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SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

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Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#171
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. I paid for the phone and they are still collecting my data. For me this is not free.

You paid for a phone with Google.

That was your decision. There are other options.

And while you mind, billions are really happy to have a very secure and relativity cheap phone.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're found in contempt of court. If you disagree with the subpoena, you're allowed to file that with the court, and the judge will review it.

I suppose this is why it’s a bad idea to run any company from the USA. Being victimized by their corrupt legal system at your own expense… This sort of thing doesn’t happen when you run your company from behind Tor and use crypto for payment.

Most legal systems do this: if you're accused of doing X, and your claim that you weren't doing X hinges on evidence that can only be produced by other parties, you explain that to the court, and then the court can decide to compel those other parties to produce that evidence in the interest of a fair trial.

In this case, Meta is being accused of anti-competitive behaviour. Their claim is that there is plenty of competition and that if they are to be put on trial, then they should be able to present evidence that there is competition. The court agreed with that statement. Meta themselves cannot produce that evidence, because they are not privy to business goings-on at other companies, all they can see is other companies that are--in their opinion--competing in the same space. As such, Meta can only go "we consider the following companies our competition, their documents should make it ample clear that we are in competition" with enough of an additional explanation to justify each company listed. And then the court goes "very well, this is motivated enough to justify us compelling these companies to produce the evidence that you claim exists as part of discovery".

The only quirk here is the claim that a small company can't reasonably do what is being requested of them by the courts. And again: not by Meta, but by the courts. Meta doesn't get these documents, only Meta's legal team gets those documents, Meta employees don't get to see what's in the many boxes of discovery material that their legal team is going to receive. Not Bob from accounting, not Kelly from finance, and not Mark from the CEO team. Only the lawyers do.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. World changing at it's time still helping people around the globe. That's just the fat, juicy worm dangling on the hook just waiting for you to take it all in--hook, line, and sinker.

I use it without any issues and billions other do to.

I can decide if I'm okay with it or not. You are clearly not. I'm.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#174
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: We've also been commanded to drop everything we're doing and go tesify on these matters _in person_, thousands of miles away from us, by the stated deadline :| So it's not just a matter of writing "we don't know". They have to produce a lot of material and then travel 1000's of miles to show up in the court in person.

These specific people are being compelled to do that or the company is being compelled to show up in person? Those are wildly different demands. I find it hard to believe that specific productive employees of the company are being compelled to show up in court rather just some hired legal representatives of the company.

Right, but hiring a legal representative is going to be very expensive for a small organization.

It’s not just the few hours they’ll be testifying, or giving deposition. A reasonable corporate representative is going to need to do quite a bit of prep work and review of relevant materials. So, that’s both a legal cost, and a productivity cost for whoever is collecting those documents and briefing the corporate representative.

“Just some hired legal representatives” hides quite a bit of cost.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> ‘free’ Don’t make us all laugh. It’s ‘free’ because the user is the product, not the service.

Why the f* would I need to clarify on hn that it's 'free' in sense of ad tracking?

We all know what it means. Still doesn't change the fact what the value for billion of people is real.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that, if the FTC thinks they are anti-competitive, they probably are Wait? What? It seems like a pretty strange position to just assume that the government is always right. I mean, if I said, all people the police arrest are probably guilty and should go to jail, I would hope you'd disagree.

> It seems like a pretty strange position to just assume that the government is always right. Big cases against big companies are different. Since the company will have (nearly) unlimited resources to fight, the FTC will only bring a case if they're pretty sure they can win, otherwise it will be a big waste of money all around. It's really not anything like the police arresting people.

The government has lost many antitrust cases. In fact, they often do them for political reasons, not because they actually care about the outcome.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#177
post #167

Maybe I've just been on a too-long coding stretch, but speaking for myself, it's just really unsavory to read so much "red/blue"-style sloganism around the big tech companies. Obviously I'm biased because I worked for one, and so I saw up close the process that produces the decisions that seem to routinely generate comment threads with people comparing Google/FB/MSFT/etc. to e.g. "Satan". It's just not that simple fo…

> corporate funding of all the open-source projects that wouldn't exist without the megacorps This is a fallacy: It's possible comparable open source contributions could have been made without the graces of the corporates. For example: The giants tend to buy out their competition early, so how could it mature enough to be able to contribute comparably, or possibly better, to open source? IMHO the open source contribu…

Sidebar: I don't know what "tech-washing" means. When I see that a company is laundering some bias or some social advantage through a machine learning model I just call it money laundering, because the inputs and outputs are both money and I think we've coined enough new victimhood words per year every year for many years.

If a company is profiting off it's "open-source" contributions, getting out more than it's putting in, then it's washing money through GitHub I guess. That's fair.

But "tech-washing" has this implication that any computer hacker is in a bad way, which is just silly: back when we had to go to the office the freeway overpasses we drove on had tent encampments under them.

Take that up with the Ayn Rand idiots who are not uncommon in these parts.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#178
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!

It's not nearly as crazy as it sounds. If you were accused of murder and your alibi was you were at a bar, then the court could force the bar to produce any video footage they had, any records of transactions etc. If it was claimed that I was at said bar on said night, I could be forced to appear in court and produce any diary entries I had, any photos on my phone from that night. These are reasonable requests.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#179
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google still provides android, Google maps, Gmail for free. I paid for the phone and they are still collecting my data. For me this is not free.

You paid for a phone with Google. That was your decision. There are other options. And while you mind, billions are really happy to have a very secure and relativity cheap phone.

We've just gone from "they're not evil" to "okay so maybe they are evil but that was your choice, and they're cheap" in the span of a single comment.

Re: SimulaVR Has Been Subpoenaed by Meta Platforms, Inc

#180

Maybe I've just been on a too-long coding stretch, but speaking for myself, it's just really unsavory to read so much "red/blue"-style sloganism around the big tech companies. Obviously I'm biased because I worked for one, and so I saw up close the process that produces the decisions that seem to routinely generate comment threads with people comparing Google/FB/MSFT/etc. to e.g. "Satan". It's just not that simple fo…

I'm sorry you don't like our tone.
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