this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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294
Disenshittify or Die (pluralistic.net)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 62 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The last time Congress managed to pass a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988: The Video Privacy Protection Act. That’s a law that bans video-store clerks from telling newspapers what VHS cassettes you take home. In other words, it regulates three things that have effectively ceased to exist.

Corey Doctorow always hits so hard

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

And even though it's being labeled as a "consumer privacy law" it was actually spurred by a politician getting upset that people might find out what he was renting. It was a self-serving law that had the side effect of also helping consumers.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't it because a couple of anti-porn politicians were outed as having renting porn tapes (yet another thing that doesn't really exist anymore)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

IIRC that was what happened.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That's exactly right. It's called the bork tapes, and it gives rise to the eponymous phrase, "getting borked."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I wonder if there's any case law that could support applying that law to other media, such as preventing streaming sites from handing watch history over to the media.