We really need to mandate serious fines for companies that violate trust regulations, like 20% of the estimated annual profits (based on the previous five years) or 5% of the company’s valuation. You know, the way a traffic ticket is about a week’s pay.
If their contempt of law is recurring or particularly egregious, nationalize the fucker.
Companies should just be charged the fine multiplied by the number of offenses (like any individual being charged), then multiplied by the number of employees. Any amount over their available cash, becomes asset seizure (for “too critical to fail” companies) or make them go through bankruptcy to liquidate. Hell, you can even be nice and let them do a “payment plan” over a year or two, seizing all profit until the fine is paid in full. I bet companies would follow laws remarkably well if that were on the line.
The US would just be a couple Facebook privacy violations away from running a governmental surplus for the first time in decades!
Nah, then they just gut themselves into a series of subsidiaries and replace most of the workforce with “contractors”. Can’t seize profits either, too much accounting magic available to keep that from staying pennies a year. Hit them where it hurts; base fines on total revenue, and start arresting people on and conspiring with the board of directors.
It’s crazy that this isn’t being properly implemented (probably easier to say and talk about, but stil) because really hefty fines are the only way to stop companies from bullshitting their literal customers.
If there is one thing we know, than it is that companies will not stop at hurting people, the environment or fucking over their customers if it means they make a good profit off of it and can get away with it.
It’s literally a simple calculation for them, nothing more. Literally kill an entire ecosystem and risk poisoning tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of humans? No problem, as long as it pays off.
It cannot be a fixed ceiling - fixed floor, sure - but ceiling should be a percentage of market cap. It’s their responsibility to maximize shareholder profits - making it no longer in the best interest of the shareholders if they had to sell more shares to raise money to pay fines and dilute shareholder value
What we need to do is treat internet access as a public utility rather than a private commodity. That means removing control of the essential infrastructure from private corporations, establishing strong public oversight, and heavily regulating how internet services are delivered to consumers.
The infrastructure already exists to provide virtually every American with high-speed internet access without compromising network performance. The argument that universal, affordable, high-speed internet is somehow technologically or economically unfeasible is largely a matter of priorities and policy.
Look at much of Europe, where consumers have access to significantly more internet service providers competing for the same customer base. In the United States, depending on where you live, you might have two or three realistic options, often with little meaningful competition between them. Three major providers dominate much of the market, and somehow they have managed to make an essential service extraordinarily expensive while offering consumers remarkably little choice.
I don’t believe internet access should be something corporations get to hold hostage for profit. It is essential infrastructure in the modern world, and it should be treated accordingly.
utilities exist to serve the majority of the country, high speed internet only exists in the big cities which make up significantly less than 5% of the country.
Really? Something like 85% of the American population lives in or around metropolitan areas.
And let’s be realistic here: people who live out in the boonies don’t exactly have an abundance of utilities either. They have septic tanks and propane tanks. Some don’t even have electricity, although that’s increasingly uncommon.
It is not at all unreasonable to consider internet access a public utility.
I’m not even sure why I’m getting downvoted. It would benefit the entire population if internet access were treated as a utility rather than remaining under the control of three or four major corporations that effectively have a stranglehold on the market.
What’s particularly strange is that we’re supposedly all about socialism, equality, and equity. But the moment I suggest that internet access should be a utility, suddenly everyone has a problem with it.
I swear, the majority of people on Lemmy must be somewhere between 12 and 25 years old. There’s an awful lot of idealism and not nearly enough real-world perspective.
And even smaller towns have better internet than you’d think. I went to college in a town of ~5k people and the internet was fine, especially if you went with the local co-op internet. They were slightly more expensive but most years you’d get money back so it wasn’t really more expensive and the service was fantastic, sadly they were hard for the college students to use because they only offered yearly contracts unlike the big names.
ISPs should be better. But when you say ‘like utilities’ there’s been way too many for profit companies acting like local monopolies screwing people over too - look at Enron and now Xcel and CenterPoint trying to pass the cost of the Texas freeze to all of their customers all over the country because they lobbied for deregulation and Texas gave it to them. NONE of these companies should exist.
electric companies are also really annoying if you want three phase power at a residential address, I can see a utilityified ISP doing the same for anyone that doesn’t want to be behind CGNAT
We really need to mandate serious fines for companies that violate trust regulations, like 20% of the estimated annual profits (based on the previous five years) or 5% of the company’s valuation. You know, the way a traffic ticket is about a week’s pay.
If their contempt of law is recurring or particularly egregious, nationalize the fucker.
