World corporatocracy. Welcome.
Fuck this stupid shit.
huh? did you just get a fawkes mask in the mail?
As long as you donāt try to live there or anything (not that youād consider it, given the local property prices) the Corporation of The City of London actually does āwelcomingā fairly well.
Their actual mission and activities tend toward āmalignant neoliberal pressure group so toxic you can barely believe they are realā; but they do a āand here is Ye Olde Historik London Citie, wherein may be seen colourful artefacts and reconstructions from the (implicitly past) time when the city enjoyed a unique set of traditional feudal privilegesā thing for the tourists, presumably partially because it pays, albeit vastly less than their primary work, and partially because itās perfect for obfuscating the fact that they are, still, one of Britainās wacky offshore tax havens, just with a bunch of land wrapped around it.
Even the corporate vote makes some weird sense. The City has 7,000 residents but 300,000 people work there, and itās argued that the people who work there but donāt live there should have their interests represented to local government. Also, the vote applies to any company- so while big banks get corporate votes, so do sandwich shops and newsstands.
The assignment of corporate votes is non-linear, so bigger companies are less represented- itās basically one vote per five employees up to 50, and then one per 50.
It makes even more sense when you realize that the practice more or less dates back to William the Conqueror. In the Middle Ages letting anyone vote was pretty darn progressive. Another medieval remnant in The City are the (now ceremonial) trade guilds called livery companies. Which these days includes the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. Really.
āI am the KING OF THE WORLD!ā, say they.
And just like that, they are.
Not.
Due process must be upheld because people are innocent until proven guilty.
It would set a bad precedent to allow arbitrary police seizure of assets without a court involvement.
ā¦ but I wonder if BoingBoing will post a follow-up should the City of London Police next obtain a court order to enforce the seizure?
Thereās no link to the affected websites or domain names that might allow us to form an opinion on whether the Police actions were plausibly reasonable - BoingBoing doesnāt need to conduct balanced reporting, but it might be interesting to know whether the Police actions were outrageous, or whether the story is about the Police not following the correct procedure when acting against people for whom thereās prima facie evidence of wrongdoing.
If the Police seized a totally arbitrary domain and redirected it to a Hollywood approved website, the Police would be liable to be sued themselves. Will the (unnamed) people affected here sue the Police, or do they want to keep the issue out of the courts in case it goes against them?
I donāt necessarily support movie piracy, but I guess itās good news that we follow due process, because it will prevent inconvenient sites being silenced via the same mechanism in future, even if the people targeted by the City of London Police in this instance were clearly as guilty as sin.
The sites are on the first page of the National Arbitration Forum document embedded on the techdirt article.
just a bunch of random jerks barking orders that no one has to obey
As an anarchist, I see that whenever I look at pretty much any ālegitimateā authority.
Thatās the nice thing about the expression āa bunch of [uncomplimentary-adjective] jerksāā¦
It may be followed by any amount of innocuous material - of no immediate concern to said jerks or their heavy-handed supporters - but Douglas Adams has forever sealed their fate with his particular choice of adjective.
I believe, like the original āmindlessā, the adjective must be a trocheĆ© though, otherwise it might not trigger the association.
William the C had a crazy, crazy legacy that way. I read quite a lot on him, as one of the descendants (of which there are doubtless thousands, by now). He was very, very good at making sure that his own family and best supporters got theirs while the getting was good. (Which helps explain his enormous success, I suppose.)
Anyway, I remember one of that family became Mayor of London, with the sense that it was quite aā¦pompous position to hold. Not your local Better Business Bureau, for sure!
So very different than the US! I mean, we have a short history of robber barons and rebellion leaders. And Iāve seen where they did much the same in terms of maintaining power within those families. But typically, itās more industry-specific, like āBig Tobaccoā. No place does business have that kind of centralized power on the ground. - let alone its own police force! But, I wonder how many other freaky business stunts they may have pulled off that we donāt know about?
Actually there are corporate-run police forces in the US that have full peace-officer status. The Union Pacific Police Department would be one example. I can also think of one local government that is fully under corporate control, albeit just a single company. That would be the Reedy Creek Development District, better known as Disney World. The land owners in the jurisdiction elect the Board of Supervisors, so no surprise that all five are Disney executives.
Thatās true: and I support the right of the owners of torrentpond.com (Domiciled in the Dominican Republic) to receive due process from the City of London Police!
On a more interesting note, does anyone recognise the font they use?
The typeface is called Albertus.
Interesting. I wasnāt aware of either of those.
Local Government in Greater London is provided by 32 boroughs and the City of London Corporation (The 32 boroughs are statutory corporations created by the London Government Act 1963). The Common Council of the City of London is elected by some 22,213 individuals, none of whom have more than one vote. 6,632 of the voters are residents and 15,581 are either appointees of businesses (or institutions such as churches, charities and educational establishments) or they are sole traders or members of partnerships. The allocation of business voters is skewed towards small and medium sized businesses, organisations with a workforce size of 9 or less can nominate 1 voter; those with up to 50 staff can nominate 1 voter for every 5 staff; those with more than 50 can appoint 10 voters plus an additional voter for every additional 50 members of staff. All voting is by secret ballot in the normal way.
The Common Council is the police authority for the City of London, but the City of London Police are subject to the same laws and regulations as any other territorial police force in England.
The City of London Police did not give āthemselves the power to seize domainsā, but (as I understand it) they did send out some somewhat officious letters to domain registrars.
Caveat Emptor
The ancient Latin phrase translates as ālet the buyer bewareā i.e. use your common sense before parting with your money - check out what sort of people you are dealing with and what their track record is etc. If you are so daft as to pay money to a domain registrar who rolls over in the face of one officious letter then you chose the wrong registrar
Oh Dear!
Firstly the āCorporation of The City of Londonā is a local council in Canada and nothing to do with the City of London referred to in the article. Secondly City of London residents and businesses pay the same taxes as the rest of the UK.
Think of this as a government run by stakeholders.
The City of London has about 7000 permanent residents and a daily workforce of 300,000 who commute into the city to work but live outside it. I can see why those 300,000 people who spend 8 hours a day in the city might want some representation. If they spend half their waking life in the city they should have some voice.
I donāt see understand the companies should have block votes weighted by their number of employees - but given thatās what happens, the question becomes: how can we game the system?
How does a company audit the number of itās employees? If a large company is allowed 10 voters + 1 vote for every 50 employees, what stops a company registering itās business address within the City of London and issuing peppercorn wages or zero hour contracts to a million employees who they then claim are telecommuters? That one company would gain the majority of the votes by default, and could seize control of all votes held by the City of London Corporation. Couple that with an insider on the City of London Corporation council, who could determine items sent to ballot (e.g. levy a 10% income tax or ground rent of Ā£1M/acre on all businesses with an income over Ā£100M), and weād see if it was still a good idea.
