
Google and Facebook lobbyists try to stop new online privacy protections - rbanffy
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/google-and-facebook-lobbyists-try-to-stop-new-online-privacy-protections/
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I_am_neo
Protect the citizen, from all treats to their safety domestic and abroad, full
stop. Money is no excuse to be feeble of mind and moral.

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aneutron
Unless every service we use becomes non-free, I think it is not lobbying, but
very reasonable. The opt-out option is a necessity, but the average user
doesn't give two cents about that.

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mac01021
I am pedantic and want everyone in every discussion to agree about the
definitions of the words they use.

"Lobbying" is defined as seeking to influence a politician or public official
on an issue.

Lobbying can be (and often is) an extremely reasonable thing to do. It is one
of the main ways that public officials become fully educated about the various
sides of issues that concern their constituencies.

If you, as a private citizen, seek a meeting with your congressman to express
your opinion about some policy or complain about some state of affairs in your
district, you're lobbying. And you need to if you want them to be aware of
your opinion or your plight.

A lobbyist is simply a person who make a profession of lobbying (usually on
behalf of others). They exist, in part, to educate legislators about the ins
and outs of policy decisions that require significant research, data
gathering, technical expertise, or complex reasoning. A senator cannot make
every decision, or even have an opinion on every issue without the help of
private citizens or organizations who have a more extensive background in the
particular domain at hand.

So you should probably say something like "Unless every service we use becomes
non-free, lobbying is a very reasonable thing to do."

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659087
Unlike Google and Facebook and their execs, chances are individuals don't have
the resources to be handing politicians millions of dollars and throwing
massive parties for them. This is why lobbying is a problem, and rarely
something that helps the majority of citizens.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-
post...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/technology/google-in-post-obama-
era-aggressively-woos-republicans.html)

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mac01021
I would rather see legislation prohibiting businesses from engaging in mass
mailings through the USPS and filling up everyone's mailboxes with rubbish
every day.

