No, I don't see the similarity at all. If I'm called in a lawsuit I can prove that I sent the coins. Case dismissed.
Dismissed if the other end trusts you. Here is how is going to unfold in some (legislation specific) scenario.
You will be asked to provide proof you sent the coins. At this point you have two choices:
- embark on a long, time, effort and money consuming journey to ensure everyone understands your signature 100% secure and reproducible. Good luck with the lawyers.
- handle your private key so the procedure can be reproduced by a third party
In case this is not clear. You cannot just declare things, proof must be produced by third party. Mathematical proof has the same value of a simple declaration. You would get the very same protection... unless you first obtain full understanding of the technical properties involved. Some legislation systems do not allow you to produce proof by your side. That is, you can declare the numbers add up, but until verified by third party, that will be considered little more than opinion.
How it works in oldschool banking systems: banks gets queried, checks clearance, provides results (or not, in some cases).
How it works in BTC-like chains. Details are here.
If I were called in a lawsuit about you having sent or not sent coins, I couldn't prove a damn thing. I guess I'd be in trouble in that unlikely scenario.
Glad to see you find "unlikely" those things happen more than once to me already, to the point I've once paid lawyers to let everyone know I shelled out money (the declaration was made public, it had my name, place of birth, address and exact sum paid). I guess as a customer I would just not use Anon in this case... question is why should I accept it as a seller at that point because I have also been contacted by customers a few times to confirm their payments.
Let's put this in another way.
Because I really need to understand this (sorry for derailing the privacy centered thread, feel free to rm/ignore).
Say I have three customers, A,B,C. Each due to pay 1 currency unit to receive item X from me.
Deadline is met. I have two coins.
In the XMR announcement I saw pictures which had question marks at the receiver side.