We need strict liability on this front. Companies behind websites that embed ads that they didn't verify (and don't control) are complicit.
We need strict liability on this front. Companies behind websites that embed ads that they didn't verify (and don't control) are complicit.
You are looking at this backwards. The average user DOES hold the site complicit. The issue is that there are many hundreds of millions (possibly billions) of sites serving Google ads. 1 user avoiding/blacklisting 1 site due to scam/spam ad won't even be a rounding error to most sites, and it is nothing at all to Google. Given that the internet has evolved to be ad-driven, of which Google is a major player, you also aren't going to convince sites to stop serving Google ads.
The change has to start with Google, and they can't be bothered to do so, thus far.
Liability is kind of wild and the fact that “the internet” washes it all away is wilder still.
In my state, which perhaps takes liability too far in the other direction, if I serve sober you a single beer, you proceed to visit a second bar, have ten shots of tequila in an hour, and kill a man driving home - I share equal liability as the tequila bar.
Perhaps there is a middle ground in this world where a firm that makes billions has to have some basic “Know Your Customer” systems to prevent abuse?
(Premise: it isn't 'alcohol and drugs'; it is 'drugs'. Alcohol is a drug, and while we are at it: a powerful one.)
The reason for that is that you've been serving a hard drug to a customer. Don't do that if you cannot bear the responsibility (liability). In order to bear the liability, the price has to go up, including perhaps a safe escort home of the drug user, but of course that would be too expensive/socialist/authoritarian (blimey they want us to take responsible action regarding our customers! I knew a club here for young people where it was very normal to have them taxi'd home. Son, wanna go out? The taxi is part of the price), and lead to 'off the record' drug usage. Which is how we ended up in opioid crisis.
If alcohol would only be invented today, there's no chance it would be legal in the current umbrella of drugs. And, for good reason: it is too addictive, too harmful for self and their environment. Compare with the various empathogens or harmfulness of psychedelic drugs. These cause, normalized, far less damage to both user and their environment.
I abstain from drinking (I am sensitive to addiction which is how I ended up to that conclusion), and this weekend I had a tiramisu (it was on sale, wife bought it). Did I notice that? Oh hell, yes. Would you serve a child tiramisu? No, we should not.
I agree with most of what you are saying. That said: alcohol is also a controlled substance, rather than an illegal one. It is perfectly legal for the original person to serve it within the legal limit. They're saying that the liability goes too far when they are held accountable for another server at another establishment that serves beyond the legal limit afterwards. On that part, I will agree with them.
Like you, I abstain. Yet I do have to deal with bartenders, and I will say that some are responsible and some are not. (I have pissed off some fairly powerful people along with people who commerially produce alcohol, and ought to know better, that they cannot serve alcohol because they are unlicensed, uncertified, or uninsured.)
Unless you’re making an especially boozy recipe, there’s not much alcohol in a reasonable portion size of tiramisu. I wouldn’t give it to someone strictly avoiding alcohol, but I’d have no concerns with a kid having some.
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I have a feeling this is supposed to be mocking and showing that the liability might extend too far.
Either way, I agree with the literal interpretation. They should vet the ads they serve and are complicit in this mess if they serve ads through Google et al.