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Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

ag.ny.gov

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Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#271

Post by trehalose »

ynoatho wrote: post #117
explorer83 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the rhetoric for net neutrality was pretty extreme. According to the rhetoric of the time, we would be living in a world of internet "fast lanes" right now if net neutrality didn't pass. Only services affiliated with the big greedy telcos were going to be given a pass while all the other services on the web were going to require additional fees to get adequate bandwidth to/from. That was a major fear mongerin…

> According to the rhetoric of the time, we would be living in a world of internet "fast lanes" right now if net neutrality didn't pass. Anything remotely resembling this existed almost a decade ago in a very different landscape, and what you're saying isn't even really reflective of the reality at the time. The vast majority of reasonable people were talking about what would gradually happen if the concept of net ne…

> Verizon was literally fucking THROTTLING FIREFIGHTERS DURING A MAJOR WILDFIRE

Here are some sources for anybody who doesn't want to believe this happened:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttle... https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/verizon-throttled-californi... https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/verizon-throttle-fir... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/verizon-firefighter-data-s... https://finance.yahoo.com/news/verizon-explains-why-throttle...

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#272

Post by jabradoodle »

isaacremuant wrote: post #235
robocat wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet democracy so tarnished still appears better to me than the alternatives we have tried so far. I haven’t lived in some of the alternatives, but I have visited some, and I feel fortunate to have been born in New Zealand.

> and I feel fortunate to have been born in New Zealand Just make sure you don't have the wrong opinions. Such as not going with the medical coercion and banning of civil rights that occured from 2020. Oh, my bad, that authoranianism is good and they deserved it - Signed, Mr G.

There are places that were welding people's homes shut at that point.

Do you suggest we move away from democracy or try to fix the failings of our systems?

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#273

Post by jackmott42 »

hulitu wrote: post #220
dragonwriter wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $615k seems like a slap on the wrist for what they did. It is. But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. [0] [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

> But its also state and local officials using state law to try to get any punishment for what is a fairly serious federal crime that, for some reason, the federal government has elected not to prosecute. Prosecuting that would have lead to a dangerous precedent for a lot of companies and government agencies involved in propaganda.

Good, I hope any such companies and agencies are eliminated and their leaders jailed.

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#275

Post by clcaev »

DannyBee wrote: post #260
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my dog bites somebody, I'm on the hook. It should be no different with companies--otherwise there's no incentive to avoid funding shady behavior. Stock ownership is rewarding because it's risky. Let it be risky.

We deliberately changed this with the advent of the LLC, which is a new thing (~50 years) Before that shareholders were liable for corporate acts. At least monetarily People seem to not realize this. We should undo it. It was a mistake

Do you mind unpacking this? How is an LLC fundamentally different than a C Corp in this regard? Do you have references?

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#276

Post by frankharv »

eega wrote: post #190
Jupe wrote: post #98

> LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017…

Not only no jail, but the fine is laughable as well …

Why is it that a STATE AG is pressing for money while US AG does nothing?

STATE AG used Federal IG investigation to extract money from these crooks.

Why didn't FBI raid these companies?

They raided a ex-Presidents private residence for papers.

Identity Theft x 1 Million counts

Re: Three Companies Impersonated Millions to Influence Internet Policy

#278

Post by Bran_son »

skizm wrote: post #256
Jupe wrote: post #98

> LCX and Lead ID were responsible for many of these fake comments, letters, and petition signatures. Across four advocacy campaigns in 2017 and 2018, LCX fabricated consumer responses used in approximately 900,000 public comments submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Similarly, in advocacy campaigns between 2017…

They hire ad / "lead" companies to collect emails of people who have clicked on an ad, or entered their email saying they support A, B, or C and give them permission to post a comment on their behalf. So in theory each comment has someone who gave the company permission to post a comment for them. BUT if you tell an ad company "hey here is $2 million, get us X number of emails" they're going to produce X emails even…

> emails of people who have clicked on an ad, or entered their email saying they support A, B, or C and give them permission to post a comment on their behalf

Even supposing they did it this way, and people gave their informed consent (fat chance, but for the sake of the hypothetical), that's still fraud. Unless every single comment had a "written and submitted on behalf of X by firm Y" disclaimer, it's still misrepresenting the comments as coming directly from individuals.

Regardless of what fine print unwary consumers agreed to, the agencies being deceived didn't agree to any of it.

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