There is a thing in the world called "petty injustice". It's when you get screwed a little bit. Entities like Verizon make a great deal of money on aggregate petty injustice. There is no legal recourse: things like this FTC investigation are (as you intimate) like the buzzing of a fly. A minor cost center (mostly legal fees). And even those minor bites are used to attack regulation as "bad for business". Class-action lawsuits are forbidden by virtually all contracts. The only real recourse is to switch carriers; however even that is not real because they all play by the same rules.
Computers are really the thing that make aggregate petty injustice a workable business model, because doing any computation millions of times with humans would cost far too much. This is one reason why dealing with the problem is actually a hacker/programmer moral imperative.
The last piece of the puzzle is why the FTC, SEC, etc. are so ineffective. These are the police of big business. Why are the police of individuals so harsh and powerful, but the police of business so weak and ineffective? I think it has to do with the politics of ignorance. There is no political pressure on the FTC to do it's job; it's too far removed from any elected official. No-one is going to pick the next president based on who they appoint as FTC chairman. One of the reasons is that the country is divided on regulation itself, which means that a large fraction of people, even the victims of petty injustice, would prefer that Verizon simply get away with it. These are the same people who would interpret a harsher penalty as an "anti-business" Obama/Democrat move, instead of simple enforcement of the law.
It's the 21st century and I think it's time that we enumerated some new rights in the face of unprecedented assaults on our freedoms. There needs to be the equivalent of a "fiduciary responsibility" for communications companies. People should not be allowed to give away their legal rights (the right to file class-action lawsuits). The justice system needs to be reformed, with technology and simplifying policies, to make it much faster and much much cheaper. (Not quite related to this case, but our personal devices that represent a very real extension of our minds should be absolutely protected from intrusion.)
> There is a thing in the world called "petty injustice". It's when you get screwed a little bit. Entities like Verizon make a great deal of money on aggregate petty injustice.
That's a very succinct and clear way of putting it. I wonder if there is an essay or other origin for the particular term you are using?
"Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War" (1989) links "petty injustice" to "chickenshit behavior" - "the petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant 'paying off of old scores'; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances."
>The only real recourse is to switch carriers; however even that is not real because they all play by the same rules.
The only recourse available within the given legal system. It is the legal system which limits our recourse against aggregated petty injustice, and so if people cared enough, the system could be changed or bypassed. The bigger problem is people just don't care about the many small problems... they really don't care about most big problems either. Some days I look at the apathy and wonder if I should just sign up alongside the likes of Verizon and try to profit off the apathy.
I am encouraging everyone to vote throughout 2016. For approximately $605.7142 per person we could buy verizon, and likely gain a controlling interest with limited participation. Voting is super important part of being American, or in a country that allows citizens to excerise this right, there is really only 1 day out of every 4 years I don't vote.
Computers are really the thing that make aggregate petty injustice a workable business model, because doing any computation millions of times with humans would cost far too much. This is one reason why dealing with the problem is actually a hacker/programmer moral imperative.
The last piece of the puzzle is why the FTC, SEC, etc. are so ineffective. These are the police of big business. Why are the police of individuals so harsh and powerful, but the police of business so weak and ineffective? I think it has to do with the politics of ignorance. There is no political pressure on the FTC to do it's job; it's too far removed from any elected official. No-one is going to pick the next president based on who they appoint as FTC chairman. One of the reasons is that the country is divided on regulation itself, which means that a large fraction of people, even the victims of petty injustice, would prefer that Verizon simply get away with it. These are the same people who would interpret a harsher penalty as an "anti-business" Obama/Democrat move, instead of simple enforcement of the law.
It's the 21st century and I think it's time that we enumerated some new rights in the face of unprecedented assaults on our freedoms. There needs to be the equivalent of a "fiduciary responsibility" for communications companies. People should not be allowed to give away their legal rights (the right to file class-action lawsuits). The justice system needs to be reformed, with technology and simplifying policies, to make it much faster and much much cheaper. (Not quite related to this case, but our personal devices that represent a very real extension of our minds should be absolutely protected from intrusion.)