[governance] Another Immovable Legal Object Meeting AnIrresistable Internet Force (this time it ain't Taipei...

[William Drake]

Hi

On Aug 13, 2011, at 4:04 PM, Roland Perry wrote:

> Normal discussion about the liability of intermediaries (which sometimes has a cross-border element) would concentrate on whose fault it was if the coupon was refused *within* the time limit.

Welcome to the new normal, at least here.

Inspired by this discussion, I just bought a half priced dinner coupon at a small local restaurant on Groupon.  We have four months to redeem it.  Per usual, the length of the sale was set by the restaurant.  Of course, the government of Geneva could pass a law saying such coupons cannot expire.  That would leave business like this resto with basically two choices:  in effect, permanently cut their prices by half (for all who see the ad online), or else never offer online sales via intermediaries like Groupon.  At least here, where competitive sales are a fairly new and infrequent exception to the rule, the latter probably would be the outcome.  I'm glad the state has not gone this route, but would not be surprised if the industry associations that have long fixed prices in most markets (some of which are already screaming about people daring to cross the French border to buy groceries at 1/3rd the local price) woke up and called for a ban.  To protect global democracy, presumably.

Cheers,

Bill


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20110814/91290aef/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t