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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

> But the thing I'm mostly pissed of is the status page. VM's are failing left, right and center and everything is nice and green on the status page. Once you open a ticket, they send you an incident-in-progress report.

Status pages parroting lies in service of marketing should incur more liability for companies than they do. How does a society discourage vendors from doing things like this?

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It should eventually fall under consumer protection laws. Failing to report incidents on a status page is like failing to mention trans fat on a package label.

It’s more like actively claiming “contains zero trans fats!” On the packaging when in fact the product is full of them.

Which they do. Your tortillas with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil? Yeah, it's less than 0.5g per serving so they get to say 0g.

>Your tortillas with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil? Yeah, it's less than 0.5g per serving so they get to say 0g.

Personal favorite: Tic Tacs are 94.5% sugar yet Tic Tacs can be marketed as a "sugar free" food.

"The Nutrition Facts for Tic Tac® mints state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving. Does this mean that they are sugar free?

Tic Tac® mints do contain sugar as listed in the ingredient statement. However, since the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving."

https://www.tictac.com/us/en/faq

At the moment it's reputational enforcement: if enough people badmouth them on Hacker News, the money will flow to competitors. (There are other ways to enforce norms, but they have their own problems.)

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