I sincerely hope you're exaggerating on the outcome in the US, but yeah, as a French, I'm kinda proud of my country's courts on that one.
Even the prosecutor was pretty lenient, it seems: calling for 70 euros worth of community service is rather symbolic. Although, that's probably a case of misreporting. IANAL, but I'm familiar with French procedures (out of curiosity), and as far I know matters like community service is none of the business of a prosecutor: it's a substitution to classic penalties that must be approved by the condemned (otherwise it would be forced work), and it's up to the judges to supervise that, not the prosecutor. I suppose the prosecutor required a 70 euros fine as the official requisition of the public ministry (which is in their attributions) and advanced in their speach before the courts that it could be turned into community service (something a prosecutor is perfectly entitled to say if they feel so).
Anyway, I like the (overall) sanity of my country's courts.
I don't know about the rest of the EU, but in France there's basically no equivalent to class actions. There have been talks about putting them into law, but it has been deemed "bad for the economy" (under the previous administration - maybe the new one will bring it back on the table). There's still ground for individual action, though, if only on the basis of privacy protection.
France, out of nowhere, is suddenly showing surprising competitiveness in the "Passing dumbass laws so the rest of the world can see what a bad idea they are" department.
A lot less dumbass than elsewhere: 150 euros is a slap on the wrist.
Well, that doesn't make the law any less dumb. In theory, the fine can be ten times that, and can be accompanied with a one month suspension of internet access.
Now, courts can't just ignore the law, but it just so happens that they have a lot of leeway about the effective penalty they pronounce (to the point that, very rarely, a person can be condemned without penalty). This is a case of the courts, not the law, being reasonable.
Maybe the current government, too: the procureur (prosecuting magistrate) required 300 euros in fines, of which 150 euros suspended (still nothing absurdly harsh). The judge decided for just 150 euros, and the prosecutor, it seems, wont appeal. In France, prosecuting magistrates are hierarchically under the Minister of Justice, who defines the general policy of prosecution (this link bears many kinds of issues that are a common matter of debate, but that's not the point here).
The coalition in power since last spring had shown (granted, not uniformly) some hostility to the law when it was voted, and managed to cause some hiccups (which were reported on Slashdot, but I feel to lazy to find the links). So maybe, just maybe, the current government instructed the prosecutors not to be too heavy-handed (the government can't jusk ask prosecutors to ignore the law, either).
The entire three-strikes system is being audited, by the way. Unlikely to be totally nullified, but who knows? For one thing, it's extremely expensive (tens of millions since its creation) and yields very little. And French magistrates (both prosecuting and judging ones) are generally reluctant to pronounce high penalties just "for the example", so it's unlikely that this will ever yield significantly more.
Modeling is a skill that's necessary to developers, and even to base coders it doesn't hurt. And it's also useful to entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to modeling flows of information and materials. They can delegate that skill, of course, but it's only a possibility in a large enough structure. To a small to medium company, having some skills in that matter is important. Owners of very small companies often manage to do that intuitively, but it only works to an extent, and can cause problems when they expand.
I sometimes half-jokingly state that if a company grows enough that it can have a second coffee machine, a full audit of the information system should be performed before said coffee machin is installed: it might disrupt informal communications between branches (who often happen around the coffee machine), which calls for a formalisation of communications before proceeding.
To sum up: management students have some courses in common with developers.
In one of the cases, he admitted himself that they had sex with protection, then later he engaged in intercourse, without protection, while she was asleep. That's rape by surprise. Clear and simple.
Ah, worth noting indeed. I'm not familiar with English legalese, and IANAUSC; so I may have got a bit carried away in general concepts.
Would you be so kind as to point me to some reliable and layman-accessible resource about that proper constitutional sense of the word "right"? No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested.
Apparently some people have never heard of Asymetry of Information. Mostly the same people who babble about the Invisible Hand without knowing anything about what the concept means and is based on.
This is the same dodgy reasoning that says 'natural' remedies are better because they're 'natural' and so are we... politely ignoring that what you're putting into yourself has been processed and altered (dried, heated, distilled).
On this specific matter, it's more often a matter of being not processed enough
For example, digitalin, an extremely useful drug for some heart conditions, and is an extract from digitalis, a very toxic plant.
Another case is aromatherapy, which means using essential oils as therapeutic drugs, or components of therapeutic drugs. There are two problems with this stuff.
First, essential oils need to be extracted, and some methods are quite dirty, leaving plenty of shitty chemicals in the final product (including traces of acetone). Seriously, in the EU, the efforts to correctly label, and enforce said labelling, of actual best practices in the production of essential oils, have only started rather recently (ten years ago or so).
