Well, I sympathize because the sender (not the recipient) never agreed to this e-mail introspection in any sort of ToS or anything with Google.
So? It's the recipient that agrees to allow Google to inspect the email. The sender can remedy the situation by not sending anything to @gmail.com address, but does not wish to do so, even though they are aware by now that any such emails will be used to create targeted ads.
And I feel like someone should be free to stand up their own e-mail server and have complete freedom from ads at some expense to themselves and some work if they so desire.
You don't have a problem with Google or Gmail, you have a problem with all free email providers.
Besides, almost every user inside the U.S. already HAS, or has access to, a non-ad driven email service, their Internet Service Provider!
I've had an SBC / Yahoo DSL for something like 10 years, and have the ability to create many email accounts via them. In fact, I use my Gmail account to poll my email account with them so all my email ends up in one place.
I think in the end the ruling should go down something like this: tough shit.
Agreed.
If I find out that someone is doing something morally reprehensible (though not illegal) and want a court to look into the situation...
Speaking of logic, if something is morally reprehensible but legal, the courts have no jurisdiction to look at anything. It's totally legal to be amoral, immoral, a douche, an ass, a moral midget, etc. The courts can legally only concern it'self with the law.
This instance isn't a user complaining, it's a non-user complaining of a company's practices that he feels affects him.
[Google] only informs the user of the system, not a sender who may be sending e-mails that are then inspected by Google algorithms.
Yes, and since the Gmail user has agreed to allow Google to scan all their email, the sender has an issue with the Gmail user, not Google.
Actually, I believe that AOL and some other email services used to tack actual advertising to the bottom of every email sent via their service. THAT did bother me since they were basically hijacking all your email communications to send ads.
I hope it does goes to trial, because this will address the concept that some businesses use, that the contents of all their emails are proprietary or copyrighted, and so the receiver can never, say, publish embarrassing or incriminating emails sent to him/her him/her.
At what point does it become ok for any personal email regardless of 'sender' to be used for targeted ads based on content?
When they tell you, not just in the small print, but also inside the ads.
I know that I was aware that my emails would be scanned, and worried about it for a while before I decided that if Google does what it says, I didn't care.
It seems to me that logically the lawsuit should be aimed at Gmail users, if it's aimed at anybody, since by agreeing to the terms and conditions they are basically submitting their emails to Google. Of course suing the users would be enormously stupid, drive even loyal customers away, and be a poor way to recoup supposed damages because the users will have very shallow pockets.
Even if the email senders say that their emails are proprietary, it's the email receivers that allow their emails to be read / searched / scanned by a 3rd party, their proprietary data is being shared by the recipients, not being stolen by the 3rd party.
These guys are... building their own "pods". Anybody who's... screw[ing] up something so central to their business model, what else might they screw up?
...because it's forcing others to conform to something they don't want to.
But I'm also aware that it will be viewed with a sense of justice by those who feel that they've been forced to breathe others smoke for years by those who would mockingly dismiss their concerns while saying it's a matter of personal choice.
I used to work for a company that had two break-rooms, a smoking break-room and a non-smoking break-room. It was really kind of bad because the movers and shakers were almost always in the smoking break-room. I would go in occasionally, but would eventually be driven out by the smoke because the room wasn't ventilated, (or at least not well ventilated). This went on for years until one day I walk into the hall connected to the break-rooms, and was overwhelmed by the stench of stale smoke, and discovered that the smoking break-room had a big passive vent put into it's door because "People couldn't breathe in there", which was basically why non-smokers usually didn't go in there. There was no concern at all about the non-smokers who occupied the spaces near to the smoking break-room or to those who used the non-smoking break room (that had no door at all).
That is typical of the way non-smokers have been treated historically. This new idea of banning smoking never began catching on until about 10 years ago in the mid-west.
I consider any online business that approaches me as a scammer. (Which makes all spam, by definition, scams.)
I also am very hesitant to make online purchases from any business that won't accept American Express. A much higher bar than I have for store-front businesses.
The image that comes to mind is the picture of mom saying to her child, "no cookies"... It's time to get rid of all the cookies from the house so there is no demand for the cookie that doesn't exist.
What does that actually mean, "get rid of all the cookies"? Stop advertising? Stop targeted advertising? Stop the intrusive data-mining into our personal lives?
