Friday, June 01, 2012

Provide Web Users Notice of Obnoxious Behavior by Owners of Website

I would like to see someone create an plugin that would give a warning if you went to a site that had used obnoxious legal bullying to harras small sites. I realize policing who gets shown on such a list would be a big job. I would love to have someone reliable do this and then I could chose to just not deal with such sites (or decided well yeah I don't like using lawyers to bullying but I am willing to sell out my principle because this site is so cool I can't live without it).

The way to counter the strategy of paying lawyers lots of money to bully your small competitors is to setup a method that forces those companies to suffer the consequences for their decision. I would be happy to help that process, but I can't keep track of who is doing the bullying.

This type of providing better information so I (and others) can make informed decisions not to use sites with practices I find obnoxious is something I would really love to see. Both for this type of obnoxious behavior but really a platform could support all sorts of notices on whatever people object to (probably using lists from whatever they care about World Wildlife Fund, NRA, EFF or whoever).

I don't think the legal system is going to be reasonable. We need a solution that allows the market to enforce an acceptable code of conduct with consequences for being obnoxious (even if the legal system thinks it is fine).

I believe the marketplace would be greatly improved if we improved transparency to let us factor in bad behavior by companies to our decisions. I am sure tons of people don't care. But if enough people do care, it will mean companies have to pay for their decisions to engage in obnoxious behavior.

Comment on Hacker News related to: A VC-funded startup called WhosHere is trying to steal my social network - help!

Related: How About Only Enforcing Copyright in Your Country if the Owner Allows Your Citizens To Buy Access - Good Behavior - AT&T's Attempt to Take Away Consumer's Rights Denied

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