ronburk - 4:40 pm on Sep 27, 2006 (gmt 0)

How does the US economy function with such nonsense as a daily occurrence?

It's a trade-off, right? We don't have a complex set of government rules to (try to) force companies to respect the privacy of their customers (a la EU). Instead, we have roaming packs of lawyers, who constantly sniff the country for actionable screw-ups.

The U.S. can best be understood in terms of Dirty Harry movies. We don't have enough cops on the beat to discourage illegal activity by their sheer presence. Instead, we have the threat that, even though you'll get away with it much of the time, someday a guy with a .35 Magnum class action will show up and say "Do ya feel lucky punk? Well, do ya?"

It ain't pretty, but it sorta works.