
This seems like an ineffective use of legislation at first glance, but the next time somebody does the "your auto warranty is about to expire" trick, the first thing I'll ask is whether they logged any calls to Mississippi. If so, send their skinny little butts there for some quality time with the general prison population where they can think about what they've done.
I don't really even care about the fine. Throw them in the can with Bubba for a year per call to MS, and justice will have been done.
I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe.
Actually, we've written a stored procedure to determine whether or not you're interesting.
If the Chinese knockoff space shuttle is anything like the Rolex I bought in Tian Jin, then there's really nothing to see here. It will stop working as soon as it gets a little rain on it.
Not to get all semantic or anything, but I think that would be more of an assault rifle incentive rather than benefit. It's brilliant from a management perspective, as the incentive can be either a reward for good performance or a punishment for poor performance.
I'm pretty sure the EFF is tired of this crap, hence the request for prior art. I suppose though, that you're pointing to the fact that the patent is even considered, let alone issued.
the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
1. I'm going to patent 'not using a company's products and services' in order to prevent them from collecting data.
2. License my fantastic invention
3. Profit!!
Chicago is an excellent destination for museums. The Museum of Science and Industry would be along the lines of the Franklin Institue, Field Museum is good for natural history, Shedd's Aquarium is alright, you can even check out the Art Institute if you decide the right side of your brains need some stimulation.
Human trafficking? Drugs? Two obvious ones off the top of my head.
Exactly. This isn't necessarily the Chinese government, but perhaps some criminal enterprise that has an ajenda with the NYPD. We know the Great Firewall of China is relatively effective of keeping unwholsome content out of China, but what about the reverse? It is not so inconcevable that there are a bunch of pirated Win2k machines in internet cafes around the country that are members of some huge botnet.
Disclaimer: I'm a PayPal employee. I work in the AML/CFT Compliance policy group. This is based on my observations & opinions.
In a word, no. PayPal is not next. The crux of this plea/ruling is that eGold didn't previously acknowledge that they're a financial service.
PayPal is a registered MSB (Money Service Business), and is subjected to annual audits from state & federal regulators. Such audits include reviews of Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) programs.
IMHO, the paranoia that exists here at/. with the perceived Orwellian controls the government exerts on our finances are overdone - not entirely misplaced, but ovedone. The regulations that exist allow for the detection of criminal activity through the analysis of financial records. If you walk into a bank & deposit a duffel bag full of $20's, a CTR will (or should, according to the law) be filed. That doesn't indicate that you're a criminal, you might have been storing up your allowance for the last 30 years. Regardless, a paper trail will be created. Similarly, if you're the governor of New York, and you start wiring unreportable sums of money between your bank account, the financial institution is responsible for reporting this to the government. If it is found that you used that money to pay for a prostitute, the financial activity can be used as evidence. (see Elliot Spitzer)
Generally, the type of information provided to the government by banks & financial services is used by law enforcement to break up organized crime & drug rings. Ideally, crime would not be profitable, and such regulations wouldn't be necessary. If anybody can come up with a way to make that happen, please reply.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an interesting answer to a question I always wanted to ask - how does the first law of Thermodynamics play into harnessing tidal/wave energy? Very interesting, and I'd love to see a citation if available.
I suppose the next question would be, What's the overall supply, and can/should we focus on not depleting it like we have done with hydrocarbons?
Again, the fact that you can use your PC for things other than running Valve's software is not a credit to Valve at all. They don't have anything to do with that.
You're absolutely right - I'm not defending Valve here (you could probably have found similar language in any other EULA), but rather bashing the bundled hardware/software model. The difference is that Steam's EULA applies to its software only, while Sony's applies to both its software & hardware by virture of the fact that you can't run their software on any other hardware.
You and I clearly have different priorities with how to spend our money, and that's just fine. The cost of installing the Steam client on a PC is $0, while the cost of bringing home a PS3 is $a few hundred. Should Valve alter their EULA to require all of my children & pets to be renamed "GLADOS", I'm out the money I spent on games in Steam. My other games still work, and I still have a killer frame rate in PowerPoint. If (as somebody suggested> the Sony EULA requires you to rename your kids "Sonny", then you're out the money you spent on games ($10 more than PC version in most/many cases) plus the cost of the box (and extra controllers, etc). You can probably sell that stuff for half of what you paid, but given your initial investment, you're still out more than the money I've spent on steam.
