Path reaches settlement with FTC, agrees to pay $800K fine for COPPA violations - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/02/01/path-reaches-settlement-with-ftc-agrees-to-pay-800000-fine-for-coppa-violations/

<comment> guard-of-terra What "Children protection" means really is "we want to shelve children in a dark dry place until they reach age".

The problem with that kind of thinking is that it will yield toddlers of age. Able-bodied but socially infantile.

The solution to that problem is that those rules are largely ignored by everyone. But this creates the dangerous law relativity where you have these laws but know they're never applied to you. And when they suddently are applied you are in a deep trouble.

Stupid people -> Stupid laws -> Stupid society.

<comment><USER2> Yikes. Making it legal to prey on children online is not a great solution.

<comment><USER3> _Think of the children!_

This is old and tired, especially when you throw in emotionally charged phrases like "prey on". Does Facebook prey on its users? Around a billion people don't think so.

<comment><USER2> Facebook does not allow pre-teens on their site precisely because of this law. I do not think that's a bad thing. The law is not perfect, but it is intended to be a tool to stop people from exploiting kids 12 and under. The exploitation isn't necessarily from the site operator, but other users. If Facebook had a bunch of 11 year olds (and now with Graph Search it would be easy to find 11 year olds near you) the main concern would not be that Facebook would somehow take advantage, but that other people on Facebook would.

These same kids cannot go to a PG-13 rated movie without an adult either, I don't find this especially onerous.

<http://www.facebook.com/help/441374602560317/>

<comment><USER3> With all due respect, that's between a parent and their child. At the very least, the name COPPA is disingenuous and misleading - I'm pretty sure if it was called the Ban Kids From Facebook law, it would not have the same level of public support.

Also, the MPAA rating system is not a legal requirement. AFAIK, there is no law which prevents 13 year olds from watching PG-13 movies, either in theaters or at home: <http://www.theclyde.net/TheClyde_Ratings.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> COPPA doesn't seem that unreasonable. Protecting children from information disclosure while they're under the age of 13 seems very appropriate to me. Once kids are 13, they can begin to disclose at their own discretion, but before that, I can see the case for protecting them.

<comment><USER3> Of course COPPA doesn't _seem_ unreasonable, and that's why it continues to exist. However, it is a lesson in unintended consequences: Rather than protecting children, COPPA has the effect of banning them from the internet. The subsequent effect of teaching children to lie and exploit the system is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Laws must not be judged on their intentions, but on their practical consequences. The only difference between the current world and a world without COPPA is that in this world, honest kids are prevented from having the same fun that their lying friends are having.

<comment><USER2> They aren't banned from the internet. They're banned from disclosing personal information (e.g. social networking) without parental consent, which at their age is probably not a bad thing. Wikipedia, Google and the rest of the internet are all fair game. So is any site that goes through with the parental consent part. Sites that do not tailor to kids typically do not go through the hassle because under-13 also means they aren't going to spend any money.

<comment><USER3> The _practical_ result is that kids are banned from nearly any site that could conceivably discover their age - presumably even by commenting in a forum or on a blog entry.

Actually, nix that. The _practical_ result is that kids are taught to lie about their age. Fortunately this skill will come in handy when it's time to get a fake ID and buy booze.

<comment><USER5> No, that's not the practical result. You don't run afoul of COPPA by just _knowing_ someone's age; you get into trouble when you knowingly collect the personal information of children under 13 without their parent's permission.

Honestly, I would think this crowd would be more disappointed that "banned from nearly any site" has become synonymous with "unwilling to submit all your personally identifiable information."

<comment> guard-of-terra That's a nice distinction but how does it proctect children?

You being unwilling to submit personal information also makes you banned from almost all the web, including e-mail services.

<comment><USER5> You seriously misunderstand COPPA; it is not designed to protect _children_. It's designed to protect children's _privacy_.

<comment> guard-of-terra Is protecting children's privacy orthogonal or even conflicting with protecting children?

Because you make it sound like that.

UPD: Let me show you an example: Pretend we're talking about some law and you're arguing it's not designed to protect me, but to protect my body. My first thought: the hell are you going to do with my body? Because, my body is what makes me me. If you protect it but not me perhaps you're going to sell my organs away.

<comment><USER5> Great example, let's run with it...

By your analogy, COPPA would be the law that prevents people from collecting and selling children's organs. Because kids are gullible and and it's easy to convince them out of a kidney or two.

Except replace "organs" with "personally identifiable information companies want in order to market shit to you."

<comment> guard-of-terra The problem with this sort of forced "protection" is that it ruins my social life. That's what happens to children actually. Or I am forced to shrug off your "protection" (entering into the legal grey zone), that's what happens too.

<comment><USER5> Really? That's ultimately your beef? "It ruins my social life."

<comment> guard-of-terra Yeah, that's it. I don't need your protection if it ruins my freedom. Children neither.

<comment><USER5> "First they came for Facebook's right to collect all of my personal information, and I didn't speak out..."

Tragic.

You managed to think yourself into a corner where a law protecting _personal privacy_ from _corporate misuse_ is an attack against your freedom.

I'm leaving now; don't follow me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does this mean if you don't ask for a birthdate on your service, you're safe, or are you required to ask for birthdate and reject anything that comes in under 13?

An easy fix for this: dynamically populate the date drop-downs so you can only select (today - 13 years)

<comment><USER7> You don't have to ask for a user's age if your site is intended for a "general audience". You'll still need to purge information from users who are discovered to be under 13.

See questions 40/41 <http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.shtm#teen>

""" 40\. I operate a general audience site and do not ask visitors to reveal their ages. I do have a button that users can click to send feedback, comments, or questions by email. What are my responsibilities if I get an email that says, "Hi, I am Steve, age 10, and I really like your site. When do you think you will add some more games?"

Under the Rule's one-time contact exception, 16 C.F.R. § 312.5(c)(2), you may reply to the child once without sending notice to the parent or obtaining parental consent, if you do not re-contact the child, and you delete the child's personal information, including email address, from your records after responding to the email.

"""

Legal Corollary of 40: If you send spoofed email to a site operator claiming to be under 13, you could legally force them to delete another user's account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The sad thing is I think Path responded far better than most others, and they've received a heavy-handed response relative to the abuses of so many others.

They were transparent, admitted their mistake, and corrected it. What's the lesson here? Bury your mistakes and avoid the PR headache and financial penalties?

<comment><USER5> The investigation was launched due to Path uploading people's entire address book to their servers with out the user's permission.

I have little sympathy that such a casual disregard to customer's privacy would come to bite them in the ass multiple times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know this might have a obvious answer, but I need to be clear: Which of the following is the case here?

1\. Minors below 13 were able to sign-up under the guidance of adults but the system was not having enough checks in place?

2\. Minors could register as minors without any system at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently #2:

"As you may know, we ask users' their birthdays during the process of creating an account. However, there was a period of time where our system was not automatically rejecting people who indicated that they were under 13."

<comment><USER10> So there is a law against allowing 13yr olds on a social network?

<comment><USER11> Pretty much: it's COPPA.

The gist of COPPA is that you can't collect information about people under 13, without the express consent from a parent. So it's not completely against the law to have 13yo on a social network, it's just common for sites to just refuse kids altogether, mostly out of convenience.

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childrens_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act) and <http://www.coppa.org/>.

<comment> guard-of-terra And therefore every kid out there learns that 1) adults are stupid and coward and, 2) you should lie to them all the time, before reaching the age of 13.

We are all miserable idiots for allowing this.

<comment><USER3> This is _exactly_ what happens. I know several 10- and 11- year olds (my gf's sister is 23 years younger) and they all lie about their age to use Facebook and Google - with the knowledge and consent of their parents/guardians.

This is incredibly stupid.

<comment><USER2> > with the knowledge and consent of their parents/guardians.

Not coincidently that's all COPPA requires. You can run web services tailored to the under-13 set, you just need to collect parental approval for your young users. Facebook and Google don't bother with it because it's a hassle.

<comment><USER3> This is not quite correct. It requires _provable_ consent from parents, such as a written letter. It's not surprising that online services do not go through this process.

Again, the _actual_ effect of the law is not what's written in it. The _actual_ effect is that internet companies (like my startup) simply ban the under-13 set. And we just register people for bicycle races!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Diffie-Hellman key exchange, explained using colors - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange#Description <comment><USER2> I found this video helped explain the key exchange using colors quite well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QnD2c4Xovk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QnD2c4Xovk)

<comment><USER3> I was going to post this... This video gives the best explanation of DH you can find

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If I read this correctly, then a DH key exchange could be vulnerable to an active MITM attack manipulating the initial common color?

<comment><USER5> _All_ key exchanges are vulnerable to an active MITM attack, whether using pigments or some cryptographic key exchange.