The fines should be increased to Hundreds of billions of dollars
And give the shareholders and the ceo and the entire board the death penalty
Nah, no need. Being completely stripped of assets and forced to exist like working shlubs would be a fate worse than death. For a while at least.
And it might give the owner class more incentive (still) to improve conditions on the bottom rungs.
Ceo’s in orange jumpsuits.
Yeah, unfortunately this is the only real way to force companies to remain ethical. But also, this would only encourage companies to set up a patsy.
The fines should be increased to Hundreds of billions of dollars
And give the shareholders and the ceo and the entire board the death penalty
Companies should just be charged the fine multiplied by the number of offenses (like any individual being charged), then multiplied by the number of employees. Any amount over their available cash, becomes asset seizure (for “too critical to fail” companies) or make them go through bankruptcy to liquidate. Hell, you can even be nice and let them do a “payment plan” over a year or two, seizing all profit until the fine is paid in full. I bet companies would follow laws remarkably well if that were on the line.
The US would just be a couple Facebook privacy violations away from running a governmental surplus for the first time in decades!
Nah, then they just gut themselves into a series of subsidiaries and replace most of the workforce with “contractors”. Can’t seize profits either, too much accounting magic available to keep that from staying pennies a year. Hit them where it hurts; base fines on total revenue, and start arresting people on and conspiring with the board of directors.
It’s crazy that this isn’t being properly implemented (probably easier to say and talk about, but stil) because really hefty fines are the only way to stop companies from bullshitting their literal customers.
If there is one thing we know, than it is that companies will not stop at hurting people, the environment or fucking over their customers if it means they make a good profit off of it and can get away with it. It’s literally a simple calculation for them, nothing more. Literally kill an entire ecosystem and risk poisoning tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of humans? No problem, as long as it pays off.
It cannot be a fixed ceiling - fixed floor, sure - but ceiling should be a percentage of market cap. It’s their responsibility to maximize shareholder profits - making it no longer in the best interest of the shareholders if they had to sell more shares to raise money to pay fines and dilute shareholder value
What we need to do is treat internet access as a public utility rather than a private commodity. That means removing control of the essential infrastructure from private corporations, establishing strong public oversight, and heavily regulating how internet services are delivered to consumers.
The infrastructure already exists to provide virtually every American with high-speed internet access without compromising network performance. The argument that universal, affordable, high-speed internet is somehow technologically or economically unfeasible is largely a matter of priorities and policy.
Look at much of Europe, where consumers have access to significantly more internet service providers competing for the same customer base. In the United States, depending on where you live, you might have two or three realistic options, often with little meaningful competition between them. Three major providers dominate much of the market, and somehow they have managed to make an essential service extraordinarily expensive while offering consumers remarkably little choice.
I don’t believe internet access should be something corporations get to hold hostage for profit. It is essential infrastructure in the modern world, and it should be treated accordingly.
utilities exist to serve the majority of the country, high speed internet only exists in the big cities which make up significantly less than 5% of the country.
Really? Something like 85% of the American population lives in or around metropolitan areas.
And let’s be realistic here: people who live out in the boonies don’t exactly have an abundance of utilities either. They have septic tanks and propane tanks. Some don’t even have electricity, although that’s increasingly uncommon.
It is not at all unreasonable to consider internet access a public utility.
I’m not even sure why I’m getting downvoted. It would benefit the entire population if internet access were treated as a utility rather than remaining under the control of three or four major corporations that effectively have a stranglehold on the market.
What’s particularly strange is that we’re supposedly all about socialism, equality, and equity. But the moment I suggest that internet access should be a utility, suddenly everyone has a problem with it.
I swear, the majority of people on Lemmy must be somewhere between 12 and 25 years old. There’s an awful lot of idealism and not nearly enough real-world perspective.
Lemmy really is a strange freaking place.
And even smaller towns have better internet than you’d think. I went to college in a town of ~5k people and the internet was fine, especially if you went with the local co-op internet. They were slightly more expensive but most years you’d get money back so it wasn’t really more expensive and the service was fantastic, sadly they were hard for the college students to use because they only offered yearly contracts unlike the big names.
ISPs should be better. But when you say ‘like utilities’ there’s been way too many for profit companies acting like local monopolies screwing people over too - look at Enron and now Xcel and CenterPoint trying to pass the cost of the Texas freeze to all of their customers all over the country because they lobbied for deregulation and Texas gave it to them. NONE of these companies should exist.
electric companies are also really annoying if you want three phase power at a residential address, I can see a utilityified ISP doing the same for anyone that doesn’t want to be behind CGNAT