People do not start companies in Dubai instead of the EU because of paperwork, Dubai is particularly paperwork heavy (especially if you need a local bank account).
More than 99% of the people whose information is listed in these registries are not corrupt public officials, Russian oligarchs, or [insert person you dislike here].
Public UBO registries do not strike a good balance between protecting the privacy of honest business owners and exposing corruption or whatever.
Why should business owners be anonymous? Honest or not is irrelevant, the public should be able to find out who owns those companies, be it a local restaurant or a giant multinational corporation that owns stores and property through 18 different holding companies.
Ironically businesses with more than 20 employees and 5 million in revenue are excluded from having to report ownership information in America (well, starting 2024).
A service address isn't sufficient to, for example, easily piece together that one private owner has quietly purchased 70% of some town's resources, especially if they've done so via a collection of shells. And most legal actions against such abuse generally start grassroots; regulators aren't aware there's a problem until people complain.
Hiding information from the public makes it harder to notice abuse.
Flip the script: when an individual has incorporated and is enjoying the legal protections of being a corporate entity, why do they need their name hidden? What value in the society of granting them that privilege when they are enjoying legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by all members of society?
When an individual has registered a car and is enjoying the right to operate a 6000 lbs death machine on public roads, why do they need their name hidden? What value in the society of granting them that privilege when they are enjoying legal protections and privileges not enjoyed by all members of society?
The real question you have to answer is “Why is it necessary for company ownership to be public information?”
> A service address isn't sufficient to, for example, easily piece together that one private owner has quietly purchased 70% of some town's resources, especially if they've done so via a collection of shells
What’s wrong here? Even with a perfect UBO registry that private owner could just get together with a couple of their buddies and divvy up that 70%.
What legal action are you going to take? Owning 70% of a town’s resources is generally not against the law.
Given that corporate charter is a grant by the government acting on behalf of society at large, the question is not whether company ownership being public should be necessary, but whether it benefits society. There's no natural right to form legal entities distinct from one's person with no strings attached.
> When an individual has registered a car and is enjoying the right to operate a 6000 lbs death machine on public roads, why do they need their name hidden?
It's not. They carry a driver's license and law enforcement can reference their name by license plate.
Other users of the road do most of the enforcement. The police often get involved only at the behest of another user or if certain levels of misconduct are breached. It sounds like this transparency allows other citizens to do the low-level enforcement: organizing against an unwanted company buying that attempting to acquire more ownership your town might be analogous to honking, tailgating, etc.
There are several points. One is to signal to the community that it's not ok to post like this. Most people don't want to get banned and do genuinely want to use the site as intended. Leaving a public trail of moderation comments and actions helps regulate community behavior, even if it doesn't have that effect on you.
Another is that I prefer to (try to) persuade users that it's in their interest not to abuse HN. HN is only interesting because there is a somewhat* higher quality of discussion and content here. When you post aggressively, violate the site guidelines, and so on, you're damaging the ecosystem and contributing to destroying HN as an interesting place. That is not in your interest.
I assume that you wouldn't drop a lit match in a dry forest, or dump engine oil in a mountain lake, or throw trash in a park that you enjoy. Why do the equivalent here?
(* I don't want to overstate that—a lot of posts also suck. But it's all relative, and there aren't many places on the internet to have the sort of discussion that, at its best, goes on here.)
The legitimate purpose is choosing to not trade with a company owned by a particular person. And that facility should be open to anyone without having to jump through hoops.
I really can’t see how your interest in not doing business with companies owned by people you like could possibly outweigh every business owners privacy interests.
Running a company is pretty much a public activity. Why protect the privacy of the rich and powerful (relatively to those who don't run any companies) few while compromising anti-corruption measures.
Most companies are one man shops, or small businesses. In certain countries (looking at you, Greece) it’s the only economic way to be a contractor or self-employed. Hardly the “rich and powerful”.
Disclosing their personal information seems like an incredibly poorly targeted policy, motivated by little more than the misconception that you’re hurting the “rich and powerful”, when you’re just hurting the middle class and adding yet another barrier to people trying to start businesses (already stupidly difficult in most of Europe).
they are not solely for rich and powerful. it s cheap to make a company and for many remote workers its the most sane way to be paid, because tax laws are insanely backwards. The secrecy of UBO is a weird concept though, i agree
Yes, I understand that, but they are also probably not the kind of people who would like their identity hidden. Acting in public while staying anonymous is creating a power disbalance. It can be justified in some cases, like for activists or journalists facing a greater power disbalance, but I can't imagine a good reason for economic activity (other than purely personal consumption) to stay private.