The only way around it? Some other method of verifying the key, which isn't vulnerable to a MITM, like meeting in person, or using Certificate Authorities.

<comment><USER6> Hence key-signing parties. People are still doing those, aren't they?

<comment><USER7> Someone needs to write fiction about bringing rufies to a key signing party.

<comment><USER8> xkcd 364 is close: [https://xkcd.com/364/](https://xkcd.com/364/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if there's a similar way to show how you would encrypt and then decrypt a message using ElGamal, which is the natural evolution of Diffie- Hellman.

<comment><USER10> ElGamal requires an inverse element, which isn't possible with colors to my knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wikipedia has this in English:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman_key_exchange#Description)

<comment><USER12> Thanks. I think we'll change the url to this from [1].

Hacker News is an English-language site. Obviously, content in other languages is often just as good or better. But it is what this site is. Machine translation is surprisingly not bad these days, but I don't think it's a general solution here.

1\. [http://blog.zeit.de/mathe/allgemein/daten- verschluesselung-m...](http://blog.zeit.de/mathe/allgemein/daten- verschluesselung-mathe/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure.

I hadn't come across this kind of explanation and didn't think of checking Wikipedia.

I thought it was an original idea by the author.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> guys I hope you are aware that's like high-school math?

</comment><comment><USER14> Gee thanks for showing me that different areas of my crappy monitor display color differently.</comment>


Browser Museum (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.donmouth.co.uk/web_design/browsermuseum/browsermuseum.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a history of web browsers that has last seen a substantial update in 2000.

I stumbled on it, and found it a nostalgic perspective on how the web has changed. The best part is at the end:

 _" It is hard to see what additional functionalities could be added to PC- based browsers that they do not already have with IE5 and NS6. Certainly some tidying up of standards is likely. From a Javascripter's viewpoint the ability to slice an element such as the contents of a <span> into single-pixel wide bars would offer new dimensions for scrolling and other text manipulation effects. Some web authors would like to see a greater degree of sophistications in the handling of sound, which remains relatively primitive."_

The only thing missing from IE5 is the ability to slice an element into single-pixel bars?! A good example of how little we're able to imagine beyond the current state of things, whatever it happens to be.</comment>


My Doctor's Office Asked Me To Lie - <AUTHOR> http://www.stallman.org/articles/asked_to_lie.html <comment><USER3> Could you imagine at the extremes if you had been refused treatment because of your refusal to sign this document, to which you knew to be untrue, and to which they could not provide you with the policy. I studied law for four years (haven't qualified) , but I'm still not even sure on the liability on this one (if there is any at all in this hypothetical).

It just shows how bureaucratic everything has become when a privacy policy contains 3000 pages, to which they clearly never refer to, and to which you are most likely the first person to have ever asked to actually see the policy.

Best wishes with your health Richard!

<comment><USER4> Additionally, what about the fact that if the woman knew the Privacy Policy was 3000 pages and in a binder (which she claimed to be aware of) and knowingly accepts a statement she strongly believes to be untrue? Is this enough to invalidate the "contract" because it is blatantly known that full disclosure and meeting of the minds has not been met?

This also comes to mind during mortgages and car loans. Often the closer will just hand you a stack of papers and say "you need to initial here, here, and here, sign here, here, and here" and then expect/anticipate the person to do just that without reading the agreement. The closer ought to know that the signer has not actually read the document and therefore the initials and signatures don't represent what they are meant to represent... that the person has READ the whole thing and mindfully agreed to it! Agh!

<comment><USER5> I the first time I closed on a house, realizing ten minutes in that either I was going to be signing contracts without reading them, or everyone was going to be sitting around watching me read for three hours. There's a lot of pressure in a situation like that, even though I try never to sign anything without reading it.

<comment><USER6> Did you have a lawyer to represent you? That's their job... to make sure that the contract you're signing is OK. Actually reading a contract without knowledge of the law, case history, and background can get you into just as much trouble as not reading it at all. That's why you have lawyers review important contracts.

<comment><USER7> The first time I rented a car, I spent 10 minutes reading the rental agreement. I don't do that any more; I just glance at it and sign it.

I am not a lawyer. Suppose a rental car matter ended up court. I would rather not have to say to the judge, "I spent 10 minutes thoughtfully reading and evaluating the contract, and after careful consideration decided to accept the agreement." I would rather be able to say, "Gee, it was printed in gray ink in tiny type on the back of the paper, and they told me to just sign here on the front to get the car. I needed the car, so I did what they told me."

I never accept the "standard contract" when it comes to employment or consulting gigs - then I always read carefully, propose alterations, and often talk to my lawyer. But if it really is a "standard contract" signed by millions (including, presumably, lots of lawyers, too) then I am inclined to balance the risks and benefits and opt for ignorance over informed consent.

<comment><USER8> I always read employment contracts before signing them, too. Last time I did this, the contract said something to the effect of, "The company can modify this agreement at any time without notifying the employee." I immediately crossed out that clause and initialed.

<comment><USER9> Does that actually work? Is it enforceable? I would imagine that if you sent back a contract with modifications for their review that they would balk at hiring or you would get involved with the lawyers who are so much better at legal negotiating than you are.

I definitely would not do that with a consulting contract. The chance that something weird would come up is generally worth it to get a good client.

<comment><USER10> > Does that actually work? Is it enforceable?

Yes, it's legal and enforceable. Your signature is on the contract that you sign, not on some mythical un-marked-up copy.

In fact, this is often a good negotiating tactic: someone hands you a contract, and they just want to get it signed. You strike out the price and write in a new price (or whatever), initial it, sign it, and hand it back.

The psychic weight is now on them - they have a SIGNED CONTRACT and all they need to do is to sign it themselves.

Taking the conceptual step backwards from a contract (albeit only signed by one party) to a contract signed by NEITHER party is a bit hard to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I recently had a similar experience at my dentist's office. I was asked to sign a waiver of liability, presumably for insurance purposes. It asked me to state that I had been informed of the risks of the procedure (tooth removal), including a long list of possible bad outcomes. I asked the dentist about this, and she said not to worry, most of those couldn't happen here. So I asked her to please strike the ones that couldn't happen, and explain the likelihood of the other complications, _as her own document required her to do_. After disgustedly doing this, and spending another 20 minutes fulfilling the other requirements of the document she wanted me to sign, she poked a needle in my mouth, yanked my tooth out, and walked away without saying another word.

She clearly blamed me for wasting her time, since other patients obviously sign the form and get on with it. I actually think the problem here was that the form was _too short_ , and so I felt that I could actually reasonably go through it, as opposed to a lengthy legalistic form that I couldn't possibly be held to in court if it turned out to be unfair.

<comment><USER12> It is ill-advised to spite your dentist soon before they get to work with sharp objects inside your mouth (or anyone, really).

<comment><USER13> He didn't "spite" his dentist. He wanted her to explain the risks of the procedure - which I think is reasonable.

<comment><USER12> Maybe he didn't ask in the most tactful manner.

<comment><USER13> Sure, that's possible. But you have no evidence for it, and I find it ( _cough_ ) rude to assume so, and then criticize him for it.

<comment><USER12> I merely bring up the possibility, and do not disagree with your point. I might also add that it is rude to assume the dentist acted inappropriately. In any case, we have very little information to work with.

As a rule of thumb, however, the wise one treads carefully when dealing with someone who is about to have her in a particularly vulnerable position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know how it is in the US, but here (Greece), most people aren't aware that you can modify contracts, or even that they're binding.

I've had various people come up to me with company offers and asking me to sign things, which, after I've read, I said, for example "I'm not authorizing you to use my email to send me things, so I'll strike this clause out". People (including the person who handed me the agreement) looked at me as if I were the most pedantic person in the world, or as if I were trying to make things fall upwards.

It's very disconcerting, because nearly everyone treats contracts as a "take it or leave it" affair. Sure, when you're getting a new phone, the employee doesn't have the power to agree to alter the contract, but in many cases you can do it.

<comment><USER15> _"... so I'll strike this clause out"_

Unfortunately, this option is taken away from us in online transactions. There is no legally binding way to change the text of the contract, and you are even forced to tick these "I accept the terms of ..." check boxes before proceeding.

<comment><USER16> I edit online contracts this way all the time. Right-click in Chrome, "Inspect Element", right-click, "Edit element as HTML".

<comment><USER17> I'd like to see someone argue _that_ in court.

<comment><USER18> It's come up on This Week in Law. Someone was sending back a modified EULA in the POST data.

The lawyers on the show mainly thought it was cute and not something that would be recognized in court.

<comment><USER19> I've implemented electronic signatures before and what I like to do is have the browser submit the agreement back to the server and the server rejects it if it's been altered.

