Good morning. Hello. How are you? #569
The Banning Surveillance Advertising bill seems like an overreaching grab by the government for a monopoly on our data. Also what's the deal with solo LLCs?
Good morning! Hello! How are you this fine Thursday? Hanging in there? Losing it? Oh thst reminds me of this song by the Underground Lovers, such a cheery pop song about losing it.
I'm gonna lose my love I'm gonna lose my soul
I'm gonna lose my records and the will to know
I'm gonna lose this city and then I'll lose you too
So cheery while so sad. Love it.
Hrm yeah you never where these are gonna go when you start writing them, do you, Rick? Anyway, I’m doing okay. Did my Wordle this morning, got a four again, I always get fours. Two times I’ve gotten a five, one time a six, three times a three, and the rest have been fours. Four four four. Had a ton of meetings yesterday, they all went shockingly well. There is four to eight inches of snow coming tonight, so god knows how that is going to go down. Hope the Powerwalls do their job. It’s rough, though, not exactly generating a shit-ton of solar right now. We had the whole system wired so if we had to we could shelter in my office, which has a separate HVAC system, and turn off the whole house (except the fridge) and we’d last 4-5 days in here, but we’ve never had to do that, fingers crossed.
I would like to say a belated happy birthday to the Uram twins. As a rule I don’t do birthdays in GMHHAY, but sometimes I break that rule, so I’m gonna break it for a twofer, old roommates, pals for 30+ years. My hat goes off to both of you. I hope you mamaged to have a lovely day during this arguably-miserable time.
Listen, I got a programming note for you. I gotta come clean. Glenn Greenwald—and you can trust him—tells me that John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch deny those nasty rumors about Gorsuch being a dick and not wearing a mask. Never mind people actually saw him not wearing a mask on the bench. Because if there’s one thing Glenn Greenwald totally loves and believes, its official government reports. Glenn Greenwald is known for believing all government reports uncritically you see, that’s his thing. Especially when he can use them to discredit other reporters. Because Glenn Greenwald has never, ever, written a story that has turned out to be refuted by official channels. And if you do, you are a shill.
So Cory Booker (in the senate) and Anna Eshoo and Jan Shakaowski (in the house) introduced a bill yesterday entited Banning Surveillance Advertising which is… not super great? I mean, in some ways, it’s the same bill everyone introcuces, regulating ad tracking, and a lot of ad tracking is bad and the industry has (sort-of, maybe) failed to regulate itself, and Shoshona Zuboff is right and surveillance capitalism is bad and if you want to let a game company know you like Fruit Loops for a new level that is wrong and evil shame on you and shame on that game company because they’re probably in China anyway. And that sounds hyperbolic because who would really ban that, we’re not banning the voluntary exchange of data we’re just trying to reign in the bad guys, the secret gathering of data, the involuntary gathering.
Except it absolutely isn’t the same bill as, say, GDPR or CCPA since, most notably, it includes neither opt-out nor opt-in. Rather, it bans all advertising that uses any data about the user, in any way, except a) where they are physically located (which is a real weird carve-out that I would be very curious to know how that came to be) and b) the topic of the media they are consuming. It arguably bans broad demographic information. It arguably bans anonymizing cohorts like Apple uses. It would be illegal to say “hey Metamucil I got a group of old people here you want to advertise to them?”
But I think most weirdly, it totally bans the right of individuals to, like, agree to things. I mean, yes, I feel like opt-ins and opt-outs are mostly bullshit right now. Apple’s is bullshit because Apple doesn’t let you get anything for your opt-in, which is super weird. Heaven forbid a human individual has agency over their personal data and decides they’re content to give some of it away in return for something free. The EU’s GDPR law sort-of, maybe let’s you do this, but the law is written in such a way it feels regulatorily risky for a company to build something that lets this happen.
What this bill seems to be saying is not: your data is your property, your data belongs to you, you can do what you want with it, if you want to sell it or rent it, that is your right. I thought that’s what we libs in America belived: that we should own our data.
Rather these bills seem to be saying something else: the charitable interpretation seems to be that they’re saying your data is you, much like your organs are, and as such, you don’t actually have the right to sell it. Because you belong to the government. Or something. I’ve never been quite clear on why we can’t sell our organs, though honestly I guess that seems like a good idea.
But it’s a pretty big philosophical leap for me to equate my browsing history to my organs. Yet that seems what this bill does. Under the charitable interpretation.
The less charitable interpretation, of course, is that the government is claiming a monopoly on personal data, like they have claimed one on violence, and they’re saying all your data belongs to the government.
[I should pause here and reiterate, lest ye get ad hominem, that Nimbus does not store data, control data, or care about personal data, the entire product was engineered to not trade in this world, and mostly legislation like this would be irelevant to us, at least if it was properly implemented, unlike Apple’s, which hurt us a smidge, but didn’t really hurt the big guys, so, hey, awesome. It’s super fun being a small business pawn in these dumb wars.]
I had this as a separate topic on my topic list but it just struck me that they were related: anyone else getting an insane, ever-increasing number of spam texts? Along with an already intolerable number of spam phone calls? I can handle the spam phone calls (thank you AT&T call protect), but the texts are insane. It’s like six clicks on an iPhone to block a phone number, and then they just use another one. The industry does not seem to be fixing it.
Where is the congressional bill for that? A universal issue that everyone agrees on, does not completely redefine personal data rights, and everyone can get behind. Oh! I see, there is a “proposal, which would be adopted if it received a full vote from the Commission, would explore different approaches to protect consumers from illegal robotexts.” Well cool then. Guess congress can just ignore that one.
I leave you today with a question: does any solo individual ever really need an LLC? Why do we always make LLCs? We can’t get cheaper healthcare if we are a solo individual with an LLC. We don’t have employees. A sole-individual LLC will almost certainly not provide any real level of legal protection from liability or immunity these days, at least that’s my sense. Is that an incorrect summation of the situation? If you, like, did a bunch of dodgy crypto securities fraud wash trading, but used an LLC, and the SEC found out and came after you, do we really think they would be, like, “oh he has an LLC, that shit is iron-tight, can’t get him,” like we’re some sort of criminal mastermind? If we had an LLC and someone, like, got brutally injured by our dog while trying to deliver a Postmates meal and sued us, do we think a jury would be like “but LLC!” What are we doing here? I am geniunely confused at why people love getting these things. Have employees? Partners? Sure! But as a sole proprietor, what is the deal?
What’s today’s mix! Ooo let’s do a smooth mix this is a good one. Lay down by the fire baby. I mean, the power’s out, there’s eight inches of snow on the ground. The fire is all we have. Yeah, I know Jane is screaming. I know she wants us to inexplicably turn off the fire place. What is with Jane always wanting the fireplace turned off. That is weird.
Talk tomorrow! When it will be FRIDAY omg. And. I’ll have some nice new snowscape pictures. Or the power will be out and I wont write at all. We shall see. Fingers crossed. 🤞
A frequent freelance photographer of ours formed an LLC to get around Harvard's ridiculous contractor rules (basically that if someone on staff can technically do the job—regardless of bandwidth issues—you cannot hire someone as a contractor). This way, we can just pay his invoice without the HR rigamarole.
People just love forming LLCs when they start freelancing. Until they learn about the stupid annual franchise taxes and the like. Unless you're trying to save on FICA taxes with a lower salary and dividend it just doesn't make sense IMO.