Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

simulavr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 478 posts

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#71

Post by marcinzm »

throbintrash wrote: post #29
marcinzm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter how other companies are to their point?

I'm just saying there are no ethical companies of that size so it's a disengineous point to bring up. the deeper realization is that is not fair (nor conducing to good social outcome) to try and hold an entity such as Meta (formerly facebook) to individual person standards such as being ethical. this is more important in other discussions around rights of corporations (and other comparalby powerful institutions) in c…

>so it's a disengineous point to bring up.

It is a perfectly valid point in terms of the impact on SimulaVR which is what this discussion is about. A company is trying to get sensitive information from them. Stating the company is unethical even if all other similar companies are as well is perfectly valid.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#72

Post by ramblerman »

throbintrash wrote: post #29
marcinzm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter how other companies are to their point?

I'm just saying there are no ethical companies of that size so it's a disengineous point to bring up. the deeper realization is that is not fair (nor conducing to good social outcome) to try and hold an entity such as Meta (formerly facebook) to individual person standards such as being ethical. this is more important in other discussions around rights of corporations (and other comparalby powerful institutions) in c…

> not fair (nor conducing to good social outcome) to try and hold an entity such as Meta (formerly facebook) to individual person standards such as being ethical

What? Care to explain that a bit further.

A multibillion dollar company should be held to higher standards than an individual

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#73

Post by MrStonedOne »

kodah wrote: post #16
Raed667 wrote: post #9

Can someone explain why is meta entitled to see a 3rd party's business plans, financials and statistics?

It's explained in the post. The FTC accused them of being anti-competitive. The only way to show you're not anti-competitive is to demand documents of your opponents that demonstrate you still have competition.

No post body was provided.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#74

Post by cableshaft »

georgewsinger wrote: post #51
cableshaft wrote: post #40

>We're don't view ourselves in competition with Meta >...Meta sells reasonably good gaming headsets to customers who want to be entertained in VR; we're selling general-purpose productivity devices which are aimed at replacing PCs and laptops. Hate to break it to you, but if you don't think that Mark Zuckerberg is actively trying to create VR devices that are general-purpose productivity devices aimed at replacing PC…

We understand Meta sometimes future projects that their devices will have broad office applications, but we're skeptical it has any teeth. Consider that Atari tried to compete with office PCs in the early 80s with their 8-bit family, and failed: https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_... It's hard to focus on multiple things at once, and we're skeptical that the bureaucratic forces in play at a l…

And there are plenty of instances of companies that have gone under when a big parent company decides to incorporate your business as a 'feature' in part of their big monster product.

I'm not saying it's going to definitely happen and the company is doomed or anything, it's certainly possible that SimulaVR will come out on top for productivity devices (or peacefully coexist as an alternative alongside Meta's offering). But it shouldn't ignore what Meta is doing either, especially when they're actively saying they're moving into their turf.

At the very least, it looks like Meta will put up a helluva fight.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#75

Post by MrStonedOne »

JeezusJuiceTPR wrote: post #34
Raed667 wrote: post #9

Can someone explain why is meta entitled to see a 3rd party's business plans, financials and statistics?

IANAL, so take this with some salt, but I don’t think Meta is directly requesting the documents, and Meta is probably never going to see them. I don’t think they get to request everything and pick through it to find a defense. Subpoenas come from the court (which is how they’re able to be legally binding, i.e. you can be held liable—-in contempt—-for not complying), so my guess is that the court will review the vario…

Meta requested it, meta wrote the subpoena, and meta is the party who will receive the supplied documents.

You are confusing signed off by the court with issued by the court.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#76

Post by sbarre »

Bloedcoin wrote: post #61
unnouinceput wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I rather give my money to Satan, or even Google I giggled. When you go from "don't be evil" to this, you know you fucked up big time. This has to be the tagline of the decade in regards to Google ("Google!, the boss of Satan", hi hi hi).

Why? Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. World changing at it's time still helping people around the globe. Their research blog is fantastic and shows what they value. Google Io focus on people and security and trust. Google is much further away from evil than plenty of other companies. Did they kill stadia? Yes. Did actually anyone care? No. Because stadia didn't matter anyway.

If you think Google's biggest sin is killing Stadia, you stopped paying attention over a decade ago.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#77

Post by BiteCode_dev »

aliqot wrote: post #45
georgewsinger wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify: we're seeking legal counsel and intend to comply with the law. Many other larger companies have fought these subpoenas (Snap, etc) and, as far as we can tell, still had to hand over items.

Time to get well-versed in malicious compliance.

A game in which a small startup can only choose among different bad endings

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#78

Post by colejohnson66 »

Roark66 wrote: post #70

If this is actually how US's justice system works it is even more bonkers than I thought. Could someone versed in this legal system explain, please? Is is any accused that can demand documents/data/free research from vaguely related third parties, or only large companies? Enquiring minds want to know!

If one is accused of antitrust practices (as Meta is by the FTC), your defense is to show that there's actually competition. It's not that Meta that wants the documents for corporate espionage (or whatever), but that they want to prove that SimulaVR is competing just fine in the market that contains Meta. This is explained in the article, which many here clearly didn't read past the headline. This is roughly the same as subpoenaing someone as a witness; you don't really have a choice.

In fact, Meta themselves won't be looking at the documents; their lawyers, the FCC, and the rest of the court will. This is standard procedure, and no different from if SMALL_CORP sued BIG_CORP; BIG_CORP would still have to comply with subpoenas from SMALL_CORP.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#79

Post by [deleted] »

dsign wrote: post #27

This is not Meta demanding to see some privilege information that exists in Simula's drawers, but rather commandeering the entire competing organization to do market research for Meta. It is clever and evil, and nothing anybody says after this will make me think that Meta is not anti-competitive nor that they have an once of ethics. As a consumer, I doubt I will ever again consider their VR products; I rather give my…

[deleted]

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#80

Post by Algent »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #54
TakeBlaster16 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true, it sounds like companies have been weaponizing the legal system to get access to proprietary information from their competitors. Surely that has got to be illegal somehow?

The court decides whether a subpoena should be upheld or not. If the judge has signed off on this one, then it's all legit. Failing to comply would be contempt of court.

I'll never understand how US court system basically allow you to randomly force anyone unrelated to a case into it and suffer the legal cost. It make it so easy to weaponize any case to your advantage.
Post reply on HN