<comment><USER16> That seems reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While the doctor's office may have been the proximate agent asking him to 'lie', the true culprit is the incomprehensible, self-contradictory system that elected and unelected bureaucrats in the US have cobbled together over the decades. If the doctor doesn't maintain that privacy paperwork (which as rms noted the police can view at will anyway), they will not receive reimbursement from CMS. There are likely other statutory issues with HIPAA that I'm unfamiliar with. It's difficult to fault them for not wasting their limited time/money resisting the paperwork requirements when it would only detract from patient care resources.

If he were actually In Extremis, the physician/nurse/EMS would treat him under implied consent. Technically a patient of sound mind can refuse care but in practice someone who looks like rms (beard discrimination) ranting about his privacy would rather quickly be hit with a B52 (50mg Benadryl, 5mg Haldol, 2mg Ativan). Emergency providers are in a bit of a quandary as they must choose between the possibility of missing a subdural hematoma on a patient refusing care and facing a wrongful death lawsuit, and facing a lawsuit for unlawful imprisonment and assault.

</comment><comment><USER21> Note that the article is from 2011 (August 1 if you believe the headers). No direct relation to the "rms collapsed" story posted yesterday.

<comment><USER22> Yeah. As it says on the bottom, "Copyright 2011 Richard Stallman released under Creative Commons Attribution Noderivs 3.0 unported".

It's a surprising statement for many reasons. First, I have traditionally thought of CC as somehow opposed to GNU, but here's Stallman releasing with CC. Second, it's a 2011 document -- had he not been to a doctor prior to 2011? unlikely, so maybe he just never noticed what he was signing?

Perhaps the most surprising thing is the "noderivs" part. One important text -- the GPL -- is also released as copyrighted, to discourage people from modifying the GPL in their COPYING documents in their repositories. But CC Noderivs prohibits any modification of this little snippet. I thought the whole point of free software was modifiability -- but Stallman doesn't think that this applies to free art? Meanwhile, it is _not_ released as share-alike, which is the CC license which "copylefts" the work in the way that the GNU GPL acts to copyleft software.

<comment><USER23> He releases his books under GNU FDL, so they can be remixed. But I assume he doesn't want people changing his blog posts. Makes sense to me.

<comment><USER24> I think there's a fundamental difference, too. His books are fiction. (Or fact. I dunno, I didn't read them.) His blog posts are his personal opinion. I would definitely treat their contents differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's really the problem with this situation is that it's really hard to point a finger to a single culprit in the system thereby pointing to a way to solve the problem. That's why it's a wicked problem (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem>)

* The doctors cannot be blamed because they want to protect themselves (e.g. see the insane amounts of insurance required to practice medicine in the US to guard against suing by patients) and "the system" forces them to create such documents and have them signed.

* The patients cannot be blamed because, well, you don't want to sign your consent to a document that you haven't read and that may (and will) contain clauses that are clearly adversarial to you. But the issue is not just having access to the document, 99% of the people won't have the knowledge, let alone the patience, to parse such a legal document.

* The politicians are not to blame because they are just bowing to public pressure (and of course powerful lobbies) and many of these laws and practices are one way rachet-up, i.e. they can never be loosened (see, e.g. the overly strict sex laws in the US).

* The lawyers are not to blame because they are just being employed by people, i.e. they are not evil _by themselves_ but may be put to evil use (similar to "guns don't kill people" defense).

For a recent example of suing madness (in a slightly different area) in the US consider that Nutella was sued and was fined $3.6M just because people couldn't read the clear nutritional sign ([http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/02/10/133565759/a-mom-s...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/02/10/133565759/a-mom- sues-nutella-maker-for-deceptive-advertising?ft=1&f=103537970)).

I don't know what the solution is. But the US healthcare industry is converging to disaster if we don't solve problems like this.

<comment><USER26> > Nutella was sued and was fined $3.6M just because people couldn't read the > clear nutritional sign

Did you even read the article? It clearly says that Nutella was sued because it had misleading advertising, saying/implying that it was healthy, when in reality it contains a lot of sugar.

I know that Coca-Cola is bad for your health (it's pretty obvious that any sweet drink is bad for your teeth and makes you fat and probably not any less thirsty). But I would still want the company fined if it advertised Coca-Cola drink as being healthy.

<comment><USER25> All advertising is misleading in a sense, the question is where to draw the line: the legal complaint (<http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/02/02/Nutella.pdf>) states that the moms were duped because they saw TV commercials that showed moms feeding Nutella to their healthy families. Although I think the ""An example of a tasty yet balanced breakfast." label should be removed from Nuteall jars (which'll be done, [http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/2012/05/nutella-lawsuit- company...](http://commonlaw.findlaw.com/2012/05/nutella-lawsuit-company-to- pay-up-over-misleading-advertising.html)) I don't the millions of dollars awarded (I misstated this, actually it was $3.06M) makes sense, but then I'm no lawyer.

BTW, you can go to this site ([https://nutellaclassactionsettlement.com/FrequentlyAskedQues...](https://nutellaclassactionsettlement.com/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.aspx)) and claim up to $20 if you've bought Nutella, no receipts asked (until the allocated $2.5M runs out).

<comment><USER27> In the time period listed I've bought WAY more than 5 jars of Nutella, but I don't honestly think that I bought it thinking "Hey this is healthy!".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's not exactly an isolated case. When I turned 18 I was presented with the same document. To my mother's dismay, I pointed out the flaws and then marked in the necessary negatives in pen to render the document useless before signing it. Since the other party (a member with legal power at the clinic) did not sign after me, I'm not sure the form is actually binding on either of us. Could somebody clarify what precedent holds in the case of a single party signing a contract and having it accepted but not signed by the other?

EDIT: It occurs to me that I should mention that there is no place for the other party to sign on the document in the first place. There may have been a photocopied signature already on the form.

<comment><USER29> I doubt that these documents are contracts. They aren't intended to create a legal obligation on the part of either party but rather are intended to be evidentiary documents to prove that the privacy policy was disclosed to the patient and the patient told the doctor's office that he understood it.

Your signature on the document is there to refute any future claim you might make that you were not presented with the privacy information.

I'm assuming the privacy form is a separate document. If it is part of a larger document then perhaps that document also includes elements that make it a contract. In that case the lack of signature on their end is probably not a problem.

It's a common belief that contracts must be in writing and signed. In fact only certain kinds of contract must be in writing and signed (the biggies are contracts that cannot be performed within one year, contracts that transfer interests in land, and contracts for the sale of goods for $500 or more).

Otherwise, all you need is for both parties to have agreed on the terms of the contract and a thing called "consideration". Consideration is a subtle and elusive concept but roughly it means each person obligated under the contract is getting something valuable in exchange for taking on the contractual obligation.

If both parties agree to something and both uphold their end of the bargain then it doesn't really matter whether or not they actually managed to form a legally enforceable contract. That only matters if something goes wrong and one or more parties want to use the courts to enforce the contract or win damages for breach of contract.

If you have to sue someone over a contract you'll have to prove that there actually was a contract formed with them. That will be a lot easier if the contract was in writing and you had them sign it.

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the information! I doubt it will come to a confrontation, but it's been an itch I couldn't scratch for almost a year now pondering the implications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I find arguing with the functionaries at the desk is ineffective, however since they are simply 'doing what they are told' they will often do what you tell them too. I signed a privacy policy where it stipulated the company would pay me $5,000 for each occurrence that it shared any of my information.

It went like this:

Receptionist: "You need to sign this privacy consent form."

Me: "I don't agree with that form so I won't sign it."

Receptionist: "Well if you don't sign it we can't help you."

Me: "Ok, how about this, give me another copy, I'll just mark it up a bit and we can both sign it, ok?"

Receptionist: "Uh, I guess so."

...I take the form, add various and sundry financial obligations, and restrictions on what they can do with my data, add a line at the bottom "representative date"....

Take it back to the receptionist.

Me: "Ok put your initials here, here, and here and sign at the bottom."

Receptionist: "Uh, ok."

Me: "Both copies, thanks."

I then asked on the way out where their legal office was. And and gave them one of the signed copies. The last I saw was that receptionist looking at their marked up form with a very puzzled look. :-)

<comment><USER31> If you tested that in court you would almost certainly find that the receptionist has not been granted the authority to enter the office into legally-binding contracts.

<comment><USER32> I don't think that's so much the point, though. It's a fun "hack". And while the receptionist may not have that authority, the end result was that he also did not sign their document, so he achieved his initial goal of not signing a document he did not agree to.

They have two choices: Treat him as if he signed nothing binding at all, or accept his version of the document.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Re:

"There is no real confidentiality of medical records in the US, since the police can get them under very easy conditions."

Very true. And sometimes police can obtain information without even having to ask.

I work for a regional pharmacy outlet and it is the company policy to transmit Pseudoephedrine (PSE) Sales Log Records to the local police department every week.