Not at all. A company could be a one man shop which only does business with one other company, it’s not obvious why that would be more of a public activity than just being directly employed by a company.
I'll go further and say they do bugger all to stop corruption. The rich will continue to find their loopholes and dodgy accountants. I know because I've worked for them. Pass all the laws you want, it's not going to effect them.
What they _do_ achieve however is getting your name irreversibly splattered around just for helping a charity as a "board member".
Very little verification of UBO registers ever actually occurs. Which is why "oligarchs" have nominees and having to lie on another government form doesn't make a difference.
I think there are valid concerns, generally speaking, but I for my own selfish reasons prefer to have the option of keeping my information private.
I have no interest in being a public person, to any degree whatsoever. Not because I want to do shady things, but because there are objectively no advantages to having your privacy taken away.
Creating a successful business is fundamentally connected to publicity, and if I succeed in creating publicity for my product/business/company I inevitably create publicity for myself. As things are those two things are inseparably connected. I personally hate it.
This is a far fetched, but the thought that someone innovates or creates something of value, and the payback may be that people want to kill them or kidnap their family because it happens to be a vaccine, or paparazzi hound them for the rest of their life because the media wants to cash in on them just sucks.
While I of course don't expect any of that to ever happen to me, I have thought about what if it happens. If someone is not willing to take that risk their only alternative is to be someone else's workhorse until retirement. It seems like a really bad and arbitrary filter (not the only one by any means) for who is and isn't able to take a shot at building something for themselves.
It doesn't really make sense to me that your willingness to give up your privacy is this connected to one of the biggest decisions you can make in life to grow and build meaningful stuff.
I think a lot of the need for public disclosure is tied up with the benefits you get from starting a business. Perhaps the default should be for people to do more as private citizens rather than working through a company. Place more limits on what is a legitimate use for a business. But also make it easier for individuals to trade.
So would you like to a live in a country where the government can mandate a vaccine and you have no way to find out who owns the VAXXPROD company, whose vaccines are mandated? What if the owner by pure coincidence is the nice of the Vax Minister?
On the other hand, how will John Doe's privacy be affected if it was public information that he owns Flush Pty Ltd, as long as Flush Pty Ltd is not doing anything of public interest?
Obviously, would get into the realm of public interest if John Doe also owned Flush-A, Flush-B, ... Flush-Z Pty Ltds, and these were purportedly competing for the tenders to install toilets in the City Council Building. Or would you rather keep this information private?
Your questions address a completely different part of this conversation that I acknowledged, but specifically clarified wasn't what I was commenting on. The moral dilemmas that may be hiding in this change are already discussed elsewhere in the thread.
"there are objectively no advantages to having your privacy taken away..."
Your words, correct?
My claim is that whenever you do something of high consequence, it is safer for you and the society to have your privacy taken away. (or the link between whatever you do and your name be public knowledge)
*The vaccine produced by an anonymous scientist*
*The car crashtest and certification site operated by an anonymous owner*
*The airplane designed by an anonymous engineer*
Talking about airplanes. An air traffic controller in Switzerland is a largely anonymous job. But after causing an aviation accident (a rather high-consequence deed) it would have been safer for the controller, if he and the police assumed that the air traffic controller's name and location were public knowledge:
The information that John Doe operates XYZ Pty Ltd does not affect their privacy too much, but if either John Doe or XYZ do or even consider doing something of high consequence, they better know that the link is public.
there are objectively no advantages to having the link between your name and your high-impact activity be hidden.
I was referring to my own interests - as the one who would be losing his privacy - not the consequences for society. I made that very clear in the first sentence of my OG comment. There are no advantages to me losing my privacy. That is, me specifically. Not individuals in general. Me. As I was saying from the start.
The discussion you seemingly want to have you can have plenty of times elsewhere in the thread, so why instead ignore everything I said and pivot the conversation to the one thing I said multiple times now wasn't what I was talking about?
