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Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
21–30 of 316 posts
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#22Trump's FTC was gonna kill Net Neutrality without these fake comments. Everyone knew they were bogus from the get go.
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#23New York Attorney General James Secures $615,000 from Companies that Supplied Fake Comments to Influence FCC’s Repeal of Net Neutrality Rules
Likely less than the cost of the investigation
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#24It says "the nation's largest broadband companies" but doesn't say which ones. Does anyone have more context here?
I remember a case from a few years ago where Comcast/Xfinity did exactly this, using other people's identities to flood legislators with letters when there were hearings for public comments on legislation that would impact the company. I think it was during hearings on net neutrality bills.
It's a great way to drown out the public's actual comments and drum up fake support.
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#253 companies defrauded the government and pretended to be millions of US citizens in order to make billions in illegitimate profits. Were fined a few hundred thousand. Why isn’t every individual involved in jail? Why haven’t all the company assets been seized? Also, given that they were impersonating real living people, can we please get a list of those people? Or at least have the victims of identity theft, fraud, an…
Simply put: limited liability, lobbying (political donations) and general ignorance of the subject matter by a majority of the population.
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#26Are they open to more charges in other states? Why is this done by a state AG? The FCC is federal, shouldn’t this Garland and not James?
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#273 companies defrauded the government and pretended to be millions of US citizens in order to make billions in illegitimate profits. Were fined a few hundred thousand. Why isn’t every individual involved in jail? Why haven’t all the company assets been seized? Also, given that they were impersonating real living people, can we please get a list of those people? Or at least have the victims of identity theft, fraud, an…
Simply put: limited liability, lobbying (political donations) and general ignorance of the subject matter by a majority of the population.
Limited liability only protects the "owners", not the employees, including the board.
So while piercing the LLC veil seems unreasonably hard, putting every individual involved in jail seems not unreasonable.
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#28"An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) found that the fake comments used the identities of millions of consumers, including thousands of New Yorkers, without their knowledge or consent." $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did.
"but it says right here in article 5 paragraph 20 section b of the EULA you agreed to that we may use your personally identifiable information to improve our service."
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#29This is only the tip of the iceberg. A majority of the "user content" (product reviews, brand engagement, comments on social media sites, etc) is completely fake, bought for and paid by big money interest aka bots. No different than automated scans of the IPv4 address space: simple, unsophisticated, low-cost and without any repercussion.
Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy
#30$615 million dollars seems like chump change for 9 million counts of identity fraud. I recently read a story where the local DA in Portland charged a homeless man for identity theft for stealing a wallet. He hadn't tried to represent himself as the other person; he literally just had the wallet and ID.
Yet again, turns out it's OK if you're a corporation.