Passing laws like this disproportionately affects smaller websites that are independent from big tech. A law like this HAD to come from big tech, where tech bros are exchanging money with the government for total wrangling and control of every step of their users / citizens.
As an analogy, currently in some countries tobacco and vape products can only be sold in certain stores in a certain way, hidden behind a counter, think tobacco stores, corner stores, gas stations or mom&pop depanneurs. Suddenly some government official receives bribes (through lobbying or otherwise) from a cartel of big-box stores and security-service providers that prompts them to propose a bill to mandate a security guard at every small store to act as a bouncer against letting children into the store. As a small business owner not only does this require you to hire a security guard and pay their salary + the overhead going towards big-sec, you are also losing revenue from potential customers (children) that would come into your store to buy chips, pop, ice cream or bag of milk (yes, bag). And I didn’t even get to the analogy of control aspect yet, just that of the smb.
It’s a stupid law and for a stupid reason (FOR THE CHILDREN!!) and I hope more, serious businesses pile on such a lawsuit and hopefully kneecaps anyone ever thinking about implementing such an idiocy. I’m looking at you Steam, GOG, Epic, etc.
Edit: to go further on the control side of the analogy, the security guard has to ask for the ID of every person wishing to enter the store, jot it down in their logbook and submit the logbook to their parent company hourly. The big-sec parent company now has this data for sale to anyone willing to offer. Including the government, who can then enact further control on their citizens based on the data obtained on their habits.
Passing laws like this disproportionately affects smaller websites that are independent from big tech. A law like this HAD to come from big tech, where tech bros are exchanging money with the government for total wrangling and control of every step of their users / citizens.
As an analogy, currently in some countries tobacco and vape products can only be sold in certain stores in a certain way, hidden behind a counter, think tobacco stores, corner stores, gas stations or mom&pop depanneurs. Suddenly some government official receives bribes (through lobbying or otherwise) from a cartel of big-box stores and security-service providers that prompts them to propose a bill to mandate a security guard at every small store to act as a bouncer against letting children into the store. As a small business owner not only does this require you to hire a security guard and pay their salary + the overhead going towards big-sec, you are also losing revenue from potential customers (children) that would come into your store to buy chips, pop, ice cream or bag of milk (yes, bag). And I didn’t even get to the analogy of control aspect yet, just that of the smb.
It’s a stupid law and for a stupid reason (FOR THE CHILDREN!!) and I hope more, serious businesses pile on such a lawsuit and hopefully kneecaps anyone ever thinking about implementing such an idiocy. I’m looking at you Steam, GOG, Epic, etc.
Edit: to go further on the control side of the analogy, the security guard has to ask for the ID of every person wishing to enter the store, jot it down in their logbook and submit the logbook to their parent company hourly. The big-sec parent company now has this data for sale to anyone willing to offer. Including the government, who can then enact further control on their citizens based on the data obtained on their habits.