Why do Tech Corporations have different laws and regulations then Non Tech Corporations?

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

@LAwLz @mr moose

I think this may be grounds for a class action. I think that last line is indicative of possible malfeasance by Apple as they are disallowing anyone who isn't an authorized iMac Pro repairer from obtaining the parts to do repairs. 

Yes maybe no and kinda.  Manufacturers only have to guarantee the products to work and repair it if it doesn't, they are not obliged to repair a device that has broken outside of normal use.  The limited warranty here is in reference to tying the warranty conditions to a paid repair from only specified repairers.  In other words they aren't allowed to offer a parts only warranty if they tie that warranty to having to use only apple for the repair.  I don't believe apple offer a parts only warranty so this clause does not apply.    However as we see the right to repair laws slowly evolve (which is a whole new thing in consumer law because it has only been made possible by technology of the last decade) we might see new consumer laws that outright prevent a company from limiting who can repair a device regardless of warranty.   This is a complicated issue and really only separate from any other industry due to the nature of the technology they can implement in their product.

 

I think the problem here is that we are talking about a lot of different laws that pretty much cover every industry (not just tech).  I think the reason we seem to see a difference in tech from say appliance makers or clothing is because the market is simply different.   There is no feasible way to include data collection and a EULA in your washing machine purchase. I can assure you if there was it would be happening already and the same laws that.  

 

With regard to facebook and google,  I think the important bit to remember is that our laws (all countries) have been evolving very very slowly over centuries.  However technology in the last 20 years (absolutely less than a blink when it comes to law reform and evolution) has changed so fast and oped up so many avenues for business in society that law just cannot keep up.  So the older laws that usually pertain to A. is the product dangerous to your health and B. has the consumer been told about adverse product conditions,  are the only real conditions these companies have to meet.  They have so far had all the data collection activities in EULA and ToS that every customer clicks through (the law usually does not consider a consumers choice not read said terms to be the companies fault, especially when the product is a free).   They also clearly lay out what the product does.  Which means under current laws there are very few situations where it can be shown they have broken laws.

 

This should be apparent when we consider countries with traditionally tighter privacy laws (Australia, Netherlands etc) are pouring over all the data with lawyers and microscopes and having trouble finding absolute conditions that can be taken to court.  It is also apparent when we consider the EU has spent years developing and implementing the  GDPR. 

 

What this tells us is that, yes,  we recgonise there is an issue with privacy and data collection and maintaining an internal monopoly or product repairs (warranty or not), but because the technology is so new,  no one can just change the laws and say stop it.   The best example of this changing laws and issues arising is the right to repair and tractor issues in the US.  Here it can literally cost the farmer thousands to have a tractor looked at under warranty.  New laws will change that, but if they aren't implemented properly we might see a lot of unintended damage to the economy. 

 

There is a lot more to this of course, I have just gone over the general facts as I see them.  

 

 

[Combat_Killer]

10 hours ago, Jtalk4456 said:

 We have in effect sold our privacy in exchange for digital services.

In this is the exact reason why they are doing what it is they are doing, now i dont know if you had watch that entire court issue, but this is where and what the leaders were trying to point out. This practices arent allowed and never been allowed with anything else.

Now im not an avid user of facebook, i have an account and i login for probably 5 to 10 mins every couple of days, but one thing i hate about FB, is that in there settings, its confusing and they twist words around and the options that they say does this, it doesnt. Then on top of that when i report something, i get no responses or answers.
 

Im not one of those people that are paranoid about privacy like most others, but i hate it when im flooded with so much crap on my screen that it makes me annoyed and i dont know how to make FB clear and usable, so i went in to play with the settings, i spent roughly a day (6hr) in their settings area and still couldnt get what i want done.
So i started asking questions through their help support, and got no where.

[Combat_Killer]

6 hours ago, Snapperx said:

Insurance doesn't cover everything and it very much depends on what insurance plan you have but still they won't cover 100% of damages that occur and will always try to get a way out of it to not pay you.

Well must be a country thing, cause we can insure anything here in Australia (within reason)

[Snapperx]

2 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

Well must be a country thing, cause we can insure anything here in Australia (within reason)

Of course you can insure it but they will still not pay if you do something shitty. Life insurance for example. If you kill yourself nobody will get anything. Also they will still just give you money and only the amount they really have to give you.

