mercurialshark

A character in Neal Stephenson's "Fall or Dodge in Hell" - exploits a hypothetical issue at the Belgium/French border to fence off his home and form a sovereign city state (enforced by armed guards, political influence and technology).

Yes and when Neal was asked about Enoch during a speaking appearance, he noted that Enoch was one of the first people in the bible whose death wasn't recorded/noted. Apparently, most people early in the bible that were mentioned had both birth/death notated. At some point they stopped bothering with so many new parties introduced and he was one of (if not the) first to not have their story/death brought to a conclusion.

I'm not addressing guilt, but to your point, it may be but one way to demonstrate their market dominance (even if the consequences are beneficial for consumers).

If you spent illicit funds on a good cause, it can still be used as proof of your control over the funds.

So Apple's position and influence over the market may raise antitrust concerns, but that doesn't mean I don't want privacy protections (I do!).

As an example, a drug dealer can give money to their community and while it's going towards a good cause, that doesn't change who/how they are donating. Companies can have similar conduct in hopes that an enforcement action would be perceived as harming the consumer/retail investors.

It is entirely appropriate to consider Apple's conduct as anti-competitive and/or acting as part of a cartel, without asserting that the appropriate remedy is an injunction allowing Facebook to utilize user's unique device ID's to the benefit of Facebook's ads systems for ad targeting.

In other words, this particular case may help elucidate Apple's dominance/influence on the market, but that does not necessarily mean that the privacy changes in and of themselves are the foundational antitrust issue.

If someone posts an inaccurate or untruthful comment that a reasonable person would not rely upon for their safety, I think the correct response is to mute, unfollow or retort (and if it's self-evident, hopefully it's easy to explain why it's inaccurate or link to countered evidence).

However, the imminent apprehension of harm (from a direct, credible or specific threat), does comport with the concept of assault and is grounds for moderation. Likewise, demonstrating proximate cause from someones actions to a specific harm/damages, would also be grounds for censorship.

Yes, and I fundamentally reject the premise that inaccurate expression should be censored or moderated without a proximate cause to a specific harm or credible imminent apprehension of harm.

I do not think censorship is justifiable for potential or non-quantifiable, collective psychic harm.

There has been no ruling by the court on the merits of the case. A TRO is simply a request for injunctive relief, asking the court to compel AWS to reinstate services pending litigation.

Additional briefs following the TRO, replies, nor responses have been filed.

There has been no discovery, no fact finding, no expert witnesses, no oral argument, no jury trial and no opinion. The case has not been adjudicated by the District Court. It has not reached a stage where it can be appealed to the Circuit Court and it certainly has not reached post appellate petition for cert to the Supreme Court.

There are separate issues.

i) Antitrust - AWS's behavior may be viewed as an antitrust issue, acting in conjunction with a cartel. A party does not need to have majority market share to function in coordination with other dominate players in order to form a cartel that can manipulate the market. There's case law concerning market manipulation, access to industry and consumer protection issues where parties didn't need to directly coordinate to be considered a cartel.

ii) Practical dependence on service providers for access to critical digital infrastructure. To what extent do we depend on particular services for participation in society and the marketplace will influence the analysis. At what point does a data service provider begin to resemble a common carrier (i.e. cable, phone or internet provider) and in what context would common carrier laws apply?

iii) Contract issues - A few of the foreseeable issues include sufficient notice, contract breach, degree of harm (irreparable harm?), performance obligations.

I don't think responding in less than five minutes was unreasonable. It's also not legal advice, simply my personal opinion on some of the numerous issues that are likely to be litigated.

I also think this entire thread will be worth revisiting upon appeal.

I do not possess power to read minds, nor anticipate the court's actions. I find it all, very interesting!