Second, many gullible people think that, because essential oils are just simple extracts of plants, they are inoccuous. And that lead them to unsupervised automedication. While pharmacologists have recently been making genuine efforts to scientifically assess the efficiency of essential oils, they also found out that some can be very toxic at high dose. And some, not even at high doses. An overdose of melissa essential oil can be lethal, for example. Don't take my word for it, but I seem to remember sassafras essential oil can cause photosensitive allergies. That's my point, actually. Essential oils are effectively active drugs, and should be taken with caution, like every active drug.
And I'm saying this as someone who's been raised in a fairly phytotherapy/aromatherapy household. But when I see a website about essential oils that doesn't start with a word of warning on its first page, I feel like burning it down.
Ah, well spotted... This wording is indeed problematic. Government bodies have no rights, only missions, and anything that isn't part of their missions is forbidden to them.
Unfortunately they have so far declined to provide any evidence to support their position, I have no evidence to support mine, so it's my word against theirs.
No, it's not. If they have no proof you agreed, they are clearly in violation of your rights. On this respect, the burden of proof is on them, as long as you have proof that it was they who disclosed your data to third parties.
Then again, I don't really know how the enforcement of this works in the UK.
Right-o, and this is the reason why, for example, pretty much every IRC server includes a nickserv, since IRC by itself doesn't include account registering.
Ah, but I'm not saying that British Rail wasn't doing it wrong. I'm saying that Railtrack obviously did an even worse job. I'm happy to learn that Network Rail Ltd is doing a good job. And it's a government-owned entity, but unless I'm mistaken it's less tightly controlled by the government than British Rail was. And it's a good thing too. I'm in favor of a government having a say on some industrial matters, but preferably in terms of broad directives rather than in the form of micro-management: the latter is open to various kind of inefficiencies, including clientelism.
Slashdot Mirror
Good question. Most likely just the EU. The role of the Irish DPC is, among other things, to ensure compliance, in Ireland, to the Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. There's no such provision (that I know anyway) on the Council of Europe's level.
I sincerely hope you're exaggerating on the outcome in the US, but yeah, as a French, I'm kinda proud of my country's courts on that one.
Even the prosecutor was pretty lenient, it seems: calling for 70 euros worth of community service is rather symbolic. Although, that's probably a case of misreporting. IANAL, but I'm familiar with French procedures (out of curiosity), and as far I know matters like community service is none of the business of a prosecutor: it's a substitution to classic penalties that must be approved by the condemned (otherwise it would be forced work), and it's up to the judges to supervise that, not the prosecutor. I suppose the prosecutor required a 70 euros fine as the official requisition of the public ministry (which is in their attributions) and advanced in their speach before the courts that it could be turned into community service (something a prosecutor is perfectly entitled to say if they feel so).
Anyway, I like the (overall) sanity of my country's courts.
I don't know about the rest of the EU, but in France there's basically no equivalent to class actions. There have been talks about putting them into law, but it has been deemed "bad for the economy" (under the previous administration - maybe the new one will bring it back on the table). There's still ground for individual action, though, if only on the basis of privacy protection.
Thanks oh so very much for pointing that out!
Actually, in France there were.
According to Betteridge's Law of Headlines, the answer is no.
France, out of nowhere, is suddenly showing surprising competitiveness in the "Passing dumbass laws so the rest of the world can see what a bad idea they are" department.
A lot less dumbass than elsewhere: 150 euros is a slap on the wrist.
Well, that doesn't make the law any less dumb. In theory, the fine can be ten times that, and can be accompanied with a one month suspension of internet access.
Now, courts can't just ignore the law, but it just so happens that they have a lot of leeway about the effective penalty they pronounce (to the point that, very rarely, a person can be condemned without penalty). This is a case of the courts, not the law, being reasonable.
Maybe the current government, too: the procureur (prosecuting magistrate) required 300 euros in fines, of which 150 euros suspended (still nothing absurdly harsh). The judge decided for just 150 euros, and the prosecutor, it seems, wont appeal. In France, prosecuting magistrates are hierarchically under the Minister of Justice, who defines the general policy of prosecution (this link bears many kinds of issues that are a common matter of debate, but that's not the point here).
The coalition in power since last spring had shown (granted, not uniformly) some hostility to the law when it was voted, and managed to cause some hiccups (which were reported on Slashdot, but I feel to lazy to find the links). So maybe, just maybe, the current government instructed the prosecutors not to be too heavy-handed (the government can't jusk ask prosecutors to ignore the law, either).
The entire three-strikes system is being audited, by the way. Unlikely to be totally nullified, but who knows? For one thing, it's extremely expensive (tens of millions since its creation) and yields very little. And French magistrates (both prosecuting and judging ones) are generally reluctant to pronounce high penalties just "for the example", so it's unlikely that this will ever yield significantly more.