After writing a memo stating customers/patients should be at least given an informed consent that the information they are required by law to provide in order to purchase PSE is then released to the local police department - an act not required by law. I was told that PSE sales information is not considered Protected Health Information under HIPAA and thus not a breach of Federal privacy law. Granted since PSE is an over-the-counter product its purchase does not technically qualify as a 'medical record'. However, because PSE is purchased 'behind-the-counter' at pharmacies in the U.S. I believe there is a reasonable expectation of privacy on the public's part in this regard.

The Board of Pharmacy in an e-mail clarification to this memo did not address HIPAA compliance but merely stated that the methamphetamine unit officers were 'approved' to receive such information and for all pharmacies to please kindly comply with their ongoing methamphetamine combating efforts.

I've taken a personal policy to comply with the company policy - having higher educational debt cheapens the price of selling one's self - but to openly share what is done with the records if asked. So far no one has ever asked me what is done with the records.

<comment><USER34> When a customer writes down his/her name and address in the log book of Customers Who Bought Meth Ingredients, I think the reasonable assumption is that this log book will be shared with law enforcement. This active - and very visible - step of recording the information makes that sharing quite likely in the customer's mind.

If this sharing were occurring based on scans of customer loyalty cards or the like, I would be more troubled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Here(Brazil) everything seems to work like that. You sign 200 pieces of paper each day and if you'd enforce everything you agree to in just one day, the legal system would halt.

Recently I tried to purchase a small stereo, one of those tiny little ones that just play radio and a CD. They demanded that I provide full personal information in order to give me my receipt. I know that demanding personal information in order to print a receit is illegal here. So I question the attendant. She says she can only print it with that data. So before I had a stroke, and after 15 minutes of stupid arguments, I go ahead and do what Stallman did: fill it with BS and negate the "I agree" thing at the end, signed it - bought the stereo.

That movie "Brazil" with the ridiculous 26bStroke6 form is not too far from reality now that I think of it.

</comment><comment><USER36> When everybody becomes a forced liar, it becomes easy for authentic liars to hide in the crowd.

<comment><USER37> This is why I hate the bureaucracy in my country (Brazil). There's a clear penalty for trying to do things the right way (tons of useless and expensive paperwork), and nothing happens to the crooks who take advantage of the system.

<comment><USER38> Terry Gilliam's film: Brazil spotlights the absurdity of bureaucracy. Is Brazil renowned for theirs?

<comment><USER39> The film is named after this song:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarela_do_Brasil>

<comment><USER38> Thanks, I somehow totally missed that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Offtopic: I liked how minimalistic the site looks, so I looked at the source - just a bunch of <p> with a h1 on top. The head was also really clean - <USER2> title, encoding, favicon and

      <link href="stallman.css" ... >

This a 404, but if you try to open /stallman.css you get <http://www.stallman.org/stallman.css>

Again, pretty minimal just a few rules and comments... and then this:

      /*
      This causes the entire page to be red when you click anywhere so I
      do not want it.  Not sure why we had it to begin with.
      07/26/2010 jcv
      :active {
      	color: #FF0000
      }
      */

<comment><USER11> This article was beautiful to read on mobile!

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> _"How about if I add 'not' to make it a true statement?" She accepted this. So I had my appointment._

That is an elegant solution to the problem.

<comment><USER42> I was hoping he'd clarify whether he changed it to "... has not been provided to me..." or "... has !been provided to me..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I just paid $44 to fax medical records to health insurance underwriters. The woman at the doctor's office was surprised the underwriters didn't access those records themselves. Also odd, they're also asking for all my other records for the past 5 years, when I already gave permission in a conference call for them to access those records.

Are they deliberately trying to discourage my application by burying me in expense and redundant bureaucratic busywork?

</comment><comment><USER44> The reality is, had the privacy notice been available appropriately, and had been signed, how do you know that it is enforced? Most practices are busy and run rather chaotically to think about that. By and large most medical groups do not want to share information about their patients with people who don't need it. We don't have marketers walking into our offices asking for specific patient information. We only share it with appropriate individuals, that have been authorized by the patient or who are clearly involved in the patients care for a particular condition.

I suppose there are databases out there with diagnoses of patients and the medications they take, but there are no patient identifiers in these databases, so it's basically an anonymous batch. That kind of anonymous data is going to be important to make further advances in healthcare IT, and healthcare in general.

<comment><USER24> You don't know if it's enforced or not until something happens. At that point, you can sue them because they didn't follow the contract.

But then, that's how all contracts work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Almost every day I agree to the terms and conditions of software that I have never read, and have no intentions of ever reading. In no way does this make it acceptable for the doctor's office to ask people to regularly agree to terms that haven't been presented with - my argument is that in this society in which we live it has become an acceptable practice to baffle the general public by dumping ridiculous amounts of legalese (with terms that are never in our favour) in front of us and making us sign it before we can use everyday services.

The worst bit about this is that most of these services then go on to take a big fat steamy dump on our personal rights and our privacy (I'm sure I don't need to give any examples here!), and there's nothing we can do because we agreed to the terms that were "clearly" laid out infront of us before we even used the service.

</comment><comment><USER46> You should be careful just adding "not", because they can always claim they didn't notice you modified the agreement (I'm assuming no one on their staff signed or initialled your change).

<comment><USER47> To which the reply is "That's a shame, you should train your staff".

<comment><USER46> Snappy "replies" might not hold as much weight in a legal setting as you imagine.

<comment><USER48> The writing on the paper do. If they didn't check it was unmodified and went ahead, it seems the problem is theirs.

<comment><USER49> I'm not an expert on contract law, but I'm fairly sure that one party modifying a contract without the other person's notice or consent does _not_ make the modifications legally binding, which is why you do need to get the other party to initial changes you've made.

A contract is a physical expression legal agreement which both parties are supposed to know about, it's not a magical piece of paper which enforces whatever's written on it.

I should note that in this _particular_ case the chances of any of this ever mattering are essentially zero. Just letting everyone know, in case they think they can go out, buy a house and move a decimal point in the sales contract while nobody's looking.

<comment><USER50> So if I don't know what's on the paper because no one has made sure that I do then I still can be upheld on what I signed but if the guy who gave me paper to sign doesn't know what's on the paper because he didn't notice my changes then he can't be liable?

<comment><USER46> You have a duty to read before you sign a contract. In this case, they can claim you tricked them into thinking you'd signed the form contract, and that they relied on that agreement when they provided you care. IANAL, but I suspect you will lose this unless you can show that the staffer accepted your changes knowingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> In 2003 I wanted to import my car from France as I was moving back to Poland. As I bought the car in France, all official paperwork I had was the French registration card and a car "cession" document. There was no price stated on the cession document.

The official at the Polish registration office gave me a photocopied Belgian registration form and told me to fill that in, fill the price and sign for the seller (in other words, forge the seller's signature).

</comment><comment><USER52> The medical industry is in need of disruption. Has anyone played with the idea of "seeing" a doctor located in a different country using a video app? I imagine the experience would be better than what most people deal with in the states. US doctors have too much power and they take advantage of it. A remote doctor would be under more competition and be willing to provide better service.

<comment><USER53> That doctor will not be able to authorize you to purchase restricted medications they recommend, or authorize your insurance to pay for various expensive procedures and test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Had a similar scenario happen when giving blood a couple months ago. They suggested there were closing in half an hour, but insisted that I give blood anyway. They took blood samples checking iron levels and then brought me over to a desk to sign a consent form. They promptly brought out a 200 page binder, saying I was required to read it prior to signing the form.

I opened up the binder and started to read, but quickly realized it was humanly impossible to finish it the remaining time. Several other people sat down next to me planning to give blood, signing the form without even opening the binder. I figured OK well, they aren't required to read the binder, but simply agree to the terms.

What surprised me, was that a lady taking blood, promptly walked over and said skip the binder.

I understand the desire to maximum blood taken from volunteers, but something is seriously wrong, when the people taking blood encourage and purposely take blood knowing there isn't enough time for the full required procedure to be preformed.

</comment><comment><USER55> This is a principal reason society need _effective_ regulation: So that one does not need a fucking lawyer for every daily transaction.

Practices (meaning behaviors, not medical offices) like this should be shut down before they ever see the light of day, and confuse, inconvenience, and compromise the safety and integrity of thousands.

</comment><comment><USER56> You have to wonder where the "reasonable person" guidelines that most jurisprudence relies upon has to do with any of the things we sign off on today, as well as the click-through agreements.

For example, Who in the hell reads their iOS terms and conditions that they agree to in order to see what changes Apple has made this week? Every time I download a new app or grab upgrades, it seems that I have to agree to their 90 or 190(?) screen terms and conditions. It would be bad enough to read it the first time, but could you imagine re-reading it every time they sent out a new one?

I love my iPhone and I'm not about to make a moral stand by not using it or worse by reading those damned things - but they don't sit well with me.