I'ts way too late for any of that. If you wanted to put a halt to the data-mining you needed to start twenty years ago when credit card companies were sending you privacy notices saying that they were "only" going to share your data internally... oh, and externally with their businesses partners... oh, and with anybody who cares to pay for it. Back before "Loyalty Cards" stripped away all pretense of being more than a more accurate vehicle for tracking your purchases.
But nobody cared. You all just signed on the bottom where they told you to, and signed away any legitimate right to complain. (I did too I suppose. But at least some of us insisted on getting something in return for our information (like cash back), and understood we would be tracked with every purchase.)
And what did you get in return? Targeted-Advertising.
And what does that mean? To them? More effective advertising. Advertising aimed, not at informing you about products and services so that you can make an informed decision. If that were true, all advertising would consist of a list of facts and features, not meaningless new measurements that mean nothing but increasing a version number. Not half-nude women and men making out, or frolicking together, or even making eyes at each other, because "He went to Jared's", or because she's got a new spray-on tan. But advertising aimed at more effectively pressing YOUR buttons. Advertising that slips under your Bull-Shit detectors and dazzles your mind or libido so you don't think about it logically. They want you to think... Scratch-that. They want you to FEEL "This makes those people (actors) look more attractive / dominant / self-assured, so it should work for me too!"
And don't worry. While we are off being distracted by the next big thing (or some stupid video of some even stupider person getting what they deserve because they have no foresight), they'll be working consistently to erode any little bit of privacy that the public can chisel out for it'self. By bribing... I mean paying, Microsoft for ways to circumvent or eliminate DNT technology, or even better, bribing... I mean monetarily supporting our public officials and then asking them to outlaw it.
And you know it's true. They'll do it. Remember they already made it legal for record companies to place root-kits on your computer to facilitate their hacking it, and have eliminated any liability for any data-loss or destruction through the DCMA back in 2000.
Face it. Your government has been bought and paid for by commercial interests who only see people as resources to be exploited, like coal or oil. And the only one's who complained and warned when something could be done about it were temporarily placated, or labeled extremists, or fear-mongers, or crazy, or just simply ignored because what they said was uncomfortable to think about. People said, "They'll never do that... The Government will never permit that... The voters will never stand for that..."
You don't have to look too hard to see that H.L. Mencken wasn't off base when he said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the American people."
And now we praise Microsoft for throwing us a bone, so we can gnaw on it and be pleased with ourselves and not notice while the next bit of privacy is stripped away.
Sorry for the rant. That's just been inside for a long time.
If they had the technology to build Dyson Sphere they would also know that their parent star won't last forever making the build a complete waste of time and resources. As someone else stated if they follow Darwinian evolution and wanted to grow and spread out then they would simple leave their system for another one. Again if they had the tech to build it they could leave way easier and cheaper. (Time and resource wise)
Actually, just because they built a Dyson Sphere, does not necessarily mean that they have turned their back on the Universe. Maybe they are just "hive" based, and prefer to be in close proximity to their "homeworld".
Besides, they could always build multiple sphere's, and / or use their sphere to channel, redirect and amplify the solar-wind (or use some other unknown technology, since that's what we're dealing with here) to create thrust, allowing them to move their spheres.
In my "experience" (reading copious amounts of sci-fi), sphere dwellers are ancient civilizations that actually have turned their backs on the greater universe, despite my earlier comment, and are no longer interested in spacial expansion, preferring to contemplate what they have already learned and accomplished.
'A Dyson Sphere would appear very bright in the mid-infrared,' says project leader Jason Wright.
Any engineer will tell you that waste heat is energy lost.
I can't imagine that a civilization with the technology to tear enough solar systems apart, move all the material to one location, and build a Dyson Sphere would find it impossible or inconvenient to capture that waste heat and turn it back into energy before it escapes into space. (Any sphere that does not capture all of the central sun's radiant energy is inefficient.)
As as we have found out, there is always something you can use more electricity on.
The author really ranged all over the place, with a lot of it seemingly irrelevant. Like:
[T]he Stanford study... neglects to mention that 10,000 to 20,000 United States agricultural workers get a pesticide-poisoning diagnosis each year.
Which has exactly what to do with the nutrition of the food? Nothing.
It may be a legitimate reason to avoid industrial farmed food, but does not diminish it's nutrition.
Dr. Dena Bravata, the study’s senior author, conceded that there are other reasons why people opt for organic (the aforementioned pesticides and bacteria chief among them),,,
Again, irreverent to the question of nutrition.
...but said that if the decision between buying organic or conventional food were based on nutrients, “there is not robust evidence to choose one or the other.” By which standard you can claim that, based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple.
