For the government yes it's relatively easy, for the individual no it's not very easy but since when has the government ever cared about the individual?
It's quite easy actually as alot of swedes have come to notice lately.
The government(in your case state government) simply asks the retailer to provide their books on who they sold to and where they shipped it. Then the government send them a nicely worded letter telling them to cough up or go to court.
The swedish IRS equivalent is quite busy with nailing Joe Average for liquor bought online from retailers outside of Sweden(but inside EU's borders). Ofcourse if you buy from a smaller supplier the government is less likely to notice them.
If Microsoft raises prices to what the EC sees as an unresonable level they will simply threaten to regulate the market, if that doesn't make Microsoft drop it's pricetag the EC will go in and regulate Microsoft's pricetag, most likely forcing the price down to a much lower level than it would have accepted if Microsoft had taken the hint when they threatened with regulation.
This will put Microsoft in a rather unfavorable position on the European market because they will still have the fines leveled against them and in addition they will not be able to raise the pricetag on their product without permission from the European Council.
Your argument is flawed.
Say somone finds the crying baby or the two fighting 5 year olds in the seat behind them disturbing or offending does that mean families with small children should be banned from airplanes, trains, buses and other public spaces where they might disturb other people or should they be forced to at all time be able to silence their children and keep them still when they start yelling/crying/fighting and all the other things bored children in an enclosed space does?
Or is the act a mother breast feeding her child an offensive act of indecent exposure?
There are limits to what it's socially acceptable to do in public but likewise there's a limit to what you can be upset and complain about people doing in public.
People have always been able to bring their porn DVD's with them on the airplane if they wanted to so why wasn't this a problem before now?
Free market practices only work when there is enough players in any given market system in any given area and because lots of competitors are less efficient than few the free market system will move towards consisting of oligopolies or monopolies and when that happens the free market system of supply and deman will be pushed to the sideline in the name of maximising profits.
While in this state consumers will have lost most of their powers to choose a superior product because all the alternatives will be engineered towars maximum profit and any upstarts will be eliminate by price dumping an other measures.
After this has happened the system won't move from this position unless an external force is applied to force it back to a free market model with many suppliers.
The free market model is still one of the better but there needs to be an external force to keep it in place and therefor legislation and government control is neccessary.
Morals is something personal that differ from person to person, Laws is something decided by society.
Companies and Corporations will often ignore morals either because the profit is worth it or because the person making that decision has differeing moral values. The chances of both these events happening increases relative to the corporation's employee base and yearly product.
Same things applies to laws except that the deciding factors is punishment and likelihood of getting caught. Thus the punishment ought to be fluid(percentage of gross yearly product for example) because the larger a company/corporation is the less impact does a set value fine impact it.
In my personal opinion society should not rely on the moral conviction of a corporation's employees to guide corporation's action because as we've seen time and time again moral values fail to keep corporations in line, stiff fines relative to said corporation's gross yearly product would be a bigger incentive to keep them in line.
Actually EU would'nt be forcing Microsoft to do anything. They just tell Microsoft that if you want to do business here you will do it according to our rules and regulations or you can take your business elsewhere.
Microsoft is completely free to ignore anything EU demands but it comes with the price of not beeing able to sell their products in a member country of the European Union.
Slashdot Mirror
For the government yes it's relatively easy, for the individual no it's not very easy but since when has the government ever cared about the individual?
It's quite easy actually as alot of swedes have come to notice lately.
The government(in your case state government) simply asks the retailer to provide their books on who they sold to and where they shipped it. Then the government send them a nicely worded letter telling them to cough up or go to court.
The swedish IRS equivalent is quite busy with nailing Joe Average for liquor bought online from retailers outside of Sweden(but inside EU's borders). Ofcourse if you buy from a smaller supplier the government is less likely to notice them.
If Microsoft raises prices to what the EC sees as an unresonable level they will simply threaten to regulate the market, if that doesn't make Microsoft drop it's pricetag the EC will go in and regulate Microsoft's pricetag, most likely forcing the price down to a much lower level than it would have accepted if Microsoft had taken the hint when they threatened with regulation.
This will put Microsoft in a rather unfavorable position on the European market because they will still have the fines leveled against them and in addition they will not be able to raise the pricetag on their product without permission from the European Council.
Actually it is true. Buying sex is illegal here, as is beeing a pimp, but the prostitutes themselves aren't doing anything illegal.
Your argument is flawed.
Say somone finds the crying baby or the two fighting 5 year olds in the seat behind them disturbing or offending does that mean families with small children should be banned from airplanes, trains, buses and other public spaces where they might disturb other people or should they be forced to at all time be able to silence their children and keep them still when they start yelling/crying/fighting and all the other things bored children in an enclosed space does?
Or is the act a mother breast feeding her child an offensive act of indecent exposure?
There are limits to what it's socially acceptable to do in public but likewise there's a limit to what you can be upset and complain about people doing in public.
People have always been able to bring their porn DVD's with them on the airplane if they wanted to so why wasn't this a problem before now?
Free market practices only work when there is enough players in any given market system in any given area and because lots of competitors are less efficient than few the free market system will move towards consisting of oligopolies or monopolies and when that happens the free market system of supply and deman will be pushed to the sideline in the name of maximising profits.
While in this state consumers will have lost most of their powers to choose a superior product because all the alternatives will be engineered towars maximum profit and any upstarts will be eliminate by price dumping an other measures.
After this has happened the system won't move from this position unless an external force is applied to force it back to a free market model with many suppliers.
The free market model is still one of the better but there needs to be an external force to keep it in place and therefor legislation and government control is neccessary.
Morals is something personal that differ from person to person, Laws is something decided by society.
Companies and Corporations will often ignore morals either because the profit is worth it or because the person making that decision has differeing moral values. The chances of both these events happening increases relative to the corporation's employee base and yearly product.
Same things applies to laws except that the deciding factors is punishment and likelihood of getting caught. Thus the punishment ought to be fluid(percentage of gross yearly product for example) because the larger a company/corporation is the less impact does a set value fine impact it.
In my personal opinion society should not rely on the moral conviction of a corporation's employees to guide corporation's action because as we've seen time and time again moral values fail to keep corporations in line, stiff fines relative to said corporation's gross yearly product would be a bigger incentive to keep them in line.
Actually EU would'nt be forcing Microsoft to do anything. They just tell Microsoft that if you want to do business here you will do it according to our rules and regulations or you can take your business elsewhere. Microsoft is completely free to ignore anything EU demands but it comes with the price of not beeing able to sell their products in a member country of the European Union.