This is ridiculous overreach. It sets a dangerous precedent where any online trader must be mindful of all legislation of all possible jurisdictions on the world.
Otherwise, sell porn, have one customer from Saudi Arabia, go for a vacation in Turkey, and here comes your flogging extradition trip.
At the same time, US has a "Hague invasion act" authorizing military action against international prosecution of their officials.
I'm surprised no one here as mentioned Kim Doctcom, who is still trying to fight his extradition from New Zealand. He's a German, who has never set foot in America, was illegally spied on by NZ (which is now retroactively legal thanks to former PM John Key's GCSB law) and for a charge that isn't a crime in NZ.
Kim Dotcom and The Pirate Bay are, essentially, extralegal cases. KD and TPB consistently frustrated interests that are powerful enough to get bureaucrats to supersede the legal system (as long as it's ambiguous and rare enough not to comprise a slam dunk against the bureaucrat). A bit of pressure and the problem gets solved one way or another.
Sweden only moved against TPB after the WTO threatened them with sanctions. It's likely that New Zealand caved in the belief that they'd face similar unpleasantness.
We must understand that underneath the fancy dressings and the formalities that we create to make ourselves feel important, humans are essentially the same; our psychologies are all dictated by the same biological processes. We must not kid ourselves about this. It is always dangerous to upset or frustrate powerful interests. If you taunt someone much more powerful than you, as TPB did, do not expect formalities like law to make a difference.
A lot of starry-eyed entrepreneurs go in thinking that everyone will be pleasant and sportsmanlike, and see their work as a friendly collaborative competition. This is not true! People will skirt and break every rule they can to win, because they see the competition as a matter of survival, not as a fun game.
The copyright cartel is out of control along every axis. Not only do they make use of an artificially-granted, market-destroying monopoly to stifle the creative speech of the public, but in multiple cases now, they've triggered an extralegal override of national sovereignty to persecute a little guy who was frustrating their oppressive business model in ways that were completely legal within his/her jurisdiction.
If our politicians want to get out under these peoples' thumbs, they need to seriously revise copyright law, and tell the fat cats that they're going to have to be productive to make money instead of milking royalties for 100+ years and sending the feds across the world to black bag entrepreneurs.
IANAL but the convention in law seems to be to come out of the gate as aggressively as possible, making an initial land grab for every kind of remote, loose, or tenuous allegation, and see what survives. I guess lawyers expect to get push back, so they overreach out of the gate to give something to quibble over and protect the real basis of their claim.
Do you also know that even talking to a lawyer when threatened costs money? And that Zillow is likely to have way more money to spend on lawyers than a blog?
Attitudes like that are exactly what attorneys count on to bully the little guys. Many attorneys will give free consultations.
Also, keep in mind that I'm not specifically talking about Zillow right now... I'm saying that you shouldn't let yourself get bullied. Running scared from a letter is just a bad practice.
> not so flawed to let total idiots make every economic decision
You might want to read up on Khruschev's corn farming plans, Gorbachev's prohibition, Mao's backyard furnaces and many more. Slightly tangent, check on Trofim Lysenko's anti-genetics antics. USSR style socialism explicitly declared ideology over science, engineering and what not. And by ideology they meant whatever The Great Leader says.
I wonder if they considered a half-loop launch, toss bombing style. That way they could dump the wing, perhaps at a price of higher strength requirements.
Funny you should mention the lobby. The US auto lobby was the reason the US NOx diesel emission requirements are more stringent than EU in the first place, specifically disadvantaging European diesel cars (which are much cleaner overall).
>The US auto lobby was the reason the US NOx diesel emission requirements are more stringent than EU in the first place
No, that was a result of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 for the reduction of acid rain. Though it was targeted towards industrial emissions of SO2 & NOx, but stricter regulation for vehicles were an additional effect.
>specifically disadvantaging European diesel cars
That's a weird argument given that diesel passenger vehicles in the US are held to the same standard as gasoline ones, but to a separate standard from their petrol counterparts in the EU. I mean, one could argue the opposite, that an EU emissions policy favorable to diesels amounted to an equivalent 13-16% import tariff. [1]
Several domestic rather than just foreign diesel engine manufacturers were also penalized for using defeat devices in 1998.[2]
> (which are much cleaner overall)
That's quite arguable, trading lower CO2 & CO for increased NOx & PM.
>Surely car manufacturers didn't have a say, which is why US and EU emission standards look like this
As per the source of the image says, "On the other hand, American regulators are focused on smog and health impacts of air pollution." Which the graphic you provided well indicates.
Look, California was probably the first governmental entity to regulate tailpipe emissions. Such so that it's written in the Clean Air Act by name to run its own regulatory scheme to enact stricter regulation(with federal waivers, but that's another issue). The reason being, that LA's unique geography makes smog worse. Heck, in the 1940s, they had an episode severe enough they thought they were under chemical attack by the Japanese.
As such, CARB's emission standards were focused on reducing the more directly harmful pollutants like hydrocarbons, ozone, NOx & PM.
So, given California's influence on the original 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1988 California Clean Air Act's influence on the subsequent amendment in 1990, I don't see how that graphic would support your argument.
I mean, had they such hypothetical power, they could have also blocked the banning of leaded gasoline that was in the same amendment.
>Well duh, let's keep diesel cars to petrol standards so that their benefits don't matter and their disadvantages are prohibitive!
Emissions vs fuel economy. You're being facetious, but if that argument was true, why bother importing diesel passenger vehicles into the states?
They didn't even start reintroducing diesels in America until they thought they could harmonize emissions from Euro 5 with Tier II Bin 5.
https://xkcd.com/722/