If I buy a factory sealed Widget, I expect the advertised features to work...at least for as long as the warranty lasts. The manufacturer retains the right to turn your PS3 into a paperweight. I understand a software license, and I accept it - software is intangible. I don't accept (or understand) a EULA for a machine that I have purchased.
Suppose Toyota figured out that they could fix their gas/brake pedal problems by installing software that incidentally also disables the radio. An functional radio is not central to operating a car, but it is a feature that I expect to work if it worked when I bought the car.
I don't see how that's Sony's apples and Valve's oranges. You can say PC versus PS3 is apples and oranges by your argument.
Fair enough, let's call it Valve's oranges to Sony's hammer. My point is that agreeing to an EULA in order to install software on hardware that I control is very different from buying hardware with a feature set that the manufacturer can change on a whim with absolutely NO recourse. Steam can be run on any supported hardware, while PS3 buyers have to shell out hundreds of dollars for the specific hardware Sony will support. If you don't like what Sony has done with their software updates, then your options are as follows:
1. Suck it, or
2. See option 1.
Companies treat their customers like this because their customers allow it.
Maybe PS3's/360's/ipods/etc should come with Surgeon General style warnings on the package, "FTC Commissioner's Warning: By purchasing this item, you consent to being treated like shit by the manufacturer for as long as you own the item."
Sony's apples & Valve's oranges, really.
Steam is software that runs on hardware you own and control. Decide after the fact that you don't like their software? Delete it from your hardware and lose the games you paid for. End of story.
PS3 is a black box (literally & figuratively) of both hardware & software. If you buy the hardware, you *should* have some semblance of control over that hardware. In fact, unless you bought that hardware very recently, you had the option of installing another OS on the hardware (which you bought, and presumably own). Now users are faced with the choice of which features they want to live without - lose PSN or lose running another OS.
Ironically, it could be that Valve is moving towards Steam running on Linux that may have been a motivating factor in the decision to remove the other OS feature in the first place.
Regardless of Sony's motivation, the hardware/software lock-in is what keeps me away from consoles, Ipods, etc. I prefer to own the hardware that I have purchased.
To your point that just because $x is not enough to live on in one place doesn't mean that it's not enough anywhere - I agree. However, given the rest of the information about conditions, it's an easy conclusion to draw that the wage is, in fact, not 'fair'. Economic relativity should not be used to justify moral relativism.
As a consumer of Chinese (and other developing nations') labor, it is on my conscience whether I support these practices by spending my fair wages on stuff assembled by people who get treated like livestock. I had no idea that it was cheaper to employ a person to stick the feet on a mouse than to have a machine do it. If the overall treatment (including wages) of employees was fair, would an automated assembly line be more cost effective?
http://despair.com/discovery.html
"We are like prisoners," one worker told the NLC. "It seems like we live only to work. We do not work to live. We do not live a life, only work."
I can relate to that from time to time, but when it's gotten really bad, I've been able to spruce up my resume & find a new (often better-paying) job with the skills that I've learned while 'imprisoned.' That's not the case here:
The workers - mostly women aged 18 to 25 - work from 7:45 a.m. to 10:55 p.m. They eat horrid meals from the factory cafeterias. They have no bathroom breaks during their shifts, and must clean the toilets as discipline, according to the NLC. They sleep in factory dormitories, 14 workers to a room. They must buy their own mattresses and bedding, or else sleep on 28-inch-wide plywood boards. They "shower" with a sponge and a bucket. And many of the workers, because they're young women, are regularly sexually harassed, the NLC alleges.
Add in a rich industrialist who adopts one of the spunky factory workers, sprinkle in a few production numbers, and we have Annie. Seriously though, I've worked as many hours for a week or two on end, but hey, I'm salaried, and sometimes I have to suck it up.
