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Comment by dwallin | Hacker News Reader

This is not two citizens having a private conversation. These are actions and conversations taken on behalf of a corporation. Corporations are given tons of privileges, but in exchange they have additional responsibilities that individuals do not have. If employees cause the company to violate those responsibilities the employees are generally not held directly responsible (unless they were directly violating a law). It’s the company itself who is held liable for the actions of its employees in this case.

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It seems like we'd be better off eliminating some of those privileges and otherwise generally constraining the overall behavior of corporations, rather than scrutinizing the individuals comprising the corporations while otherwise assuming the emergent results are otherwise desirable by construction.

You're providing a distinction without a difference. You'd have to know what the conversation is about in order to know if it's about company business. Which you don't if individuals have private communications, so you'd still have to prohibit "two citizens having a private conversation" in order to enforce your rule.

I also question your premise, which a lot of people state without evidence:

> Corporations are given tons of privileges

Name something relevant the law allows a corporation to do but not an individual.

There are some licenses that can only be held by corporations and not individuals (look at the state regulated insurance licenses for specific examples). But I agree that for the most part corporations and individuals have similar rights.

It's also unclear why that would be a relevant example. The case is not rooted in Amazon operating an insurance business or violating insurance regulations, is it?

The employees are probably very naive about the laws. The company needs their legal team to clearly explain the laws and recommend sufficient compliance actions to be taken by the employees.

This is the crux of it - the FTC says Amazon didn't say or enforce anything around compliance re an investigation for fifteen months.

Yes but companies are not expected to record all audio conversations going on in their offices, or to put recorders on their employees.

In the era of remote work it's common to have ephemeral conversations through text, which are no different from employees chatting at the watercooler. Employees and execs should be free to have those conversations through ephemeral apps. There is no obligation on any company to deliberately create paper trails of everyday conversations b/w employees.

> There is no obligation on any company to deliberately create paper trails of everyday conversations b/w employees.

You know, those everyday conversations around the water-cooler about how we're going to respond to a DOJ anti-trust lawsuit...

That certainly sounds like a conversation that should be protected so that the trial can function properly

It's funny how water cooler conversations always involve at least one member of the legal team.

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