[Yoinkerman]

Not sure what you mean, car companies absolutely dick people around like that

[Combat_Killer]

13 minutes ago, Snapperx said:

Of course you can insure it but they will still not pay if you do something shitty. Life insurance for example. If you kill yourself nobody will get anything. Also they will still just give you money and only the amount they really have to give you.

Which is why i said within reason, just because you have FULL insurance doesnt mean that you can drive in the bush, as that is an entirely different kind of insurance.
These types of things happen as well and people sometimes dont understand this.

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

This practices arent allowed and never been allowed with anything else.

 

yes they are, in a not so obvious way.  Did you read my post or was I unclear?

6 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

 

Im not one of those people that are paranoid about privacy like most others, but i hate it when im flooded with so much crap on my screen that it makes me annoyed and i dont know how to make FB clear and usable,

You're not alone there.   data tracking and targeted ads are the bane of the modern internet. 

[Combat_Killer]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Did you read my post or was I unclear?

 

No, how in the hell i miss that, lolz... reading it now!

[Combat_Killer]

13 hours ago, mr moose said:

Yes maybe no and kinda.  Manufacturers only have to guarantee the products to work and repair it if it doesn't, they are not obliged to repair a device that has broken outside of normal use.  The limited warranty here is in reference to tying the warranty conditions to a paid repair from only specified repairers.  In other words they aren't allowed to offer a parts only warranty if they tie that warranty to having to use only apple for the repair.  I don't believe apple offer a parts only warranty so this clause does not apply.    However as we see the right to repair laws slowly evolve (which is a whole new thing in consumer law because it has only been made possible by technology of the last decade) we might see new consumer laws that outright prevent a company from limiting who can repair a device regardless of warranty.   This is a complicated issue and really only separate from any other industry due to the nature of the technology they can implement in their product.

Yeah but you are mentioning about warranty and guarantee. Im saying take that out of the picture.

What im trying to mention is that, you have a product physically in your hand, whether its a tv, dvd, laptop, what the case and its broken for what ever reason. Now the law stipulates that a company offering or selling products must provide a warranty or guarantee if the product is faulty in any way as its intended of use. What voids this warranty and guarantee is if the owner of the product touches or modifies their product. This i get and agree with, plus its standard law basically anywhere around the globe.
 

But, i cant see how if a person/owner/end user what ever you would like to call it, has purchased a physical product, ie Linues's case a IMac, that he can not physically get it fixed. Im no lawyer, but im pretty sure there is some type of law stating that IF a company provides a product to consumers that can not refuse to repair it, like Apple has. Sure he touched it, so its not covered under warranty or any guarantee's he has to pay full price for the repair job. But refusing repairs, i highly doubt they are allowed to do that.

 

 

14 hours ago, mr moose said:

With regard to facebook and google,  I think the important bit to remember is that our laws (all countries) have been evolving very very slowly over centuries.  However technology in the last 20 years (absolutely less than a blink when it comes to law reform and evolution) has changed so fast and oped up so many avenues for business in society that law just cannot keep up.  So the older laws that usually pertain to A. is the product dangerous to your health and B. has the consumer been told about adverse product conditions,  are the only real conditions these companies have to meet.  They have so far had all the data collection activities in EULA and ToS that every customer clicks through (the law usually does not consider a consumers choice not read said terms to be the companies fault, especially when the product is a free).   They also clearly lay out what the product does.  Which means under current laws there are very few situations where it can be shown they have broken laws.

Yes. I agree.
Im only speaking from what i experience and when i talk with people (Normally under the age of 25-30) they under this believe that the EULA and ToS is law, and always comment "Oh, its in there ToS, so they have not broken any law". Just because something is written in the EULA or ToS doesnt mean its law. For example, an online gaming company had in their ToS that if you downloaded and played the game you werent allowed to have a refund. Now Australia authorities sued them just over $3 million because Australian law states under the Australian Consumer Act that us Australians have a thing called a 2 week cooling off period and have the right to be eligible to a refund with in a 2 week period of any transaction type for purchasing. So no matter what contract, EULA, TOS or anything else of what they say in there, matters.

 

Also, i can not make a contract between us, if you borrowed $100 from me and i said to that you have 1 month to pay me back the full amount and if you dont then ill put a bullet through your head.
Just cause i made that ToS, contract or EULA doesnt mean its law, cause i dont have the right to be putting bullets through peoples heads, lols.
 