</comment><comment><USER57> I am routinely asked for my Social Security number by doctors and dentists, although they don't need it and really shouldn't be using it. I decline in a probably vain attempt to limit my ID theft/privacy risk, but I always feel like a loony when I do.

</comment><comment><USER58> 3,000 pages? Why would it need to be that long? Isn't that kinda extreme? I don't think any average person would even want to read that, and making a copy of that would just seem wasteful of paper... Couldn't they make it shorter?

<comment><USER59> Another theory is that the person in question had no idea what the document looked like or where to find it, and just made up the 3000 page story in a hope to scare off the person asking for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Reminds me of when I refinanced my mortgage... The bank sent a 100(?) page copy of the contract for my review prior to signing in front of a notary public (in their employ). When arriving at the appointment they produced their own copy that may or may not have been modified with respect to my copy, expecting me to sign in short order.

I complied but only because I was dealing with an otherwise reputable organization. It does seem like there's plenty of room for improvement in these situations.

</comment><comment><USER61> The problem is that some of these documents try to intimidate patients by adding statements that the patient cannot sue even-though they are un- enforceable. I have also seen cases where doctors have sued patients who leave bad comments about them on websites that allow you to rate a doctor. Bogus malpractice suits are bad, but suing a patient for leaving a bad review is unbelievable.

</comment><comment><USER62> Blaming the doctor for Government mandated privacy policies due to HIPAA is not going to fix the problem. You have your wonderful legislators and the president to thank for this mess. If you have a problem with the law complain to your representatives to change the law. Every doctor office I have been to has shown me their privacy policy and none are 3000 pages long.

<comment><USER63> If every doctor's office you've been to has been willing to show you their reasonable length privacy policy, surely we SHOULD be blaming this particular doctor's office?

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Find a new doctor. I have never been to a doctor, dentist, etc., that did not have a copy of the privacy policy taped/laminated to the clipboard!!! Seriously, how hard can it be. She probably would have found the policy if Sallman had told her he was going to another doctor, and he was going to tell this doctor the reason why he left.

<comment><USER65> You haven't visited many doctors and/or have been very lucky and/or haven't been paying attention.

I was referred to a specialist this week for a new injury. The specialist's office asked me to sign several standard looking forms, one of which had almost this exact language (you agree to the terms of our privacy policy).

Then just today I was at the pharmacy and after swiping my credit card for payment I was faced with another dialog "I have read and understood the pharmacy's privacy policy"

It's not as simple as "find a new doctor." First of all, I'm on an HMO and my choices are very limited -- in most non-urban areas there may not be more than a single practice or hospital, which uses the same paperwork for all patients.

Am I supposed to put obtaining my pain medication, or potentially life- threatening care on hold while I hunt around for a new doctor? I've seen and signed similar policies while admitting my infant daughter to the ER with a 105 degree fever -- you ask how hard it can be? It is literally impossible. Obtaining health care services is not like shopping for a pair of shoes, and there are often no alternatives available.

<comment><USER64> My "Seriously, how hard can it be." comment was about clipping the privacy policy to the clipboard, not to finding a new doctor. Also, from what I can tell, Stallman lives in an urban area. My comments were directed at him.

<comment><USER65> I'm in an urban area as well. The hospital I took my daughter to was El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, for example.

It's even worse for rural people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Stallman seems far out to me on some issues but this is one that irks me too. I'm glad he wrote the entry.

</comment><comment><USER67> I've had job offers that had similar language. I edited the contracts to make them true, initialed the changes, and got the other party to sign next to my endorsement. Once submitted, and not disputed within 72 hours, it's valid.

RMS has Eben Moglen advising him. I trust he can handle his contracts.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm surprised the conversation hasn't turned towards "Terms and Conditions" of websites.

As webmasters, many of us act like stallman's doctor's office every single day. By asking clients to agree to (and making it oh so simple to skip, and oh so daunting to read) the terms of using our websites.

</comment><comment><USER69> As a rule of thumb, I ask to see privacy policies. Usually they are not very long ( a few pages ).

</comment><comment><USER70> Whatever happen to Social Contract? The worst thing that could ever happen in this country is if we start mistrusting established institutions.

Wait... as a geek, I enjoyed the story. If I was at the same establishment as Richard, I would be laughing my tail off!

</comment><comment><USER71> What happens if you just sign with a fake name? Is it still binding?

They lie, you lie ..

<comment><USER72> What you write is inconsequential, it's that fact that you do that is important. If you can't write (not a big issue today, but has been not too long ago), you can sign with a X.

The signature itself doesn't carry a lot of weight. Signatures given under threat or deceit are void - which is why important stuff needs to be witnessed or notarized.

<comment><USER4> This. The name doesn't matter. The signing act is all that counts. Before literate times the illiterate would "sign" by simply marking an "X" on the signature line. If you are under duress you may certainly sign your signature as "Under Duress", if the accepting party doesn't harm you right away at least when you show up in court to dispute it your can point out you signed it as such... but you better be ready to prove and show that you legitimately where under duress or the court won't accept your claim.

<comment><USER73> Related: <http://www.zug.com/pranks/credit/>

<comment><USER4> That's awesome! I have also in the past just scribbled the crap out of a receipt much like a 3 year old trying to coloring a solid shape with a pen as my signature a few times. The clerks never care interesting enough. I don't think they even know that the signing act is all that's needed. I suppose when its only for a few bucks they prefer to avoid confrontation. However, according to a merchants credit card agreement, the merchant is responsible for verifying the identity of the person using the card. If they accept unauthorized payment on a card the merchant is liable and takes the loss... never let up or believe a merchant that says you have to pay for fraudulent charges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> When this happened to me at an urgent care clinic, I just didn't sign that form. Handed back the clipboard with the rest of the forms filled out. Either no one noticed, or they didn't care.

</comment><comment><USER75> My doctor thinks I have high blood pressure because things like this really get under my skin. I - like Stalman - have a bad habit of arguing with the admitting nurse over stuff like this.

</comment><comment><USER76> Very glad I'm not a pedantic extremist. Seems like a horrible life to live.

The hardest thing is picking which battles to fight. Fighting all the battles possible isn't an effective use of ones time.

</comment><comment><USER77> If the office accepts Medicare, they are required to have those privacy notices on hand. You could definitely report them. It's a huge violation.

</comment><comment><USER76> Doesn't this pretty much sum up all software licenses? No one reads pages and pages of text and then clicks "agree". They just click "agree".

</comment><comment><USER78> Contracts and legal notices are like code. They spend most of their effort worrying about edge cases.

</comment><comment><USER79> 3000 pages (1500 two-sided pages) would require a ~7" thick binder. Never seen one, just saying.

</comment><comment><USER80> So this is what the Occupy movement is so upset about!

</comment><comment><USER81> Grimmy things happen there. They ask Doctors to lie.

</comment><comment><USER82> Kudos to Stallman for standing up to that nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER83> Makes perfect sense that someone who is a binary thinker wouldn't be able to see that it was fine to sign this document in this particular case.

</comment><comment><USER84> Richard Stallman: Consummate Pain in the Dupa.

</comment><comment><USER85> I've run into the same routine with medical professionals. Also, many of these privacy notices have a clause that they can disclose your private information for certain reasons, then a list which includes "advertising and marketing" purposes with other entities. When I ask about this I am always told they would never do that, it is a standard notice and no one other than me has ever said anything. When I refuse to sign or ask to strike that part out I am told I am free to seek medical care elsewhere and signing the agreement to disclose my private medical information for marketing purposes is "a federal requirement". It's really quite disgusting and abusive.

The situation with web sites and software that have 10 to 100 page long (when printed) EULAs or Terms of Use are a similar concept. Much software these days makes you click a box saying you have read and understood a legal agreement that is far more complex than any employment or IP transfer agreement I have ever signed.

<comment><USER86> It must have gotten to the point by now that the mere length of a privacy policy, or EULA, is enough to convince the court that there effectively is _no_ policy or _no_ agreement, signed, seal broken or not.

<comment><USER87> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contracts_of_adhesion#Contracts...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contracts_of_adhesion#Contracts_of_adhesion)

<comment><USER88> Unfortunately, more recent jurisprudence in the U.S. has been chipping away at the scrutiny given to contracts of adhesion. In overturning a California Supreme Court decision that greatly restricted arbitration agreements when they were made in the form of contracts of adhesion, Scalia (writing for the court) noted that "the times in which consumer contracts were anything other than adhesive are long past", so California's rule being limited to contracts of adhesion was in practice so broad that it invalidated most arbitration agreements, and therefore interfered with the Federal Arbitration Act ( _AT &T Mobility v. Concepcion_, 2011).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> why does this have anything to do with hacknews?

<comment><USER90> People sign contracts in their daily lives and in a variety of situations. Particularly hackers who are likely to work on a contract basis.

