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7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

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Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#21
post #15

Most people would take this as a simple joke, but I think there's far more to it. Not the idea of 'soul ownership', but the fact that there exist essentially NO consumer protections whatsoever when it comes to these "digital licenses" that the gaming industry is increasingly using. With these licenses, gamers are stripped of nearly every single right they would retain if they had bought the game in retail form. It wo…

It is generally unlawful under common law in the U.S. to place absolute restraints on what is called the "legal power of alienation" when someone sells you property. In other words, once you acquire ownership of property from someone, you normally are free to re-sell it or give it away or whatever. The law will generally strike down attempts of seller to attach strings to the grant so as to burden what you can do wit…

Like when you thought you had bought a movie, but it turns out you don't have the right to watch it on your computer, or in another country, or in your car, or skip the trailers.

But strangely when the plastic disk breaks you don't get a new replacement one - even though all you bought was a licence to watch the contents

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#23
post #22

How do we know that these shoppers did not, in fact, knowingly submit their souls to this company? Like, hey, why not? No biggie. In all honesty, this just illustrates a very common UI practice that opt-outs are more effective than opt-ins.

The $5 voucher offered for opting out makes that explanation less plausible.

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#24
post #22

How do we know that these shoppers did not, in fact, knowingly submit their souls to this company? Like, hey, why not? No biggie. In all honesty, this just illustrates a very common UI practice that opt-outs are more effective than opt-ins.

The $5 voucher offered for opting out makes that explanation less plausible.

Point is that users will more often ignore opt-outs than not, regardless whether it is beneficial to them or not. As a UI practice, it's up to the form's creator how to manipulate this behavior.

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#27
post #22

How do we know that these shoppers did not, in fact, knowingly submit their souls to this company? Like, hey, why not? No biggie. In all honesty, this just illustrates a very common UI practice that opt-outs are more effective than opt-ins.

The $5 voucher offered for opting out makes that explanation less plausible.

From my reading I took it that the 5 pound voucher was not mentioned in the agreement, just something they would have gotten after.

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#28
post #12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if we beg the questions of whether the soul is indelibly human and whether it's physical.

To be "remains", it needn't be indelibly human, just originally human. (e.g. cremated ashes). I don't think the rule specified that it had to be physical remains, although that would certainly make it easier to package.

Some niggling little thing in the back of my mind is saying human remains are one of the few things explicitly prohibited by the US Postal Service.

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#29
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be "remains", it needn't be indelibly human, just originally human. (e.g. cremated ashes). I don't think the rule specified that it had to be physical remains, although that would certainly make it easier to package.

Some niggling little thing in the back of my mind is saying human remains are one of the few things explicitly prohibited by the US Postal Service.

Some niggling little thing in the back of my mind is saying human remains are one of the few things explicitly prohibited by the US Postal Service.

Like this, perhaps? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270582

Re: 7,500 Online Shoppers Unknowingly Sold Their Souls

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't get how karma works..

Are you serious? (Mostly) Every upvote gives you a point of karma, every downvote takes one from you. Various facilities in HN have a threshold karma requirement, so when you've garnered enough upvotes (and hence karma) these facilities become available to you. Stories and comments are sorted so that more upvotes push them higher, but they drop over time. Sort order is votes divided some exponential of time, so newer…

my karma ran over my dogma. it's all good, man..
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