

Ask HN: Companies – how do you keep up to date with Government regulation? - ekpyrotic

HN, as someone who works in Government:<p>(1) I wanted to get a sense of &#x2F;how&#x2F; you keep up to date with regulatory changes that affect your industry?<p>(2) And how you try to &#x2F;change&#x2F; the policies themselves, if you do?<p>I want to get a general sense of the start-up tech. community&#x27;s engagement with politics and the establishment.<p>Do you just ignore the Government? Do your have an outside agency that does all your Government stuff for you? Have you ever tried to get your message across about some-or-other piece of legislation, did you succeed or fail?
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brudgers
In the US, the barrier to government approval is very low for most businesses.
Often no more than going down to the local city hall and paying a small fee
for a business license. The barrier is so low that for something like
developing software out of one's home few people will bother obtaining a
license and few local governments will bother enforcing licensure requirements
even though they exist.

Likewise in the US, forming a legal business entity has a very low barrier to
entry. Closely held corporations and Limited Liability Companies can be filed
online in many states for around $100 using boilerplate documentation [which
may or may not be an appropriate alternative for legal advice].

In the US, proposed changes to laws tend to go through formal drafting
processes which include periods for public comment before being put to a vote.
Regulations [almost] always go through formal review and comment periods. The
court system provides [almost] everyone with the opportunity to challenge the
legality of existing regulations and approved regulations prior to their
effective date.

In more heavily regulated industries, rule changes often occur slowly and by
reference. DSM VI is an example in the US health care industry where after a
long period in which a standard was developed by consensus, the change to
regulations is occurring because the latest version of DSM is incorporated by
reference into the regulations. Everyone effected has had many years of lead
time.

My understanding is that other countries have processes which require
significantly more bureaucracy and associated expenses, so it would probably
help your data collection to be more specific about contexts.

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a3voices
I'm probably alone here but my view is to ignore the government until you
actually start making decent money.

