Or “Class Action Lawsuits are Weird”
Earlier today I got an email informing me that I was a member in a class action lawsuit against Gamestop. Technically this wasn’t the first email, but I pretty much ignored the other one.
The actual law being broken has something to do with the VPPA, surrounding disclosure of “video store rental records.” I won’t even pretend to understand it, or why it exists. But it’s a law that’s been around longer then I have, and it seems to have nothing but a technical relationship with the grounds Gamestop was sued on.
The longer I live, the more I find myself wondering if we don’t already live in a dystopia. Sure, it’s not a dystopia for me, but just because you’re closer to the top of the heap doesn’t mean the world isn’t broken.
I’m not exactly dissuaded when I get notices like this.
“Your rights have been violated by a mega-corporation without your knowledge. Please provide information validating your existence, and $5 will be deposited into your account. You may instead elect to receive a $10 voucher to the corporation that performed the violation.”
All it’s lacking to really cross the line into full on cyberpunk territory is an opening that starts with something like “Greetings Citizen!”, and some extra neon.
It’s very rare that I feel like I’m actually living in “the future.” The only real time it’s happened other than this was when I rode in a Tesla a few years back, and saw its self-driving functionality.
This felt like a step in the opposition direction. “Your rights were violated, have a soda” is a far less enjoyable universe than self-driving cars made by a man who seems to want to be a Bond villain.
Anyway, I filled out the survey. $5 is $5.