The valuable lesson here is that one should not feel shy about calling attention to the contents of a contract nor suggesting a change.

I remember years ago I was looking for an apartment through an apartment finding service. That wanted me to sign a contract that stated I would would be "fined" if I were to rent ANY apartment outside their service. I quickly called attention to it and asked them to print out a new version. They agreed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If anyone is ever wondering why nerds never rule the world, this is a perfect example of why.

Pedantry is the brakes that the universe puts on the very smart to stop them acquiring too much power.

<comment><USER91> nerds _do_ rule the world

<comment><USER92> Not that I really disagree with you, but to wax platonic, maybe that the people who both rule the world and are nerds aren't really acting as perfect nerds as they rule the world?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Just an unneeded rant IMHO

<comment><USER94> In a practical sense, sure, people do this everyday.

In an ethical sense, it should disturb us that we are being required to lie as a matter of course to lead our everyday lives.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Am I harming my career prospects by working in computer architecture - <AUTHOR> I'm a SW engineer by trade, having worked in the area of hardware-software interface for the last decade.  Recently (last 1.5 years) I've a new role that is leading to my contributing more at the hardware architecture level.  I'm really enjoying it but worry that I might get pigeon-holed or it might work against me in the long term.  Anyone else been through this sot of thing? Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> Devs who grok the 10 layers below "full stack" are always going to be in demand, but ops might be more geo-limited. Just make sure some layer you're dealing with is in fashion (all the hw people I know do python now).

</comment><comment><USER3> It will just amplify your opportunities in my opinion. You'll still be a software engineer, you'll just have hardware experience as well.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. There's tons of employment for people that can work with microcontrollers, FPGAs, ASICs, bespoke control hardware, etc. which are often harder to get into than traditional software engineering.

<comment><USER5> Tends to pay a lot less, though.</comment></comment></comment>


12% of Brits now follow a meat-free diet - vanilla-almond https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/home/topics/future-of-meat/12-of-brits-follow-meat-free-diet-the-grocer-research-shows/565771.article <comment><AUTHOR> > In a Harris Interactive survey of more than 2,000 people, 6% said they were > vegetarian, 4% pescatarian and 2% vegan. Reflected across the whole UK > population, it suggests 7.8 million people have ditched meat, with 3.9 > million identifying as vegetarian - more than triple the 1.2 million > recognised by 2012 data from the Vegetarian Society.

This is the most relevant part of the article, but I'm sure their sample size could have been larger.</comment>


Amazon and the "profitless business model" fallacy - <AUTHOR> http://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2013/10/25/amazon-and-the-profitless-business-model-narrative <comment><USER2> There are some issues with this explanation. The main issue is that the rules of accounting have a very good provision to take into account investing into the future. It is called capitalization.

Thus, if a company spends money to build or acquire a new asset, it is called capital spending and it is not subtracted from the profits. Thus, for example, if a company had a million dollars of profit and decided to spend these million dollars on a new fulfillment center, they could spend the money for their fulfillment center and still report a million dollars in profit.

So it is not quite clear-cut to say that Amazon's desire to build fulfillment centers around the world is costing them their profits. Those things should be capitalized and once they are capitalized they should not affect the profits. Amazon did in fact report significant capital spending (as one can see on their cash flow statement).

However, things are not that simple. Sometimes some expenses which are about building for the future and investing into new growth are not capitalized. This is the case because for some expenses the benefits are so uncertain and difficult to quantify that the SEC requires that they are reported as ordinary expenses instead of capital spending. These types of expenses tend to involve R&D and may include certain administrative expenses associated with growth initiatives.

Therefore, many companies that are trying to grow do report lower profits because they have those expenses that are associated with investment into future growth but are not capitalized. This may be the case for amazon. But it is a question to what extent it is the case for amazon. For example, they do capitalize software and website development for new products and websites. So one cannot simply say that they are showing losses because they are spending all the money on making great new products. But then again, they expense software development for existing products. So perhaps the losses are associated with new growth features that are built into existing software.

So all in all it is a big muddle and it is not at all clear whether amazon is an inherently highly profitable company that happens to be investing in the future, or they are wasting money, or their business model is just not that profitable.

<comment><USER3> Can you explain how capital expenditures do not affect profits? Doesn't capitalization just mean that expenses are applied over time? They don't disappear, correct?

<comment><USER2> Capital expenses do not affect profits for the reporting period they happen in. It is true that after that reporting period there is a depreciation cost applied to take account of loss of value of an asset.

For example, if a company buys a distribution center, it will not expense the cost of the distribution center as an expense. But as time goes on it will expense a depreciation expense that accounts for the loss of value of the distribution center as the building gets older, less useful, etc. But buildings last for a long time, and a building with the land it is on never actually goes down to a value of zero. So not all expenses associated with the distribution center will be applied over time.

So capitalizing something definitely helps you get more income.

<comment><USER4> Capitalizing doesn't help you "get" more income, it simply allows you to write some of the same income in an earlier year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're not familiar with the "long-term" thinking of Bezos, this anecdote from Brad Stone's recent book on Amazon is particularly interesting:

 _Bezos wanted AWS to be a utility with discount rates, even if that meant losing money in the short term. Willem van Biljon, who worked with Chris Pinkham on EC2 and stayed for a few months after Pinkham quit in 2006, proposed pricing EC2 instances at fifteen cents an hour, a rate that he believed would allow the company to break even on the service. In an S Team meeting before EC2 launched, Bezos unilaterally revised that to ten cents. "You realize you could lose money on that for a long time," van Biljon told him. "Great," Bezos said._

 _Bezos believed his company had a natural advantage in its cost structure and ability to survive in the thin atmosphere of low-margin businesses. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Google, he suspected, would hesitate to get into such markets because it would depress their overall profit margins. Bill Miller, the chief investment officer at Legg Mason Capital Management and a major Amazon shareholder, asked Bezos at the time about the profitability prospects for AWS. Bezos predicted they would be good over the long term but said that he didn't want to repeat "Steve Jobs's mistake" of pricing the iPhone in a way that was so fantastically profitable that the smartphone market became a magnet for competition._

<comment><USER6> i'm a big fan of Bezos, honestly, but to say that pricing your products in such a way as to make >$100 billion in cash is a "mistake"... that's just crazy talk.

<comment><USER7> Meanwhile, the iPhone has slowly but steadily been losing mindshare to its amazing competition.

<comment><USER8> And no one at Apple seems to notice this loss of 'mindshare' because they're too busy figuring out what to do with all the money people are giving them for the iPhone.

<comment><USER7> You seem to be thinking you're refuting my "loss of mindshare" argument, but you are actually refuting the "iPhone sales are dropping" argument, which nobody here seems to have made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Out of all the articles I have read on the issue, this one most accurately sums up the views and opinions of the upper half of the organization. Nobody is scared. Nobody is feeling defensive. Nobody thinks the business as a whole is on the wrong path (although there are definitely a few ventures that some feel are in the wrong).

I don't have the most broad corporate employment history, but as far as it extends, I've met tons of people who feel like they could join a competitor to their own employer and win against them within a decade or so. I have never met a single person who worked at Amazon that has felt that way about competing against Amazon. Even if that competitor had the pocketbooks of Wal- Mart. To me, that speaks volumes about a business strategy.

<comment><USER10> Of course they're not scared, they have a nice stock price and seemingly no need to justify it.

<comment><USER9> At one point in time, Zynga had a good price. I was scared to accept their stock as compensation at that time, and I'm relieved about not pursuing it now.

With Amazon, I actually daydream about the stock taking a nose dive right before I get my next compensation offer. That way I get more stock. I have never had to worry about the long term future value of the company, so a dip is an arbitrage opportunity, as opposed to a risk (like Zynga).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> " I sell a used book on Amazon, it takes a cut of the transaction, I am the one packing and shipping that item to the buyer. "

In true Amazon "dominate all retail by making it accessible to consumers" their relatively new "Fulfillment By Amazon" service drastically simplifies consumer reselling by eliminating the need for the consumer to do the "packing and shipping".

It's an amazing service, and they are getting darn close to the "just ship us a box of your stuff"

I bet that we see that inside of the next five years, there are lots of problems (like what is / is not valuable) but you can see them already working around these issues by only accepting items with modern barcodes, charge small warehousing fees if something sits too long in inventory, etc.

(1)[http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits.ht...](http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits.htm)

<comment><USER12> I wasn't aware of that service. So to some extent Amazon is doing to Craigslist and eBay what Craigslist and eBay did to the classifies and Nickel Ads?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The author may not fully appreciate the long game Bezos has been uniquely blessed to play: the sooner Bezos can effectively expand what's working, without over-expanding, it's bootstrapping on a massive scale: buying speed without diluting ownership to even more money sooner. It's not deficit spending (until it is), it's reinvesting profit to grow assets that are the body of the money monster. (For Starcraft fans out there: It's like being broke because of focusing on building SCVs.)