But they’re not.
That sounds like a prejudged assumption, that an Apple is an intrinsically better choice than cereal.
If, as he said,...based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple. is true, then YES, nutritionally, Frosted Flakes IS the better choice.
Actually water, electricity and gas are about as infinite as data.
Not true.
Water and gas have finite deposits on Earth, just like most energy sources. And the cost of bringing energy to earth is not just cost-prohibitive, it's pretty much impossible with our current technology.
BUT.... there is a constant source of energy being delivered to the planet daily. Sunlight.
Sunlight allows the direct creation of electricity, and the chemical storage of the energy by plants.
And without the FCC you wouldn't have any spectrum, because the guy with the biggest amp will drown out your puny little signal on whatever spectrum you try to sneak into around the behemoths.
Actually it'll be the guy with the deepest pockets. There are more methods than just out-shouting your competition.
I mean, the size of your amp won't matter if your antenna keeps falling down, or your radio station burns down, or you can't sell any ads.
You can't have a monopoly or a monopolistic cartel without government intervention
Why is that? What stops a business in a free (and unfettered) market from gaining an advantage over the competition, and then using anti-competitive business practices to buy up and / or drive all their competition out of business?
Some of the anti-competitive practices that businesses have used in the past: 1) Sending employees over to the competition to steal proprietary information and / or sabotage them. 2) Pay hoodlums to beat-up the competitions owners / employees / customers. 3) Burn down the competition's buildings, manufacturing plants, retail outlets. 4) Pay people to spread rumors pertaining to the competition's product's safety, lifespan, composition. 5) Pay people to spread rumors about the competition's owners, employees, and backers. (Ohh, they're Jews / *iggers / kike's / hippies....) 6) Use advertising and news outlets to spread disinformation about their competitors. 7) Place fraudulent advertisement to promote fake prices / sales / cash-back / rebates in the name of their competition. 8) Make fraudulent claims about the product in their competition's name. 9) Just flat out kill the competition. 10) Use an advantage of excess money to sell their product below the cost of manufacture, forcing less liquid / less monied competition out of business. 11) Convince the competition's suppliers to break their contracts. 12) Make fake businesses to supply the competition with non-existent raw materials. 13) Pose as their competition and make false claims / take false orders / deliver faulty materials. 14) Buy the loyalty of the competition's employees and use them to sabotage their business. 15) Poison / adulterate / sabotage competitor's products. 16) Convince or pay distributors and retailers to loose the competitions orders. 17) Pay distributors / retailers to redirect the competition's orders to themselves. 18) Pay people to bring fraudulent lawsuits against their competitors. 19) Pay off Judges / Juries / expert witnesses in the lawsuits. 20) Pay corrupt officials (an interesting concept in a "free and unfettered market") to re-zone the retail and manufacturing locations of the competition. 21) Piracy A: Stop the competition's delivery trucks, take their product, then sell it as your own. 22) Piracy A: Break into the competition's warehouses, steal their product, sell it as your own. 22) Piracy B: Make shoddy products and sell it in the competition's name.
Just when I think I can't think of more, I do. So I'll stop here.
See, there are laws that prevent all of that, some call it regulation. Without those laws, there is noting but personal morality to prevent them. And we're all abundantly aware that there are always people who, when left to their own devices, show a distinct lack of morals.
Do you remember an experiment in de-regulation, called "Prohibition"? All sorts of mom-and-pop businesses pop'd up all over the place. Then a few people decided to organize and push their competitors out of business.
In fact we have a similar experiment going on called "The war on Drugs". Like marijuana, cocaine, meth, etc... Yet they are all available to anyone with sufficient desire, without regulation to prevent adulteration, monitor purity, or even guarantee ingredients. Making their purchase a crap-shoot, in which you may get shot.
Slashdot Mirror
Email protocols are unsecured, sensitive mails should [always] be encrypted.
Tru dat
Well, I sympathize because the sender (not the recipient) never agreed to this e-mail introspection in any sort of ToS or anything with Google.
So? It's the recipient that agrees to allow Google to inspect the email. The sender can remedy the situation by not sending anything to @gmail.com address, but does not wish to do so, even though they are aware by now that any such emails will be used to create targeted ads.
And I feel like someone should be free to stand up their own e-mail server and have complete freedom from ads at some expense to themselves and some work if they so desire.
You don't have a problem with Google or Gmail, you have a problem with all free email providers.