If they were paid whatever a reasonable wage is, then the rest of this crap wouldn't be going on. If it was a reasonable wage, then they could save up, send themselves to college & make a better life for themselves, and the factory would eventually run itself out of labor. Sweatshops don't retain employees with morale-boosting team activities or high wages. Instead employee loyalty is had by paying them just enough to maintain their state of poverty.
yaaaay
Hey, people in the work place have to keep their mouths shut already about politics without Facebook.
Maybe so (depending on where you work and what type of assholes you work for), but you can speak openly about your opinions at home or in a public place (even if your coworkers are there). The problem here is that it doesn't matter where you are when you post your rants, there's a possibility that your employer has subscribed to some service that will trawl the internets for your posts, similar to a pre-employment google search (which the last time we discussed it on /. we all agreed is bad too).
Please record his tortured screams. It would be the first good reason to buy a CD in a LONG time.
My biggest problem with the census is that the government is actively trying to include illegal immigrants in the process. My issue with that is that I don't want them counted. They have no right to vote and thus should have no influence on the number of congresscritters each state gets.
This sounds like Lou xenophobia (which is a strange in a country created by immigrants). Should we not count children under 18 then? They sure can't vote. Convicted felons? Maybe we can count every 3/5 of an illegal immigrant. That seemed to be how the Framers of the Constitution wanted to treat adults without the right to vote. http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=three+fifths+compromise
Members of Congress (should) represent their constituents regardless of whether they have the right to vote.
Parent modded funny?
There are plenty of examples of 'stuff the government knows that I don't want others knowing.' How to build a nuclear weapon comes to mind. Watchdog organizations help to ensure that the line between National Security and Embarrassing Fuckup stays in an appropriate place. As a clearinghouse for evidence of embarrassing fuckups, Wikileaks is subject to Gestapo-esque tactics from time to time. That there appears to be no charges pending for treason indicates that this is an embarrassing fuckup, and not a breach of national security. I'm not proud of my government in this respect, but when you wield as much power as the US military, you're bound to lose perspective once in a while. It probably ought to be prosecuted as an attempt to deny civil liberties in order to help the government regain its perspective.
MOD PARENT UP!!!
The problem statement here has been so incredibly glossed over, that the solution proposed fail to solve any root causes of the problem. What exactly is the problem? IMHO, health care costs too much.
Why does health care cost so much?
Nobody (who has the authority to do anything about this) has acknowledged the existence of a root cause of this problem so I'll make an attmpt. As evidence to health care costing 'too much,' I submit that regular chek ups (annual physicals, well-baby visits, etc) are covered by medical insurance. Why? Because the cost of walking past the reception desk at a doctor's office is more than my budget can handle. How is it that I can't afford to walk past the reception desk, but my insurance company can? Does car insurance cover oil changes?
To me, the primary cause of health care costing too much is that when a new treatment is developed, providers and insurers agree on how much this treatment costs, they codify it, and they never speak of it again. To put this into geek terms, what if the cost of an 80386 CPU was the same today as it was when it was released? Wouldn't an i7 have to cost more money? After all it has higher performance. This is precisely how the cost of a visit to a doctor's office or ER is determined, then the insurance company determines how frequent those visits will be spread out across their customers, so they'll have an idea how much they'll need to have to cover their costs. They then apply premiums, copays, deductibles, coverage maximums, etc in such a way that their costs are covered (more than covered in the case of for-profit insurance companies).
Not being a lawyer, I can't say for certain that the arrangement between providers and insurers amounts to illegal price-fixing. I would be very interested to see the DOJ explore this with the sort of vigor that they have with other industries run by abusive monopolies and oligopolies (railroads, steel, telecommunication, software, etc). Open-market competition *should* lead to lower prices, making insurance more affordable, leading to more people being able to afford insurance if they so choose.