And sorry for typing "modeling" instead of "modelling".
Modeling is a skill that's necessary to developers, and even to base coders it doesn't hurt. And it's also useful to entrepreneurs, especially when it comes to modeling flows of information and materials. They can delegate that skill, of course, but it's only a possibility in a large enough structure. To a small to medium company, having some skills in that matter is important. Owners of very small companies often manage to do that intuitively, but it only works to an extent, and can cause problems when they expand.
I sometimes half-jokingly state that if a company grows enough that it can have a second coffee machine, a full audit of the information system should be performed before said coffee machin is installed: it might disrupt informal communications between branches (who often happen around the coffee machine), which calls for a formalisation of communications before proceeding.
To sum up: management students have some courses in common with developers.
Now I have the MacGyver theme music stuck in my head. Thank you oh so very much!
In one of the cases, he admitted himself that they had sex with protection, then later he engaged in intercourse, without protection, while she was asleep. That's rape by surprise. Clear and simple.
Some sensibility in lawmaking. That's refreshing.
Ah, worth noting indeed. I'm not familiar with English legalese, and IANAUSC; so I may have got a bit carried away in general concepts.
Would you be so kind as to point me to some reliable and layman-accessible resource about that proper constitutional sense of the word "right"? No sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested.
Because Darwinism has nothing to do with politics, economy, and sociology. That's why.
What's wrong with taking advantage of the desperate for medical research?
Taking advantage of the desesperate, basically. That's not what medicine is supposed to do, FYI. Primum non nocere.
So. Fucking. True.
Apparently some people have never heard of Asymetry of Information. Mostly the same people who babble about the Invisible Hand without knowing anything about what the concept means and is based on.
This is the same dodgy reasoning that says 'natural' remedies are better because they're 'natural' and so are we... politely ignoring that what you're putting into yourself has been processed and altered (dried, heated, distilled).
On this specific matter, it's more often a matter of being not processed enough
For example, digitalin, an extremely useful drug for some heart conditions, and is an extract from digitalis, a very toxic plant.
Another case is aromatherapy, which means using essential oils as therapeutic drugs, or components of therapeutic drugs. There are two problems with this stuff.
First, essential oils need to be extracted, and some methods are quite dirty, leaving plenty of shitty chemicals in the final product (including traces of acetone). Seriously, in the EU, the efforts to correctly label, and enforce said labelling, of actual best practices in the production of essential oils, have only started rather recently (ten years ago or so).
Second, many gullible people think that, because essential oils are just simple extracts of plants, they are inoccuous. And that lead them to unsupervised automedication. While pharmacologists have recently been making genuine efforts to scientifically assess the efficiency of essential oils, they also found out that some can be very toxic at high dose. And some, not even at high doses. An overdose of melissa essential oil can be lethal, for example. Don't take my word for it, but I seem to remember sassafras essential oil can cause photosensitive allergies. That's my point, actually. Essential oils are effectively active drugs, and should be taken with caution, like every active drug.
And I'm saying this as someone who's been raised in a fairly phytotherapy/aromatherapy household. But when I see a website about essential oils that doesn't start with a word of warning on its first page, I feel like burning it down.
Ah, well spotted... This wording is indeed problematic. Government bodies have no rights, only missions, and anything that isn't part of their missions is forbidden to them.
Since one of the FDA's roles is to check medical treatments for safety and efficience, this is consistent with its mission.
Now it being able to do the job correctly is another matter entirely, regulatory capture seems to be the USA's national sport...
Unfortunately they have so far declined to provide any evidence to support their position, I have no evidence to support mine, so it's my word against theirs.
No, it's not. If they have no proof you agreed, they are clearly in violation of your rights. On this respect, the burden of proof is on them, as long as you have proof that it was they who disclosed your data to third parties.
Then again, I don't really know how the enforcement of this works in the UK.
Right-o, and this is the reason why, for example, pretty much every IRC server includes a nickserv, since IRC by itself doesn't include account registering.
Ah, but I'm not saying that British Rail wasn't doing it wrong. I'm saying that Railtrack obviously did an even worse job. I'm happy to learn that Network Rail Ltd is doing a good job. And it's a government-owned entity, but unless I'm mistaken it's less tightly controlled by the government than British Rail was. And it's a good thing too. I'm in favor of a government having a say on some industrial matters, but preferably in terms of broad directives rather than in the form of micro-management: the latter is open to various kind of inefficiencies, including clientelism.
And here I thought this particular policy was specific to France. Really, I discover every day how much France and the USA have in common...
Not every country is as fucked up as the USA, you know.
They tried to put "interactive" ads, that played speach and stuff when people where passing by, in the Parisian Métro, some years ago.
It barely took a hour after the opening for all of them to be destroyed.