It is perfectly valid and I appreciate that you want to talk about the bigger picture of this change, and how it affects different aspects of society. That conversation should go along with conversations about individual experiences and expectations and interests, not happen in their stead.
We haven't banned pawn shops, either. But we do understand that they are a conduit for theft and can induce other crime, and so we tend to impose a certain amount of regulation upon them to reduce the scope of the harm.
What exact form that would take is up for discussion.
And, of course, there's other secondary markets-- sketchy people with tables illegally selling gray market consumer goods.
> So you want that the government do something, but don’t know what?
Actually, I pretty well know what, and I'll explain despite your bad faith.
* We have a century-old toolkit of ways to deal with legitimate businesses that often end up as fences. Mostly record-keeping requirements and a degree of secondary liability to encourage vetting of where they buy merchandise from. You see this toolkit applied to pawn shops, scrap metal dealers, etc...
* We also have pretty good ways, in major municipalities, of shutting down sellers of goods who open impromptu businesses on street corners with dubious goods. Increased amount of retail theft may be a signal to redouble these efforts.
* And, of course, enforcement against the actual frontline shoplifters is important, too.
Of course, all of these things are tradeoffs that impede some legitimate businesses to some extent to protect other businesses from illegal activity. The exact amount and form is open to discussion.
The reason why all your comments are getting flagged is because you're engaging in mockery instead of trying to advance the conversation and talk about specifics.
Really? I just googled my location plus "trafficked stolen property conviction" and found news stories regarding multiple convictions. It sure seems like the police investigate and arrest people knowingly selling stolen property. In what sense is Amazon not doing this, or recklessly disregarding whether or not they are doing this?
If I were a multi-hundred billion dollar business operating like Amazon, then of course cops and prosecutors would ignore me. Laws aren't for rich and powerful companies - they are for individuals and small business owners.
Stolen property convictions at least at the local level primarily come from stings where police come in with property that they describe as "boosted" or in similar terms and then once the sale is completed they arrest the store owner. Amazon being online is obviously immune to this kind of police work. As long as Amazon removes the seller once they become aware something is wrong they are probably not breaking any laws. Some states are trying to pass laws to make ecommerce platforms vet sellers more but I doubt this will make a difference because it is not hard to make fake invoices.
So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.
The reality is that Amazon breaks the letter and spirit of the law. (Depending on jurisdiction) laws against trafficking stolen property do not require that the police catch you red handed in a sting, the law doesn't even require that you actually do know you are selling stolen property - you can be charged if you had a reckless disregard for selling stolen property. The spirit of the law is that selling stolen property makes theft more profitable and that will mean more theft which is bad so let's not sell stolen property. Amazon is obviously providing a way for thieves to profit.
Again, repeated violations of the letter and spirit of the law reported in major newspapers, and no criminal consequences for Amazon. Do you think if your local paper was repeatedly writing stories about how Pawn Shop X was helping thieves profit, that local police and prosecutors would just shrug and point to that webform + mail setup? I don't.
Even if you couldn't get a "slam dunk" case going after corporate leadership for this, you could try. Amazon has actually violated the letter and spirit of the law so it would be fair to bring a case against them. If the jury acquits, then wait until you find evidence of the next theft ring reselling on Amazon and bring new charges.
Even without a conviction I don't think corporate leadership would accept facing a jury trial once a month with the possibility of a conviction and prison time. Instead, Amazon would substantially improve protections on reselling stolen property - which is the desired outcome.
> So, you think that if pawn shops and the like required thieves to fill out a webform and mail stolen property in to be resold, like on Amazon, then the shop owners would be immune from prosecution? That doesn't seem plausible to me.
Not immune, just saying that the way police traditionally approach stolen property cases basically requires the suspect to be on tape acknowledging receiving stolen property. The reason they do that is because is the law requires them to show knowledge or that a reasonable person would know the property is stolen. Unless they find an email where someone in the company is notified that a seller is selling stolen property and doesn't do anything about they probably don't have a criminal case. What they could do is sue, get a "consent decree" and as part of the settlement force Amazon to implement more rigorous seller identification or something like that. But I doubt any Amazon employees are going to jail over this.
Yeah no they wouldn’t. How long did Amazon collect no sales tax before that loophole closed? How much did they have to pay back? If you tried that the state would stream roll you
