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US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

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131–140 of 458 posts

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#131
It's a bad ruling. By it's logic, McDonald's can mail me a contact where they take my car if I eat at their restaurant and all disputes go to their arbitration court, and I agree to the terms by ordering food from them.

It's really no different. In fact, in some ways it's worse because McDonald's can send the contact via certified mail.

These courts just want to clear their dockets which is why they reversed.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#132
post #59

The entire notion of being allowed to enforce arbitrary terms of service is absurd. There are probably a handful of terms everyone agrees are reasonable (no attempted hacking, rate limits, do not break laws) and everything else should be unenforceable. Especially garbage like what you're allowed to do with the stuff you get from the service even while not using the service , or about setting up competing products. It…

> It's like McDonald's selling you a burger and telling you how to eat it.

Or Disney telling you they are exempt from killing someone in their theme park restaurants because you signed up to Disney+… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8jl0ekjr0go

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#134
The current state of terms and conditions is a clear failure of modern law.

No one is reading them, and it would be practically impossible to do so. Signing something you cannot practically read and understand clearly does not mean you actually accept them.

How can we wake people up to this absurdity? The law should exist to help society. When it is not helping, reform it.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not allowing to criticize is practically a law in some European countries https://ppc.land/german-businesses-systematically-delete-cri...

And the US with Oracle famously making it illegal to benchmark the performance of their database.

Because never before have we seen inverse power laws applied to table queries we were told would be faster than Postgres. They lied.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#136
post #59

The entire notion of being allowed to enforce arbitrary terms of service is absurd. There are probably a handful of terms everyone agrees are reasonable (no attempted hacking, rate limits, do not break laws) and everything else should be unenforceable. Especially garbage like what you're allowed to do with the stuff you get from the service even while not using the service , or about setting up competing products. It…

> The entire notion of being allowed to enforce arbitrary terms of service is absurd. There are probably a handful of terms everyone agrees are reasonable (no attempted hacking, rate limits, do not break laws) and everything else should be unenforceable. Why? Why should a government prohibit private parties from agreeing to anything other than those 3 things? > Especially garbage like what you're allowed to do with t…

I know discussing HN behavior is off topic, but parent's comment is a perfect example of something unpopular that adds to conversation.

We shouldn't use votes to squelch opinions we don't hold. We should use them to improve the discourse.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like McDonald's selling you a burger and telling you how to eat it. and you are not allowed to criticize it or write about the size of it or how much meat there is in it or how filling it is to eat the burger. and you are definitely not allowed to compare it to burgers from other companies.

Not allowing to criticize is practically a law in some European countries https://ppc.land/german-businesses-systematically-delete-cri...

A system being abused by mass-false-reports =/= "practically a law".

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#138
post #59

The entire notion of being allowed to enforce arbitrary terms of service is absurd. There are probably a handful of terms everyone agrees are reasonable (no attempted hacking, rate limits, do not break laws) and everything else should be unenforceable. Especially garbage like what you're allowed to do with the stuff you get from the service even while not using the service , or about setting up competing products. It…

> It's like McDonald's selling you a burger and telling you how to eat it. Or Disney telling you they are exempt from killing someone in their theme park restaurants because you signed up to Disney+… https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8jl0ekjr0go

It gets worse with added context: signed up for a free trial of Disney+ on a PS5 many years ago.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The key thing well regulated places like Sweden get right, is that in consumer contracts you have minimum bars that you must meet regardless of what you can get the consumer to agree to. So, for instance, return policies, for goods bought online have minimum standards they must meet. Yes, but Swedish contract law actually is like this. A contract is a specific agreement, it can never be "Oh well, you can add provisi…

The workaround is that each change is a new contract. If you don’t accept the changes the existing contract ends and that’s it. But the power is mostly with the provider, you need it more than it needs you, so you will want the new contract. You can also ask and negotiate terms and the provider has the same choice. If there’s healthy competition you have some power, otherwise you are out of luck.

Which is still loads preferable to what's happening in TFA.

Re: US Court of Appeals: TOS may be updated by email, use can imply consent [pdf]

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some terms were claimed to be reasonable. If power being disproportionate is sufficient to void terms, why not those terms too? > The government is not there just to enforce laws, but also to legislate such that the scales are balanced. Otherwise we may as well live in a dictatorship. Should the state just prohibit all agreements between two parties unless the state's adjudicator decides they are exactly equal in…

> If power being disproportionate is sufficient to void terms, why not those terms too? Power being disproportionate is obviously not sufficient to void terms - that's not what the comment you're replying to said. It is necessary to void terms when there is a power imbalance. > Should the state just prohibit all agreements between two parties unless the state's adjudicator decides they are exactly equal in "power" an…

> Power being disproportionate is obviously not sufficient to void terms - that's not what the comment you're replying to said. It is necessary to void terms when there is a power imbalance.

What are you trying to say here? I didn't claim the previous poster didn't think it was necessary, I was just commenting on the sufficiency part of the claim -- sufficient being a subset of necessary.

> This is obviously ridiculous and makes me think you are not arguing in good faith.

What is ridiculous is that you're pretending not to recognize a reductio ad absurdum, particularly in the context of a reply that included McDonalds dictating how you eat a hamburger! Makes me think you are not arguing in good faith, I may be forced to report you to an adjudicator to rule on how we are permitted to debate.

> Terms have to justify their existence according to logical principles that we argue about.

And that's exactly what I'm asking about. OP made a claim about what terms were "justified" and I'm trying to find out the basis for them.

> Ironic comment!

It isn't, you're just unable to address it.

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