And im just trying to tell people just because its stipulated in a contract or EULA or ToS, it doesnt mean its law. Those contracts are only policies that coincide within the law of practice. So i believe once the younger generation start to understand this they might start to stand up and start pushing back on these bully tactics, lead from the bigger corporations, which is what i was referring to mostly in my OP.

But after reading your post its basically where im at the moment trying to start to get people or get the ball rolling, to understand the differences between whats a company policy is and what law is. And as far as im aware, like you stated too, that law needs to hurry the hell up and start fixing this tech bulliness before its too late.

[AncientNerd]

8 hours ago, Yoinkerman said:

Not sure what you mean, car companies absolutely dick people around like that

Yes the car companies themselves do, however (at least in the US, EU, Canada, Brazil and Mexico - the only jurisdictions I am familiar with) the OEM has to provide at a minimum repair manuals and specifications for parts needed to repair the vehicles to second/third party manufacturers to allow for non-OEM repair services to actually fix the vehicles. They can put roadblocks (i.e., charge ridiculous fees for the manuals, slow roll the shipment of said manuals, charge more for OEM parts to third party repair shops than to second party - i.e., dealerships) but at the end of the day they have to by law provide the ability to repair their product by either themselves, second party licencee dealerships or third party independent repair shops. They can refuse to honor your manufacturer warranty if you have a third party shop work on it but they can't make it so you are not able to repair it at all.

 

That is exactly what Apple is doing in this case - and other computer/electronics manufacturers are just as bad. I am holding up vehicle manufacturers because 1) I know the industry having worked inside, 2) I know the electronics industry also having worked inside so I also know the tricks that they play to avoid the things that the vehicle industry has to do, and 3) at least one place I worked was on the border between the two industries in that it provided electronic test equipment for vehicles so I saw the lengths that the vehicle manufacturers would go to avoid letting their tools out to the third parties, while meeting the letter of the law, while our company was trying to get the tools out to as many people as we could - while avoiding letting our IP get out in the world where someone could copy it (so our repair rules would have been illegal if we had been one of our customers...)

[Combat_Killer]

@AncientNerd

 

Well said, im glad that someone that has had a work history similar to me, so now i hope people can see the truths.

(Off Topic)

I remember working for a place where we sold genuine and non-genuine parts, but the product/item would come out of the same manufacture. Example; Our company would have starter motors in a white box, and inside the white box we would have different OEM stickers that came inside the box, so if the customer wanted that starter motor as a non-genuine part, we wouldnt put stickers on it. But if they requested for a genuine part, then we would put the OEM sticker on the item, if it was lets say Toyota we would put a Toyota OEM sticker on it.

When i question head office about this, they said all the parts come out of the exact same place where all alternators are manufactured. Now the only difference between the two items was the price and warranty given. OEM offered 3 to 5 yrs warranty + $50 to $150 more then the non-genuine. Where as non-genuine offered 6 months to a 1 year warranty + the price of them were between $50 to $80 buy price.

So you could buy a non-genuine for a max price of $80

Or, you could buy genuine for max price of $240

But they were both the exact same part, lolz

 

And im sure, you would of seen similar things like this too!

[Jtalk4456]

12 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

In this is the exact reason why they are doing what it is they are doing, now i dont know if you had watch that entire court issue, but this is where and what the leaders were trying to point out. This practices arent allowed and never been allowed with anything else.

Now im not an avid user of facebook, i have an account and i login for probably 5 to 10 mins every couple of days, but one thing i hate about FB, is that in there settings, its confusing and they twist words around and the options that they say does this, it doesnt. Then on top of that when i report something, i get no responses or answers.
 

Im not one of those people that are paranoid about privacy like most others, but i hate it when im flooded with so much crap on my screen that it makes me annoyed and i dont know how to make FB clear and usable, so i went in to play with the settings, i spent roughly a day (6hr) in their settings area and still couldnt get what i want done.
So i started asking questions through their help support, and got no where.

I agree with the sad state of the settings menu, but the practices are allowed unfortunately. They put their practices in the terms of service, we agreed to it. I'm not saying those practices are good, but i'm saying we let them use those practices by not demanding better. He's at fault for creating those practices and we are at fault for letting him use those practices. Sadly though he hasn't broken the law to do this. We need to take part of the blame and realize that in order to change this problem, we need to all start looking for social media alternatives. He listens to the bottom line and you can bet if enough people start leaving advertisers will start leaving, and if the advertisers start leaving, his policies will change

[Canada EH]

21 hours ago, Snapperx said:

Insurance

Yes, Insurance companies are like that. Try to weasel their way out of paying out.

