>Hacker News has a page that lets me see all of the replies from comments I've posted. Posting is clearly "activity of an account holder", and that means there is "at least part of the content" being "control[led]" by that activity.
It doesn't say "control" by the activity, it says control by the platform. Control is a little bit difficult to define, but one reasonable necessary condition is that if someone is in control of something, then someone else might do it differently. "Show me threads I've commented on" should produce the same result regardless of platform. "Show me a random page" should at least have the same probability distribution. But "my recommendations" is fully under the platform's control.
I grant that trying to interpret "offer" was a bit of a reach on my part. On the other hand, "control" can be interpreted in a pretty reasonable way to imply some form of meaningful choice.
>You're the one who's criticizing me
I'm not criticizing you, I'm criticizing your argument. It's important to keep a safe emotional distance in this kind of discussion.
>it doesn't matter [...] even what a court will think. What matters is how much it will constrain the government using this law to harass a website. And 1e isn't going to provide a barrier for that.
It certainly does matter what a court will think. Once a couple of precedents are set, it should be possible to identify what legal actions are meritless, and governments bringing frivolous suits may find themselves voted out of office. Unfairly targeted websites can bring a claim of malicious prosecution.
Now, if you don't trust the voters and the courts, that's a different issue, but it's going to affect every law, good or bad. That's just how government works.
>That the majority of the text of the definition is a list of exceptions doesn't make it a narrow definition; indeed, it just highlights that the original definition sans exceptions is overly broad.
If we assume that ad targeting and algorithmic content recommendation are profitable, the original definition clearly constrains the ability of sites to make money while offering user accounts for minors. Lobbyists probably don't want profits constrained for their employers, even if the targeting aspects aren't necessary.
But just because it targets features that can be added to every website, it isn't reasonable to say that it targets every website. Most of the Internet functions just fine without needing to create accounts, and when accounts are necessary, they're for buying stuff.