Ban Behavior, Not Code?
from the yes,-but... dept
Declan McCullough has a roundup of plenty of dreadful legislation that has been proposed to ban certain applications, pointing out how many would ban perfectly legitimate applications as well. His recommendation is that instead of banning applications, politicians should focus on banning behaviors. As has been said many times here, banning technology makes no sense. Banning bad behavior is perfectly reasonable. However, it's not necessarily so easy with software. If you asked the politicians and looked at some of the bills McCullough mentions, many would say that they are trying to ban behavior and not the technology. For example, with spyware, they're trying to ban the behavior or sneakily sending private info without the user knowing it. That's what the various laws propose - and it's clearly targeting a behavior. The end result, though, is that it bans any technology that automatically performs that "behavior." So, separating out software from behavior isn't always so easy.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Easier to ban by name
It's a bad analogy, but the "Assault Weapons Ban" had similar flaws. The bill banned hundreds of specific models by name, as well as general combinations of military-like features (bayonet lug, flash hider, pistol grip, etc) that had more to do with a scary appearance than actual functionality.
Predictably, gun manufacturers responded by producing new models with slight cosmetic changes and new names; The AR15 lost the flash hider and became the XM15, functionally the same but different enough to comply with the law.
Similarly, Gator has a reputation as spyware, so they have changed their name to Claria...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]