On the other side of the gorge of eternal peril: Cash is king, and should not be underestimated. Or those with the war-chests may try to puke all over Bezos' cake by mistaking lack of current reserves for an actual weakness. I'm sure Bezos is fully aware the ridge-line he's walking on. He probably has aces up both sleeves to clobber anyone that tries to make a move.

Long term, I'd say walmart continues to cash in on the greater unwashed that don't know any better for b&m impulse buys while amzn goes after suppliers and logistics, maybe even an Ali Baba and/or Kickstarter to bring in more product pipes.

<comment><USER14> > For Starcraft fans out there: It's like being broke because of focusing on > building SCVs

While I personally play Protoss, I think this is an awesome way of thinking about it. "Keep your money low" is a mantra that you must remember when playing SC2, and I've always been curious how that translates to actual economics.

If I recall correctly, there was an actual paper written applying Starcraft economics to "real world" econ. Wonder if I can find it..

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure if it is a 100% perfect analogy to real-world economics, but the best analogy is that all money you use in Starcraft is "working capital". Money in the bank only does you any good insofar as it allows you to handle unexpected emergencies, all other cash should be deployed towards your goals. Which in Starcraft would be to defeat your opponent with generating more cash as a subordinate objective, and in business would be to either make as much money as possible throughout the history of your company, or fulfill whichever goals your company has. Amazon does this by keeping low margins to discourage competition and reinvesting as much as possible.

The biggest difference between Starcraft economics and real-world economics is that Starcraft has no regular expenses or debt, so there is no way to go bankrupt. This removes a large risk element in reinvesting your money.

<comment><USER16> Starcraft uses supply depots to represent the recurring costs of supporting your army. Using the normal resources would over complicate the game. In a way you could be "in debt" if you ever don't have enough supply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Amazon is a great example of the kind of company that makes genuine long term fundamental change to the way the world functions. I really wish that more companies had a less quarterly mindset and would pursue things similarly.

<comment><USER18> I agree completely.

The catch, though, is that Jeff had to endure years of vitriol and abuse from Wall Street and the press to get into this position. I have met a lot of founders who think they could get through that, and very few who actually can.

I think Jeff was helped enormously by having this dark period for Amazon happen (a) during a broad-based tech recession and (b) in Seattle. I'm not sure how possible it is to do what he did through that period in a normal era and in the Bay Area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bezos has found and hacked a feature of public markets: you can get away with no profits as long as you're growing. Therefore, you can construct a profitless business scheme that reinvests all profits (or doesn't generate any) as long as your sales forever climb. It's the business equivalent of the Ponzi scheme--and if you look at Amazon's revenue, it is a classic exponential curve.

If sales ever plateau and investors force you to generate profits, the plane stalls and the whole thing spirals down, because it's the profit reinvestment which actually drives sales growth, and actual profits attract competitors who have been unable to pull off the profitless-hyper-growth trick. So far that hasn't happened.

Amazon's value is in the entire business and not the sum of its parts, which means that at some point, investors expect to own a profit making enterprise and not a bunch of warehouses. However, that won't happen until sales plateau or Bezos dies. Ironically, at that point the business loses a lot of value, both because growth has stopped and because competitors are about to enter the space, emboldened by Amazon's newly discovered profits. The whole thing is a bit of a sham. Any growth industry (Internet retail) can support only one "no profit rocket," and eventually it comes back to earth when that industry matures and ends the hypergrowth phase.

<comment><USER20> Right. It is not a Ponzi scheme. Investors price stocks based on the expected future cashflows. And those expected cashflows by the very definition reflect the non-zero probability of failure. Now, investors as a whole may overvalue or undervalue those cashflows - but this has nothing to do with a Ponzi scheme

<comment><USER19> It is _like_ a Ponzi scheme in that it requires continuous expansion to maintain. Switching metaphors, it's also like a Catch-22: Amazon is successful precisely because it makes no profit. How, then, do you value future cash flows? Any profit it does make will hamper future flows. Furthermore, Bezos is far too into empire building to stop and take profits. His ego and fame is bound up into the size of his company, not how profitable it is, so the expectation of profit should be near zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Amazon is the proof that corporations are not all short-term-focused, and the shareholders have amply rewarded Amazon for that with a huge P/E.

<comment><USER22> Isn't Amazon's P/E negative?

<comment><USER23> It fluctuates tremendously because the denominator is so close to zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's worth noting that Yglesias actually knows this[1]. His point is that public companies generally aren't allowed by their shareholders to be this ambitious.

Which 100% vindicates Eugenewei's point about tech companies being wary of capital markets.

[1]: [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/22/amazon_profit...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/22/amazon_profits_not_there_and_they_re_not_worried.html)

<comment><USER25> If the stock market refused to acknowledge the value of long term investment, then all stocks would have the same book-to-market ratio.

However, investors and CEOs will rarely see eye-to-eye on the correct level of company growth, since CEOs by their nature tend to want to increase the size and scope of their company. Investors know that only some companies will benefit from this increase in size and scope, and others need to be kept focused on their core business.

However a key point that is often missed is that there is very little that shareholders can do to force CEOs to do their bidding. In spite of a lot of talk about activist shareholders, the only real discipline that management face is the thread of being bought out.

<comment><USER26> >However a key point that is often missed is that there is very little that shareholders can do to force CEOs to do their bidding. In spite of a lot of talk about activist shareholders, the only real discipline that management face is the thread of being bought out.

Eh? Shareholders elect the board, and the CEO serves at the pleasure of the board. The shareholders can absolutely do something to force the CEO to do their bidding - they can fire him. It happens all the time.

<comment><USER25> Yes, it does indeed happen occasionally. However, such actions are relatively rare, hence the term "wall street walk" for large block holders selling their shares when they are unhappy with management, rather than trying to influence them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Strangly, this was the business model of cable companies for the longest time. They never turned a profit. When they expanded, they could use the increased income stream to go _deeper_ into debt. The profits and extra capital went into more expansion. Eventually, they ran out of room to expand, and where are they now?

Someday, Amazon will need to face the brutal reality of profit.

<comment><USER28> They ran out of room to expand and now they're regional monopolies, and can gouge their customers with impunity. Was that your point?

<comment><USER29> So I wonder what led the cable companies to try this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The writing style and grammar in this post interfered with my comprehension. In the end, I was unable to finish reading it.

Some examples:

"Giant, heavy electronics items that Amazon sometimes ships for free when the shipping cost is clearly non-trivial and cost more than the usual thin margins on such goods are another."

"But if you sell a glass of lemonade for $2 and it only costs you $1 to make it, and you decide business is so great you're going to build a lemonade stand on every street corner in the world so you can eventually afford to move humanity into outer space or buy a newspaper in your spare time, and that requires you to invest all your profits in buying up some lemon fields and timber to set up lemonade franchises on every street corner, that sounds like a many things to me, but it doesn't sound like a charitable organization."

"The vast vast majority of products Amazon sells it makes a profit on."

It should be relatively easy to rephrase most of the language. For example, the last sentence should be worded: "Amazon makes a profit on the vast, vast majority of products it sells."

I think it would be worth it. I can't understand a lot of the post without effort.

<comment><USER31> Out of curiosity, are you a native English speaker? I had no problems at all reading the article. A couple of the sentences are a little awkwardly phrased, but things like "The vast vast majority of products Amazon sells it makes a profit on." are both grammatically fine and reasonably idiomatic.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, I'm a native English speaker.

The sentence you quoted is not impossible to read, but it is more difficult to comprehend than it should be. A simple rewrite will make it more clear.

Many of the sentences in the article are much worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I believe in Jeff's long term vision theory. He is even building a $42 million giant clock called the '10,000 Year Clock' atop the Mount Washington in Nevada. This is to portray his long term vision.

(I feel guilty to mention, but this reminds me something of the 1000 Year Reich sorts)

</comment><comment><USER33> Think about it this way. Profits are dollars that leave the company. By sitting on low profits, Amazon turns all its cash towards itself.

<comment><USER34> That's the opposite of what those words mean. Profits are dollars that stay with the company. Dollars that leave the company are expenses, some other company's profits. I don't find redefining profit to mean its opposite enlightening here. They're spending cash now in hopes of future profits -- that seems clear enough in plain english.

<comment><USER35> Money not spent is money that isn't working for you, but instead is just sitting in reserve, at best accruing interest. Amazon is betting it can get a much higher return, and so far, has been right.

<comment><USER36> "profit" and "money" are two very different things.

"profit" is how much you are making at the end of the year, this is to be reinvested if you are efficient (as you suggest is good, i agree)

"money" is the what is sitting in the bank, not being utilized.