Besides, almost every user inside the U.S. already HAS, or has access to, a non-ad driven email service, their Internet Service Provider!
I've had an SBC / Yahoo DSL for something like 10 years, and have the ability to create many email accounts via them. In fact, I use my Gmail account to poll my email account with them so all my email ends up in one place.
I think in the end the ruling should go down something like this: tough shit.
Agreed.
If I find out that someone is doing something morally reprehensible (though not illegal) and want a court to look into the situation...
Speaking of logic, if something is morally reprehensible but legal, the courts have no jurisdiction to look at anything. It's totally legal to be amoral, immoral, a douche, an ass, a moral midget, etc. The courts can legally only concern it'self with the law.
This instance isn't a user complaining, it's a non-user complaining of a company's practices that he feels affects him.
[Google] only informs the user of the system, not a sender who may be sending e-mails that are then inspected by Google algorithms.
Yes, and since the Gmail user has agreed to allow Google to scan all their email, the sender has an issue with the Gmail user, not Google.
Actually, I believe that AOL and some other email services used to tack actual advertising to the bottom of every email sent via their service. THAT did bother me since they were basically hijacking all your email communications to send ads.
I hope it does goes to trial, because this will address the concept that some businesses use, that the contents of all their emails are proprietary or copyrighted, and so the receiver can never, say, publish embarrassing or incriminating emails sent to him/her him/her.
At what point does it become ok for any personal email regardless of 'sender' to be used for targeted ads based on content?
When they tell you, not just in the small print, but also inside the ads.
I know that I was aware that my emails would be scanned, and worried about it for a while before I decided that if Google does what it says, I didn't care.
It seems to me that logically the lawsuit should be aimed at Gmail users, if it's aimed at anybody, since by agreeing to the terms and conditions they are basically submitting their emails to Google. Of course suing the users would be enormously stupid, drive even loyal customers away, and be a poor way to recoup supposed damages because the users will have very shallow pockets.
Even if the email senders say that their emails are proprietary, it's the email receivers that allow their emails to be read / searched / scanned by a 3rd party, their proprietary data is being shared by the recipients, not being stolen by the 3rd party.
These guys are... building their own "pods". Anybody who's... screw[ing] up something so central to their business model, what else might they screw up?
Google does basically the same thing, building all their own servers.
http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend
Bitcasa is currently offering free unlimited storage for beta testers.
http://l.bitcasa.com/NH56X3u4
Well, there is no chance of change without trying, certainly.
I just wonder if another revolution will be necessary before change will happen.
...because it's forcing others to conform to something they don't want to.
But I'm also aware that it will be viewed with a sense of justice by those who feel that they've been forced to breathe others smoke for years by those who would mockingly dismiss their concerns while saying it's a matter of personal choice.
I used to work for a company that had two break-rooms, a smoking break-room and a non-smoking break-room. It was really kind of bad because the movers and shakers were almost always in the smoking break-room. I would go in occasionally, but would eventually be driven out by the smoke because the room wasn't ventilated, (or at least not well ventilated). This went on for years until one day I walk into the hall connected to the break-rooms, and was overwhelmed by the stench of stale smoke, and discovered that the smoking break-room had a big passive vent put into it's door because "People couldn't breathe in there", which was basically why non-smokers usually didn't go in there. There was no concern at all about the non-smokers who occupied the spaces near to the smoking break-room or to those who used the non-smoking break room (that had no door at all).
That is typical of the way non-smokers have been treated historically. This new idea of banning smoking never began catching on until about 10 years ago in the mid-west.
This ban has nothing to do with second hand smoke. It's intended to reduce insurance and disability costs for the employer.
In that case, I'm not sure what's wrong with it. Surely the employer has the right to decide to reduce it's insurance burden.
Don't worry. With any luck, he'll get a new one in prison!
I consider any online business that approaches me as a scammer. (Which makes all spam, by definition, scams.)
I also am very hesitant to make online purchases from any business that won't accept American Express. A much higher bar than I have for store-front businesses.
I think the assumption was that the "reputation" company hosted it's own website.
Of course, this is illegal, and needs to be prosecuted.
Your strong right arm?
Sorta gives new meaning to the phrase, "My right-hand-man", doesn't it?
The image that comes to mind is the picture of mom saying to her child, "no cookies"... It's time to get rid of all the cookies from the house so there is no demand for the cookie that doesn't exist.
What does that actually mean, "get rid of all the cookies"? Stop advertising? Stop targeted advertising? Stop the intrusive data-mining into our personal lives?