The status quo allows providers & insurers make money hand over fist. Consider the ratio of hospitals in your area that have had a major addition/renovation in the last 5 years to those that haven't. Chances are that the hospitals that have had construction are non-profits, so they have to reinvest their profit back into the hospital. For-profits are doing just as well, as evidenced by the cars driven by the executives (for-profits give out bonuses, and thus are less likely to add a new wing). Insurers & providers have been successful in preserving the status quo by pointing the finger at each other in order to distract us from the fact that they control the costs that we're forced to pay if we want to receive modern medical care. They further hedge their bets by hiring lobbyists to distract lawmakers from attending to their constituents' concerns. I have to wonder who wrote that 10,000 page health insurance reform bill anyhow.
This seems like an ineffective use of legislation at first glance, but the next time somebody does the "your auto warranty is about to expire" trick, the first thing I'll ask is whether they logged any calls to Mississippi. If so, send their skinny little butts there for some quality time with the general prison population where they can think about what they've done.
I don't really even care about the fine. Throw them in the can with Bubba for a year per call to MS, and justice will have been done.
I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe.
Actually, we've written a stored procedure to determine whether or not you're interesting.
EXECUTE IS_INTERESTING(5534289);
Very interesting indeed.
If the Chinese knockoff space shuttle is anything like the Rolex I bought in Tian Jin, then there's really nothing to see here. It will stop working as soon as it gets a little rain on it.
The guy even says they miss deadlines and the code they produce is crap.
Frankly, I'm SHOCKED that nobody has suggested that this guy works for Microsoft. I am reading /. at work, right?
Not to get all semantic or anything, but I think that would be more of an assault rifle incentive rather than benefit. It's brilliant from a management perspective, as the incentive can be either a reward for good performance or a punishment for poor performance.
100% utilization FTW!
Anyone else tired of this patent crap?
I'm pretty sure the EFF is tired of this crap, hence the request for prior art. I suppose though, that you're pointing to the fact that the patent is even considered, let alone issued.
the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
1. I'm going to patent 'not using a company's products and services' in order to prevent them from collecting data.
2. License my fantastic invention
3. Profit!!
It seems like it might be a DDOS attack. I was asked to pass through a CAPTCHA and I made it in. Try this link: https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox
Chicago is an excellent destination for museums. The Museum of Science and Industry would be along the lines of the Franklin Institue, Field Museum is good for natural history, Shedd's Aquarium is alright, you can even check out the Art Institute if you decide the right side of your brains need some stimulation.
Human trafficking? Drugs? Two obvious ones off the top of my head.
Exactly. This isn't necessarily the Chinese government, but perhaps some criminal enterprise that has an ajenda with the NYPD. We know the Great Firewall of China is relatively effective of keeping unwholsome content out of China, but what about the reverse? It is not so inconcevable that there are a bunch of pirated Win2k machines in internet cafes around the country that are members of some huge botnet.
I can only hope to compose such a strange and wonderful resignation some day.
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5017424/stewart-butterfields-bizarre-resignation-letter-to-yahoo
Disclaimer: I'm a PayPal employee. I work in the AML/CFT Compliance policy group. This is based on my observations & opinions.
/. with the perceived Orwellian controls the government exerts on our finances are overdone - not entirely misplaced, but ovedone. The regulations that exist allow for the detection of criminal activity through the analysis of financial records. If you walk into a bank & deposit a duffel bag full of $20's, a CTR will (or should, according to the law) be filed. That doesn't indicate that you're a criminal, you might have been storing up your allowance for the last 30 years. Regardless, a paper trail will be created. Similarly, if you're the governor of New York, and you start wiring unreportable sums of money between your bank account, the financial institution is responsible for reporting this to the government. If it is found that you used that money to pay for a prostitute, the financial activity can be used as evidence. (see Elliot Spitzer)
In a word, no. PayPal is not next. The crux of this plea/ruling is that eGold didn't previously acknowledge that they're a financial service.
PayPal is a registered MSB (Money Service Business), and is subjected to annual audits from state & federal regulators. Such audits include reviews of Anti-Money Laundering/Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) programs.
IMHO, the paranoia that exists here at
Generally, the type of information provided to the government by banks & financial services is used by law enforcement to break up organized crime & drug rings. Ideally, crime would not be profitable, and such regulations wouldn't be necessary. If anybody can come up with a way to make that happen, please reply.