I'm glad it all worked out for this individual. I hope more people live their lives like this as the dystopia progresses.
Unfortunately, especially in the US, exercising your rights, or even just reading every paper you're expected to put your name to, not only constantly pisses people off for some reason, but also puts you at a significant disadvantage compared to the people that never push back in the interest of not making waves, or even because "whatever it's fine."
Once I rented an apartment in US, and the documents said that they can make videos, pictures and audio recordings of me and my family, and use it for their own purposes including commercial. I objected, but their position was that no one is going to involve legal department for me, and I am free to go away.
It doesn’t mean _inside_ the apartment. It means if they decide to film a commercial and you’re walking your dog in the background, they don’t have to ask you.
That sounds a lot like a rationalization desperately grasping at "surely it's not as insane as it sounds, what it _must_ mean is ... "
I would want to read and perhaps get legal advice before relying on that interpretation - and before finding I signed over rights to my landlord to make candid porn of me and all his other tenants.
I am that person that reads every line of the contracts I sign, including ToS and PP. I appreciate that I can tell who it rubs the wrong way, because it tells me who will shake my hand without intending to honor their word. It changed the way I write these documents as well, the last ToS and PP I wrote can each be read in a single breath.
> Unfortunately, especially in the US, exercising your rights, or even just reading every paper you're expected to put your name to, not only constantly pisses people off for some reason
Yup. It's particularly sad seeing other people in this very thread talking about how they would "ban this customer for life" just for knowing their rights.
I think it's pathetic that this has become the culture amongst large swathes of Americans - especially ones who consider themselves patriotic. This country was founded in rebellion and the assertion of our rights, and somehow the exact opposite is now the ideal of many citizens now.
>I think it's pathetic that this has become the culture amongst large swathes of Americans - especially ones who consider themselves patriotic. This country was founded in rebellion and the assertion of our rights, and somehow the exact opposite is now the ideal of many citizens now.
DHS is putting on the domestic terrorist watch list people who took parts in the protests. Or at minimum threatens to put.
"U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and senior Trump
administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is building a “domestic terrorists” database comprising information on U.S. citizens protesting ICE’s actions in recent weeks.
...
In recent weeks, DHS personnel and senior officials have repeatedly stated that the agency is engaged in efforts to monitor, catalog, and intimidate individuals engaged in peaceful protests"
> The reply I received a few days later did me the favour of putting the violation on the record. Their position, in their own words, was that "in order to receive marketing / offers, it is a condition to be a member of the customer club." That one sentence is the whole case. They had taken a right I am entitled to exercise for free and turned it into the price of admission.
I don’t understand… it would be one thing if it said “receiving marketing/offers is a condition of being a member of the customer club” but that’s not what is being stated above… rather that being a member of the club is required to receive marketing — perhaps something has been misworded or lost in translation?
I think the "marketing/offers" means discounts? To be eligible for the discounts or special offers, you have to be a member of the club, and if you are a member of the club you have to be willing to receive the email messages, and somehow under EU law you're entitled to all discounts I guess?
Yea, I don't get it either. Receiving being a condition on membership means (in my understanding) only that non-members can't (shouldn't) receive anything, not that members will or must receive something. Which sounds perfectly normal and sane to me.
It's always satisfying when customer rights stories have a known positive outcome. The timeline is unfortunately quite slow and bureocractic but I'm glad OP managed to find out about it.
For me it was showing the image and the prompt, but the whole page was unstyled. But when I reloaded the page now, the css loaded also and the prompt is not shown.
I guess the web server was temporarily overwhelmed by traffic resulting in images (like for you) and css files (like for me) not being consistently served to all visitors.
Datatilsynet, the Norwegian DPA, from my experience, consistently has the user in mind. It (sadly) takes a long time for things to pass through the system, but they consistently come to good decisions.
Because if, as the regulator, you fail to benchmark what they gained then your laws can be ignored and your fines paid as simply a cost of doing business.
Its why you find the Australian regulator for consumer affairs handing out $200m+ fines to telecommunications companies, for example.
By that logic regulators should lower fines if the action wasn’t profitable. Which creates an expensive legal fight around the net profits of some action were.
Instead, it’s much better to scale fines based on the scale of the entity involved, which also results in huge fines, but it’s easier to measure revenue. Thus the fines are more broadly effective, you can still escalate if they don’t stop.
Like in Finland where speeding ticket fines are based on your income. For instance, in one well known case a businessman was fined €121,000 for going 82 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.
That's considerably more than someone near me who was doing 245km/h in a 90 zone (Well 55mph which is 89km/h). I still don't know why that person didn't lose their license (other than the obvious fact that they were rich enough to afford the Lamborghini that they were driving in); it wasn't just any 55 zone, it was one with a reputation for being dangerous.
And before anyone calls this crazy, note that jail time costs you your time, whatever that's worth. This is the same idea without the physical incarceration.
Go for it! If nobody reports things they don't get fixed.
I have found this to be true not just when it comes to companies breaking laws, but also to much more benign things. Such as reporting potholes in town or broken microwaves at work. Those can be in need of fixing for an extended period of time, yet when I report them, they usually get fixed within days. I suspect most people can't be bothered or think that surely someone else will report the issue. But that doesn't work if everyone thinks that way.
> the only way to stop the marketing was to cancel my membership of the club altogether
I have experienced this same thing with at least one other big company in Norway.
I could opt out of either SMS or e-mail, but not both, or I would not be able to keep the membership.
Unfortunately, I never made a note of which one that was exactly so I can’t name them and shame them on the spot.
