Techdirt. Stories filed under "compliance" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "compliance"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 31 May 2013 13:30:00 PDT Court Orders Google To Comply With National Security Letters, But Suggests It Might Want To Ask Again Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130531/11553323275/court-orders-google-to-comply-with-national-security-letters-suggests-it-might-want-to-ask-again.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130531/11553323275/court-orders-google-to-comply-with-national-security-letters-suggests-it-might-want-to-ask-again.shtml fighting back against complying with a series of National Security Letters (NSLs), the notorious tool of law enforcement to snoop on people secretly, which has been abused widely. Google's decision to push back on these NSLs came following a ruling by the same judge, Susan Illston, who had ruled NSLs unconstitutional. Given that ruling, it appeared that Google hoped to get the judge to say that it didn't need to comply with 19 NSLs it had received.

Instead, Judge Illston has told Google it must comply -- following secret affidavits from FBI officials. However, it appears that Judge Illston may think that Google just asked in the wrong way, and might be more willing to kill the NSLs if Google presented more specifics about the NSLs in question, rather than asking to broadly ignore NSLs in general:
It wasn't a complete win for the Justice Department, however: Illston all but invited Google to try again, stressing that the company has only raised broad arguments, not ones "specific to the 19 NSLs at issue." She also reserved judgment on two of the 19 NSLs, saying she wanted the government to "provide further information" prior to making a decision.
Given that, I would imagine this is nowhere near over.

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]]> mother-may-i http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130531/11553323275 Thu, 22 Dec 2011 05:19:47 PST The Myth That SOPA/PIPA Only Impact 'Foreign Sites' Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111220/03135817138/myth-that-sopapipa-only-impact-foreign-sites.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111220/03135817138/myth-that-sopapipa-only-impact-foreign-sites.shtml target foreign sites, but the entire setup, compliance costs, and legal liability is applied to domestic sites and companies. The blacklisting remedies all require a variety of US companies to take significant and costly actions that will burden many startups.

The recent discussion by Reddit General Manager Erik Marin about why SOPA would lead to the end of Reddit highlights the point nicely.
If SOPA passes in anything like it's current form, it would almost certainly mean the end of reddit. It may not happen overnight, but we have a very small staff (~11, mostly engineers), and even dealing with DMCA stuff is a big burden for us. SOPA would make running reddit near impossible. And we have access to great lawyers through our parent company. I can't imagine how smaller sites without those kind of resources could even attempt a go at it if SOPA passes.
We've been trying to make this point for months, and the folks in favor of these bills just keep ignoring it insisting time and time again that this is just about foreign sites. Most of those people have never been entrepreneurs. They've never worked at a company where the threat of legal action is a BIG DEAL, that can massively disrupt operations (and cash flow). They don't realize that increasing liability, compliance costs and legal risks isn't just a nuisance -- it can force an entire business to shut down. We've talked about how these bills change things so that it's not just two engineers in a garage any more, but two engineers... who need a team of a dozen lawyers.

Considering that nearly all of the net job creation in the US comes from startups (pdf), to massively burden all of these companies with ridiculous compliance and legal costs makes no sense at all. It makes even less sense when you look at the details, and realize that the entertainment industry has actually continued to grow significantly over the past decade, contrary to the gloom and doom stories you keep hearing. Yes, a few of the big companies with big lobbying budgets have struggled with their own business model, but that's no excuse for massively hindering jobs and economic growth, messing with the fundamentals of the internet, and giving foreign regimes a blueprint on how to censor the internet in a way that the US can't complain.