I'ts way too late for any of that. If you wanted to put a halt to the data-mining you needed to start twenty years ago when credit card companies were sending you privacy notices saying that they were "only" going to share your data internally... oh, and externally with their businesses partners... oh, and with anybody who cares to pay for it. Back before "Loyalty Cards" stripped away all pretense of being more than a more accurate vehicle for tracking your purchases.
But nobody cared. You all just signed on the bottom where they told you to, and signed away any legitimate right to complain. (I did too I suppose. But at least some of us insisted on getting something in return for our information (like cash back), and understood we would be tracked with every purchase.)
And what did you get in return? Targeted-Advertising.
And what does that mean? To them? More effective advertising. Advertising aimed, not at informing you about products and services so that you can make an informed decision. If that were true, all advertising would consist of a list of facts and features, not meaningless new measurements that mean nothing but increasing a version number. Not half-nude women and men making out, or frolicking together, or even making eyes at each other, because "He went to Jared's", or because she's got a new spray-on tan. But advertising aimed at more effectively pressing YOUR buttons. Advertising that slips under your Bull-Shit detectors and dazzles your mind or libido so you don't think about it logically. They want you to think... Scratch-that. They want you to FEEL "This makes those people (actors) look more attractive / dominant / self-assured, so it should work for me too!"
And don't worry. While we are off being distracted by the next big thing (or some stupid video of some even stupider person getting what they deserve because they have no foresight), they'll be working consistently to erode any little bit of privacy that the public can chisel out for it'self. By bribing... I mean paying, Microsoft for ways to circumvent or eliminate DNT technology, or even better, bribing... I mean monetarily supporting our public officials and then asking them to outlaw it.
And you know it's true. They'll do it. Remember they already made it legal for record companies to place root-kits on your computer to facilitate their hacking it, and have eliminated any liability for any data-loss or destruction through the DCMA back in 2000.
Face it. Your government has been bought and paid for by commercial interests who only see people as resources to be exploited, like coal or oil. And the only one's who complained and warned when something could be done about it were temporarily placated, or labeled extremists, or fear-mongers, or crazy, or just simply ignored because what they said was uncomfortable to think about. People said, "They'll never do that... The Government will never permit that... The voters will never stand for that..."
You don't have to look too hard to see that H.L. Mencken wasn't off base when he said, "No one ever went broke underestimating the American people."
And now we praise Microsoft for throwing us a bone, so we can gnaw on it and be pleased with ourselves and not notice while the next bit of privacy is stripped away.
Sorry for the rant. That's just been inside for a long time.
Isn't this one of the seven signs of the Apocalypse?
... for Microsoft?
I jhink i bust troke my bain. 0_o
Jehwhowhaaa?
Since when has Microsoft ever cared about anything more than appearances?
The original post is 1/3 of the entire page!
Sure, but where would you park it?
If they had the technology to build Dyson Sphere they would also know that their parent star won't last forever making the build a complete waste of time and resources. As someone else stated if they follow Darwinian evolution and wanted to grow and spread out then they would simple leave their system for another one. Again if they had the tech to build it they could leave way easier and cheaper. (Time and resource wise)
Actually, just because they built a Dyson Sphere, does not necessarily mean that they have turned their back on the Universe. Maybe they are just "hive" based, and prefer to be in close proximity to their "homeworld".
Besides, they could always build multiple sphere's, and / or use their sphere to channel, redirect and amplify the solar-wind (or use some other unknown technology, since that's what we're dealing with here) to create thrust, allowing them to move their spheres.
In my "experience" (reading copious amounts of sci-fi), sphere dwellers are ancient civilizations that actually have turned their backs on the greater universe, despite my earlier comment, and are no longer interested in spacial expansion, preferring to contemplate what they have already learned and accomplished.
'A Dyson Sphere would appear very bright in the mid-infrared,' says project leader Jason Wright.
Any engineer will tell you that waste heat is energy lost.
I can't imagine that a civilization with the technology to tear enough solar systems apart, move all the material to one location, and build a Dyson Sphere would find it impossible or inconvenient to capture that waste heat and turn it back into energy before it escapes into space. (Any sphere that does not capture all of the central sun's radiant energy is inefficient.)
As as we have found out, there is always something you can use more electricity on.
The author really ranged all over the place, with a lot of it seemingly irrelevant. Like:
[T]he Stanford study... neglects to mention that 10,000 to 20,000 United States agricultural workers get a pesticide-poisoning diagnosis each year.