Medical is like that.

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

Yeah but you are mentioning about warranty and guarantee. Im saying take that out of the picture.

What im trying to mention is that, you have a product physically in your hand, whether its a tv, dvd, laptop, what the case and its broken for what ever reason. Now the law stipulates that a company offering or selling products must provide a warranty or guarantee if the product is faulty in any way as its intended of use. What voids this warranty and guarantee is if the owner of the product touches or modifies their product. This i get and agree with, plus its standard law basically anywhere around the globe.
 

But, i cant see how if a person/owner/end user what ever you would like to call it, has purchased a physical product, ie Linues's case a IMac, that he can not physically get it fixed. Im no lawyer, but im pretty sure there is some type of law stating that IF a company provides a product to consumers that can not refuse to repair it, like Apple has. Sure he touched it, so its not covered under warranty or any guarantee's he has to pay full price for the repair job. But refusing repairs, i highly doubt they are allowed to do that.

 

Because until apple this was not an issue.  It still isn't with nearly every other company in that they will repair what you have broken.   Like I said before, with the advent of modern technology (last 15 years) a lot of laws are being tested in new ways.

 

8 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

Yes. I agree.
Im only speaking from what i experience and when i talk with people (Normally under the age of 25-30) they under this believe that the EULA and ToS is law, and always comment "Oh, its in there ToS, so they have not broken any law". Just because something is written in the EULA or ToS doesnt mean its law. For example, an online gaming company had in their ToS that if you downloaded and played the game you werent allowed to have a refund. Now Australia authorities sued them just over $3 million because Australian law states under the Australian Consumer Act that us Australians have a thing called a 2 week cooling off period and have the right to be eligible to a refund with in a 2 week period of any transaction type for purchasing. So no matter what contract, EULA, TOS or anything else of what they say in there, matters.

Here in lies the problem, Yes you are right that the ToS doesn't exclusively make something legal, but for certain practices (like data harvesting) it does.  Because all our laws evolved around pen and paper technology.  All our consumer laws have evolved around some form of physical interaction.  What facebook and google are doing maybe considered illegal after review (especially here in Australia) but not sufficiently illegal to warrant court action. Both FB and Google are under investigation to see if they break any current privacy laws.  Now not being a lawyer involved with this investigation I couldn't say what they will find, however I  can say the reason it has taken this long is because our current law is too ambiguous for current services.

 

 

8 hours ago, Combat_Killer said:

company policy is and what law is. And as far as im aware, like you stated too, that law needs to hurry the hell up and start fixing this tech bulliness before its too late.

I know it's frustrating but you don;t actually want the law to hurry up too much.  Rushed laws are like a rushed paint job on a car.  fucking ugly and people end up losing out.

 

It's going to be really difficult to define exactly what constitutes reasonable data acquisition.   I think it is going to end up like fair use policy in copyright claims where the boundaries are left purposefully blurry so the judge/jury has wiggle room to make allowances for individual cases.

[Combat_Killer]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

 

I know it's frustrating but you don;t actually want the law to hurry up too much.  Rushed laws are like a rushed paint job on a car.  fucking ugly and people end up losing out.

 

Love it!!!    im gunna use that one day!!!

Also i just downloaded this PDF, dunno if you have yet or not, i havent started reading it, but from what i glanced over it looks kind of interesting.

privacy-business-resource-21-australian-businesses-and-the-eu-general-data-protection-regulation.pdf

 

So its a start, its effective as of the 25th of May 2018

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Combat_Killer said:

Love it!!!    im gunna use that one day!!!

Also i just downloaded this PDF, dunno if you have yet or not, i havent started reading it, but from what i glanced over it looks kind of interesting.

privacy-business-resource-21-australian-businesses-and-the-eu-general-data-protection-regulation.pdf

No I haven't yet but I suspect it will be more a how to and informational work for Aussie businesses to help avoid getting in trouble with the GDPR.

[ARikozuM]

5 hours ago, Canada EH said:

Yes, Insurance companies are like that. Try to weasel their way out of paying out.

Medical is like that.

Another field that needs regulations.