It's one of those ideas that sounds nice in theory, but doesn't survive contact with the real world. In the same way that many people would say that you shouldn't negotiate with terrorists or kidnappers; but if it's their loved one who's being held and tortured they'll very quickly change their mind.

Getting to a world where no one pays ransoms and the ransomware groups give up and go away would be the ideal, and we'd all love to get there. But outlawing paying ransoms basically sacrificing everyone who gets ransomwared in the meantime until we get to that state for the greater good.

And where companies get hit, they'll try hard to find ways around that, because the alternative may well be shutting down the business. But if something like a hospital gets hit, are governments really going to be able to stand behind the "you can't pay a ransom" policy when that could directly lead to deaths?