Looove this, @apshamilton ! (and I've voted for your work as a Hive witness).
Have you envisioned that those behemoths, in case they feel they would theoretically and on a legal base loose this case, could:
a) purchase the judges' favor, through bribery, and
b) simply write a cryptoban in the US bill draft, to make their obedient Congressmen vote it (hiding it among thousands of pages about other legal dispositions that nobody reads), just like it's being done with the so-called "Infrastructure Bill" aiming at taxing crypto-operations to agony?
In this second case, I guess that prosecuting them for crypto ads ban wouldn't have any purpose anymore, advertising illegal products (cryptos) being in itself illegal too.
Hi @ijatz and thanks for the witness vote.
It is important to remember that this case is being run in Australia and relates to illegal cartel and anti-competitive conduct starting in Jan 2018.
To realistically get a Judge in your pocket you need to offer favours (monetary or political) over a long period prior to you ever coming before a Court. This is perhaps why Facebook and Google try to force all litigation against them to the Northern District of California.
Australian Courts have just invalidated such clauses in competition law cases, not that it applied to my case anyway.
Facebook and Google have paid absolutely no attention to Australian law and regulation until very recently. Otherwise they would have sought prior authorisation from the Australian regulator, as any Australian competition lawyer would have told them had they asked.
Australian Judges are much more independent and impartial than US Judges because they are not political appointees. While some do have biases, these relate to parochial local issues (like unions vs companies) and certainly do not favour huge multi-nationals.
Bribery is extremely rare and unacceptable in Australian culture and law and most Judges really try to be completely above reproach.
Secondly, because this case relates to past events no new law can protect Facebook and Google from their breaches.
And in the current environment Facebook & Google are not going to get new protections anywhere in the world, let alone Australia.
Awesome, @apshamilton !
This case is in the best possible hands, seeing how pedagogical and thoughtful you are in these Hive interactions (your answer to my questions is evidence of that). Thousands of thanks for practicing the "learning, caring and sharing" trilogy as your daily rule!!!