Despite half-hearted attempts at stopping marketing emails now and then by individually logging in and opting out, or clicking unsubscribe links embedded in the email, my email continues to be flooded with marketing both from domestic and foreign companies that I’ve done business with. There is so many companies that even going through a handful of them at a time and unsubscribing there is a seemingly endless amount of companies that remain to unsubscribe from.
It is great to see that someone fights back, and that it is resulting in fines.
I did, it is easy, you just don't spy on people and have a point of contact and you're good. It becomes hard when you want to spy on people and also remain compliant with the no spying law.
Frankly, this attitude is pathetic. Absolute loser behaviour.
I don't think you should be doing business anywhere if customers being familiar with the law and knowing their rights scares you. Frankly if you are running a business, you should be familiar with the laws and regulations, doing otherwise - especially when someone points out that your behaviour is illegal - is negligence and punishment with a fine is completely appropriate. Welcome to living in a society.
It's an interesting story, but I could not help but have my mind skip over it because of the LLMisms. Acts like one of those taboola reels to me. If even just there was a tutorial to get people to write in such a way that it's not obviously LLM text it would be nice because the story is interesting.
I know, it's like complaining about JS etc. but it's like walking into an elevator and smelling very strong perfume. It's hard not to go "whew!"
Unfortunately, especially in the US, exercising your rights, or even just reading every paper you're expected to put your name to, not only constantly pisses people off for some reason, but also puts you at a significant disadvantage compared to the people that never push back in the interest of not making waves, or even because "whatever it's fine."
I would want to read and perhaps get legal advice before relying on that interpretation - and before finding I signed over rights to my landlord to make candid porn of me and all his other tenants.
This is the crux of the problem when landlords are allowed to form or join an "association" that gets too pervasive.
This was at the heart of the RealPage lawsuits.
Be reasonable.
Yup. It's particularly sad seeing other people in this very thread talking about how they would "ban this customer for life" just for knowing their rights.
I think it's pathetic that this has become the culture amongst large swathes of Americans - especially ones who consider themselves patriotic. This country was founded in rebellion and the assertion of our rights, and somehow the exact opposite is now the ideal of many citizens now.
DHS is putting on the domestic terrorist watch list people who took parts in the protests. Or at minimum threatens to put.
https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_dhs_on...
"U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and senior Trump administration officials have repeatedly suggested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is building a “domestic terrorists” database comprising information on U.S. citizens protesting ICE’s actions in recent weeks.
...
In recent weeks, DHS personnel and senior officials have repeatedly stated that the agency is engaged in efforts to monitor, catalog, and intimidate individuals engaged in peaceful protests"
Machine translation of overview & 5.1 which is what the blog post is about (covers some other things as well): https://chatgpt.com/share/6a34732c-0fa4-83e8-aae1-95c25dd117...
[EDIT] Oh, there was actually official English decision available as well: https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/59addbef9c1b48a28f...
I don’t understand… it would be one thing if it said “receiving marketing/offers is a condition of being a member of the customer club” but that’s not what is being stated above… rather that being a member of the club is required to receive marketing — perhaps something has been misworded or lost in translation?
e.g. "to receive offers...is a condition to be in..."
I guess the web server was temporarily overwhelmed by traffic resulting in images (like for you) and css files (like for me) not being consistently served to all visitors.
Thank you for sharing!
Its why you find the Australian regulator for consumer affairs handing out $200m+ fines to telecommunications companies, for example.
Instead, it’s much better to scale fines based on the scale of the entity involved, which also results in huge fines, but it’s easier to measure revenue. Thus the fines are more broadly effective, you can still escalate if they don’t stop.
I have found this to be true not just when it comes to companies breaking laws, but also to much more benign things. Such as reporting potholes in town or broken microwaves at work. Those can be in need of fixing for an extended period of time, yet when I report them, they usually get fixed within days. I suspect most people can't be bothered or think that surely someone else will report the issue. But that doesn't work if everyone thinks that way.
I have experienced this same thing with at least one other big company in Norway.
I could opt out of either SMS or e-mail, but not both, or I would not be able to keep the membership.
Unfortunately, I never made a note of which one that was exactly so I can’t name them and shame them on the spot.
Despite half-hearted attempts at stopping marketing emails now and then by individually logging in and opting out, or clicking unsubscribe links embedded in the email, my email continues to be flooded with marketing both from domestic and foreign companies that I’ve done business with. There is so many companies that even going through a handful of them at a time and unsubscribing there is a seemingly endless amount of companies that remain to unsubscribe from.
It is great to see that someone fights back, and that it is resulting in fines.
If you unclicked it, the 'connect to wifi' button greyed out and a notification appears saying that Opt In is required for wifi.
You can always not use their service. Plenty of alternatives out there.
It is mostly just a theater (like endless cookie consent dialogs in anonymous browsing), to employ more experts and bureaucrats.
EU is now pushing privacy laws that severely undermine privacy.
Even if it’s most just theater, you don’t make the case at all how it undermines privacy.
Follow the laws and it isn't an issue. I'm pretty sure banning someone for that stuff is probably illegal, too.
I don't think you should be doing business anywhere if customers being familiar with the law and knowing their rights scares you. Frankly if you are running a business, you should be familiar with the laws and regulations, doing otherwise - especially when someone points out that your behaviour is illegal - is negligence and punishment with a fine is completely appropriate. Welcome to living in a society.
https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
I know, it's like complaining about JS etc. but it's like walking into an elevator and smelling very strong perfume. It's hard not to go "whew!"