Would you say that a company who is breaking even is utilizing their cash properly? no, they don't have any cash to utilize, therefore profit and cash are different things.

<comment><USER35> ...or they could have just already utilized the cash, which is what Amazon is doing?

<comment><USER36> Capital assets are not fully expensed in the year they are bought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There is no issue with reinvesting for growth. Businesses that require a lot of capital to grow need to do that and might need to continue operating with lower or minimal profits as they grow.

However at some point it's important to be able to say that they have played out the majority of their growth ambitions and are ready to start optimizing the business for greater profit.

The trouble is that human nature for many CEOs with big egos and the structure of corporations is to want to continue to grow forever. This is a dangerous attitude. For example perhaps Microsoft shareholders would have been much better off if the company was run without ANY ambitions to compete with Google, Apple OR to dominate mobile or tablets or search or any of these areas. Instead if Microsoft was to just focus on Windows and Office and extract as much profits from the business as possible, then return these profits to shareholders, then the shareholders would be free to invest in Apple and Google stock.

The trouble with this is that for an ambitious CEO this might feel like giving up. I don't believe it's giving up. it's called focus. Focusing on what you are really good at (in this case Windows and Office), rather than pretending that you are great at everything.

</comment><comment><USER38> By running at zero profit margin, Amazon is essentially growing itself as fast as it can manage, i.e. reinvest every dollar. Its current revenue growth is even faster than Google. That ensures itself as the biggest ecommerce platform for years to come. If it wants more profit, it can certainly do it. I believe Amazon will eventually automate most of its systems, like using robots instead of humans for warehouse, and gain significant profit margin. Chinese company Taobao (like eBay) provided free service for 5 years, and gained dominant market share. Now it is hugely profitable.

On the other hand, Jeff is likely more interested in just growing the business than counting profit dollars.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've always thought of Amazon as this last dinosaur of a by gone era. The days where you can have a really big vision, where if you work a spreadsheet a bit here and there you suddenly have massive amounts of profit. We just need to wait for the world to finished being disrupted. If you disagree with the vision, then you "just don't understand". Most of these business failed, but Amazon found just enough profits sitting somewhere that they have managed to keep on living... So they are in this unique position where they are allowed to invest, and grow to unfathomable heights (well theoretically) because its a survivor bias of the investors.

</comment><comment><USER40> Everything you need to know about Jeff's strategy is in this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-In- America/dp/05535628...](http://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-In- America/dp/0553562835)

Different medium and market, but basically the same overall strategy.

</comment><comment><USER41> Amazon only has around 10 more years before 3d printing starts to kill retail. Beware.

<comment><USER42> I will bet you $100 that in ten years time, it will not be commonplace to 3D print a fully working:

* Mobile phone * Bottle of beer * Sweatshirt or * Pear

What do you say?

<comment><USER41> Starts to kill retail, not has killed it.

The most important thing for investor trust right now is that the trends are going the right way. In 10 years people will start seeing the writing on the wall for the current distribution model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think I might be a in some kind of bubble. That article sounds like absolutely every article I've ever read about Amazon and I don't think I've ever seen any of the posts he said "didn't get Amazon".

</comment><comment><USER44> Would it be so terrible if Amazon just stayed as a break-even company forever?

<comment><USER26> It would certainly be terrible for the shareholders. The whole point of investing in a company is to share in the profit.

<comment><USER45> Being a shareholder, you have a share in the ownership of the company. You make money when the value of the company increases. This is especially true with Amazon, which does not pay dividends (a share of profits to investors).

<comment><USER4> For a static, non-growing company, you can treat its value as equivalent to a bond paying as much interest as that company pays in dividends.

Company can have value w/o giving out money if it's expected that it will give out more money tomorrow; but it can't be expected to keep that way forever.

A stable, static company that brings $0 profit is worth $0 if it's intended to keep running that way; or worth $assets-$liabilities if it's intended to be stopped and dismantled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wish Amazon would stop subsidizing Kindle device buyers, by surcharging everyone else by $2 on ebooks - especially when that money isn't even split with the authors.

[http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold- ba...](http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/amazon-hold-back-the- growth-of-e-books-around-the-world/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Great explanation, but I don't think this business model is incompatible with "flipping the switch" partially as Amazon already did. Examples: raising the minimum amount for free delivery from 25 to 35, or removing free delivery from Amazon UK to certain countries like Spain to avoid cannibalizing it's own business in those countries.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is a dangerous narrative that links the founder to the company in the same way that Apple is forever linked to Steve Jobs.

<comment><USER10> Amazon is Jeff Bezos's company and everyone knows it. He maintains detailed oversight of all the lines of business.

<comment><USER49> Until he gets hit by a bus or some cancer cells. Then what?

<comment><USER10> Then Amazon will be a very different company under someone else's leadership.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I hear working at Amazon requires being available on call and working long hours. If this is the future I'm worried.

<comment><USER51> Not to worry you'll be hearing that less and less. You won't be hearing it from the WaPo anymore for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Its not uncommon for companies to reduce their profit by various stratagems to reduce the tax they pay.

For example Apples massive overseas cash pile that they dont want to repatriate and pay out to the owners of the company

</comment><comment><USER53> this is classical bait and switch. No idea why everyone is discussing that *

They 'invest in the future' by selling at or close to a loss, until they kill everyone around them. When they are the only ones around they can dictate price and terms.

* actually, just realized. For whatever reason, amazon is spend some PR money to give out the message that they are investing in the future like anyone else. I've seen some articles in several news papers and radios. They are probably in or expecting legal action on that and want to influence some group toughs.</comment>


Documents show that Apple has permission to sell three new portable computers - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2016/10/24/macbook-pro-update-details-specs-leak/ <comment><USER3> Here's hoping, once again, that the wrist-killing edge [1] will finally be rounded off.

[1] [http://onemansblog.com/2010/03/11/video-rant-taking-the- shar...](http://onemansblog.com/2010/03/11/video-rant-taking-the-sharp-edge- off-the-macbook-pro/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I just hope they finally update the MacBook Air with a decent screen. Doesn't even have to be Retina.

<comment><USER5> What's the benefit with MacBook Air vs the new macbook?

<comment><USER6> It's my understanding that the MacBook is a very, very low wattage part - <USER2> "core M" series (~5 watts?). A MacBook Air has the lower wattage "core i" series part (~15 watts?), and the MacBook Pro has the higher wattage "core i" series part (~25 watts?).

I can't find any documentation ATM.

<comment><USER7> Hm I never used a laptop and thought, I wish this machine had a higher wattage.

<comment><USER8> You have probably used one and thought "this laptop is slow, I wish it were faster."

<comment><USER7> Totally! Never directly associated that with watts though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was confused by this headline even after I read the article, whose actual title is _Leaked trademarks confirm we're getting three new MacBooks this week_ : Who needs permission to sell a computer?

Ah, the original French article makes it clear: In Russia such permission must be granted by the authorities before sales may begin. A liberal reading of this English article allows one to conclude they meant the same thing, but they split it across two sentences, so the idea was muddled.

Personally, I think the HN headline should change to match that of the article.

</comment><comment><USER10> My biggest hopes: quadcore in 13inch pro or 15inch without bezels, not limiting ports too much yet. But if they dont come with kaby lake, can we expect fast minor refresh with kaby in q1 2017?

</comment><comment><USER11> If their are less than two USB ports on the new Macbook pro, I'll be going for the last years version.

Magic toolbar doesn't excite me - never used the similar function keys on PCs, even when I had them.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am expecting apple to drop both the headphone port and usb ports this time around. Maybe 2x USB C ports on either side.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am pretty much sure at this point, that there will be a touchscreen mac in the upcoming event.. Microsoft has made too many ads to show the shortcomings of macbooks, with respect to lack of touchscreen in them...

<comment><USER10> what is the point of touchscreen on the os that is not designed for it? I, as a programmer, would not like touchscreen.

<comment><USER14> Programmers have very different requirements for computers than non-techie users.

I use the TouchScreen on my SurfaceBook way more than I thought I would--just not for programming.

<comment><USER15> MacOS is not designed for touch-based computing. It's interesting that Microsoft's merging of tablet+desktop metaphors might finally be paying off (after 4 years!) - but I can't imagine app support is that good outside 1st party apps. Plus you still have/need a trackpad, right?

Where do you find touch to be usable?

<comment><USER14> Primarily I use touch in games; often casual games gotten from the MS store.

Or scrolling when web browsing.

The writing w/ the Pen in OneNote is great; but I don't use it all that much.

Yes; the SurfaceBook still has a trackpad; I don't think a touch screen is a replacement for it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A survival guide for Unix beginners - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/basic-unix/ <comment><USER2> I would actually recommend straight Debian, instead of Ubuntu. Ubuntu has supposedly done some questionable things before.</comment>