Which has exactly what to do with the nutrition of the food?
Nothing.
It may be a legitimate reason to avoid industrial farmed food, but does not diminish it's nutrition.
Dr. Dena Bravata, the study’s senior author, conceded that there are other reasons why people opt for organic (the aforementioned pesticides and bacteria chief among them),,,
Again, irreverent to the question of nutrition.
...but said that if the decision between buying organic or conventional food were based on nutrients, “there is not robust evidence to choose one or the other.” By which standard you can claim that, based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple.
But they’re not.
That sounds like a prejudged assumption, that an Apple is an intrinsically better choice than cereal.
If, as he said, ...based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple. is true, then YES, nutritionally, Frosted Flakes IS the better choice.
Actually water, electricity and gas are about as infinite as data.
Not true.
Water and gas have finite deposits on Earth, just like most energy sources. And the cost of bringing energy to earth is not just cost-prohibitive, it's pretty much impossible with our current technology.
BUT.... there is a constant source of energy being delivered to the planet daily. Sunlight.
Sunlight allows the direct creation of electricity, and the chemical storage of the energy by plants.
Yes, Somalia is the perfect "free and unfettered marketplace", so how-come businesses aren't falling over themselves to relocate there?
And without the FCC you wouldn't have any spectrum, because the guy with the biggest amp will drown out your puny little signal on whatever spectrum you try to sneak into around the behemoths.
Actually it'll be the guy with the deepest pockets. There are more methods than just out-shouting your competition.
I mean, the size of your amp won't matter if your antenna keeps falling down, or your radio station burns down, or you can't sell any ads.
You can't have a monopoly or a monopolistic cartel without government intervention
Why is that? What stops a business in a free (and unfettered) market from gaining an advantage over the competition, and then using anti-competitive business practices to buy up and / or drive all their competition out of business?
Some of the anti-competitive practices that businesses have used in the past:
1) Sending employees over to the competition to steal proprietary information and / or sabotage them.
2) Pay hoodlums to beat-up the competitions owners / employees / customers.
3) Burn down the competition's buildings, manufacturing plants, retail outlets.
4) Pay people to spread rumors pertaining to the competition's product's safety, lifespan, composition.
5) Pay people to spread rumors about the competition's owners, employees, and backers. (Ohh, they're Jews / *iggers / kike's / hippies....)
6) Use advertising and news outlets to spread disinformation about their competitors.
7) Place fraudulent advertisement to promote fake prices / sales / cash-back / rebates in the name of their competition.
8) Make fraudulent claims about the product in their competition's name.
9) Just flat out kill the competition.
10) Use an advantage of excess money to sell their product below the cost of manufacture, forcing less liquid / less monied competition out of business.
11) Convince the competition's suppliers to break their contracts.
12) Make fake businesses to supply the competition with non-existent raw materials.
13) Pose as their competition and make false claims / take false orders / deliver faulty materials.
14) Buy the loyalty of the competition's employees and use them to sabotage their business.
15) Poison / adulterate / sabotage competitor's products.
16) Convince or pay distributors and retailers to loose the competitions orders.
17) Pay distributors / retailers to redirect the competition's orders to themselves.
18) Pay people to bring fraudulent lawsuits against their competitors.
19) Pay off Judges / Juries / expert witnesses in the lawsuits.
20) Pay corrupt officials (an interesting concept in a "free and unfettered market") to re-zone the retail and manufacturing locations of the competition.
21) Piracy A: Stop the competition's delivery trucks, take their product, then sell it as your own.
22) Piracy A: Break into the competition's warehouses, steal their product, sell it as your own.
22) Piracy B: Make shoddy products and sell it in the competition's name.
Just when I think I can't think of more, I do. So I'll stop here.
See, there are laws that prevent all of that, some call it regulation.
Without those laws, there is noting but personal morality to prevent them. And we're all abundantly aware that there are always people who, when left to their own devices, show a distinct lack of morals.
Do you remember an experiment in de-regulation, called "Prohibition"? All sorts of mom-and-pop businesses pop'd up all over the place. Then a few people decided to organize and push their competitors out of business.
In fact we have a similar experiment going on called "The war on Drugs". Like marijuana, cocaine, meth, etc... Yet they are all available to anyone with sufficient desire, without regulation to prevent adulteration, monitor purity, or even guarantee ingredients. Making their purchase a crap-shoot, in which you may get shot.