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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  1176 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Section 230 discussion

Small tech businesses don't attract class action sharks.

"Show me where the mean Zuckerberg touched you" goes out to every person who has held a Facebook account from 2007-2021. They're given a checklist of all the privacy violations Zuck has committed and are allowed to select the ones that "materially impacted" them. Big dumb firms gear up for combat and it's a war of attrition that ends up with Zuck paying every person who has ever had a Facebook account like eight bucks, say. That's a 22 billion dollar settlement, which the sharks get 20 percent for administering. Facebook can afford it but most firms prefer avoiding nine figures worth of peril as a matter of principle.

First rule of litigation is "don't be the deep pockets." When I was in biomedical engineering we worked with firms that "laundered" 3m polyurethane because it was good stuff that 3m wouldn't sell to biomedical device manufacturers. Why not? Because an atrial defibrillator uses a nickel's worth of polyurethane and comes with an inevitable bazillion dollar lawsuit where the plaintiff attaches every contractor, supplier, subcontractor and vendor involved and of those involved, 3M is the one with the pockets.