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]]> targeted,-perhaps,-but-the-impact-is-much-wider http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111220/03135817138 Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:28:00 PDT E-PARASITE's Sponsor, Lamar Smith, Was Against Massive Regulatory Compliance The Day Before He's For It Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111027/00222316532/e-parasites-sponsor-lamar-smith-was-against-massive-regulatory-compliance-day-before-hes-it.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111027/00222316532/e-parasites-sponsor-lamar-smith-was-against-massive-regulatory-compliance-day-before-hes-it.shtml introduced the E-PARASITE Act, which puts incredibly massive regulatory compliance costs on large portions of the internet. Perhaps you think that Congress burdening companies -- especially tech companies, which, recent studies have shown, are responsible for much of the job growth in this country -- is par for the course. But, isn't it interesting to see that just the day before E-PARASITE came out, the House Judiciary Committee cleared a bill to try to limit the costs of regulatory compliance. The main supporter of the bill? You guessed it -- none other than the head of the House Judiciary Committee... Rep. Lamar Smith:
The bill “is an urgently needed antidote to this anti-democratic sentiment,” Smith said in prepared remarks. “It gives the people’s representatives in Congress the final say on whether Washington will impose major new regulations on the American economy, not unaccountable agency officials.”

Republicans point to a Small Business Administration analysis showing U.S. regulations cost $1.75 trillion to comply with in 2008 (that research doesn’t attempt to calculate societal benefits). House Republicans have focused much of their energy this Congress on regulations, voting to delay and weaken several Environmental Protection Agency rules reducing pollution from sources such as power plants, cement plants and industrial boilers.
So, basically, on Tuesday, Rep. Lamar Smith is against damaging regulations that increase compliance costs on the American economy and small businesses. Then, on Wednesday, he introduces a bill that will establish massive regulatory compliance costs on tons of American small businesses. Kinda makes you wonder if he even understands the legislation he's introducing.

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]]> do-they-even-know-what-they're-doing? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111027/00222316532 Thu, 6 Nov 2008 06:31:00 PST Pushing For A Repeal Of Sarbanes-Oxley Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081105/1527442751.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081105/1527442751.shtml repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, the law that was hastily written post-Enron to try to prevent such collapses again, but instead simply added a huge compliance tax, without doing much of anything to actually prevent corporate fraud. Corporate fraud is still rampant, and the law did absolutely nothing to prevent the financial collapse we see ourselves in today. There were, instead, massive unintended consequences, leading companies to go public elsewhere, go private or avoid the public markets altogether. The lack of IPOs, especially in the tech space over the past few years, even as the economy was looking strong, is incredibly telling.

So, it's good to see a renewed effort to get Congress to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley, which simply created a massive tax in terms of compliance, with awful unintended (though, totally predictable) consequences -- all while doing almost nothing to cut down on actual fraud.

I am a strong believer in the idea that fraud should be punished heavily -- but Sarbanes-Oxley didn't do that. It just moved the loopholes and punished the honest companies by dumping a huge compliance tax on them. It's been bad for the economy, bad for startups and bad for innovation, and it's time to go.

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]]> about-frickin-time http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081105/1527442751 Fri, 1 Feb 2008 13:46:00 PST One-Sided Surveys Concerning Software Licensing Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080121/19172826.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080121/19172826.shtml editorial concerning the issue of unlicensed software. The editorial is written by someone at a consulting firm, trying to drive more business in helping software companies force their customers into complying with license terms -- so it's in the writer's best interest to make it sound like going after unauthorized users is good business. You'll notice as you read through the report that all of the data seems to only come from one side: the software companies themselves. It should come as no surprise that those software companies complain about significant "losses" due to unauthorized use -- as it's rare for most software firms to admit that they often benefit from the network effects of unauthorized use. It's even rarer for most software firms to admit that some unauthorized use comes from those who would never pay for the software in the first place.

From there, the report gets even worse, claiming that software license compliance efforts (basically, showing up at your customers and making sure they're not using more than they paid for) "cause few, if any, negative ramifications" and generally say the "impact of software license compliance activity was neutral, positive, or very positive." Once again, this is incredibly one-sided. It only talks to the software firms themselves -- who are either unlikely to admit or simply unaware of how their customers feel about such compliance efforts. If the consulting firm were really interested in understanding the impact of these compliance efforts (rather than just selling more compliance services), it would have also investigated how those on the receiving end felt about such efforts -- and the longer term impacts of treating your customers as if they were thieves. But, that might not tell such a rosy story, and might not be good for business.

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