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

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

#241

Post by throwaway173738 »

quesera wrote: post #239
throwaway173738 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have a sort of “Consumer Protection Agency” that broadly enforces these norms when a company feels the need to avenge themselves on someone. A sort of regulatory agency, if you will.

But the critical question is whether it would be possible to create, staff, operate, publicize, and oversee such an "agency", at a cost that is sufficiently lower than a tiny fraction of a heavy explodey thing.

Maybe we could just print “consumer protection agency” on the side of a bomb and call it good.

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

#242

Post by throwaway27448 »

everdrive wrote: post #182
shirro wrote: post #166

There are so many advantages to turning off and disconnecting these days. Avoiding TOS is just a small part. There are too many demands on our attention and our wallets and most of us aren't getting more money or time. I cancelled all the family's streaming services in 2025. Everyone adapted. It turns out a lot of things we are told we need, we really don't. People lived without them as recently as a few years ago. A…

Every single ToS is written to benefit the company, and when necessary, harm the consumer. The answer is to enter into as few service contracts as possible. Use open source software. Control when your software updates. Really, never use the cloud version of anything whatsoever except where unavoidable. (eg: email and such) They feel like the legal equivalent of Calvin Ball. So long as you just stash it in a ToS, you…

> The answer is to enter into as few service contracts as possible

Even the idea that TOS qualifies as accepting a contract makes a farce of the entire concept of contract law.

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

#243

Post by Gustomaximus »

Noaidi wrote: post #120
nomercy400 wrote: post #109

Can I do the reverse now as well? Email a company a unilateral change in the TOS? Or do TOS's have provisions against that as well? "I do not agree with your new TOS and will continue under your old TOS, and I will continue to use your service". And see when they will close your account down.

IMO, this would make a great court case.

Dmitry Argarkov

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2013/08/14/man-who-outwitted-...

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

#244

Post by bombcar »

juleiie wrote: post #195
dfc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Hollywood content is worthless why bother pirating it at all? It seems like you would just not consume it.

I don’t think it’s totally worthless. I think people who make it, producers, are extremely corrupted friends of Jeffrey Epstein with each one sooner or later turning out to be a sex offender. There is a difference. If you have any sort of conscience you simply don’t want to fund these people. Don’t enable them. Let it wither. Nothing of particular value will be lost.

You let it wither by not consuming it at all; saying "At least I didn't pay for the corrupt sex-propaganda" isn't really an amazing high-ground.

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

#245

Post by Teever »

LPisGood wrote: post #237
Teever wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During friendly discussions and arguments my lawyer friends like to make the same kind of thought terminating cliche filed arguments that you just replied to. I think that your response really hit the nail on the head and it raises the question my mind of how do we most effectively eliminate these kinds of malformed American-system brained thoughts from disrupting real and possibly even productive conversations about…

What was the thought terminating cliche? GP clearly substantiated their quip with specific concepts.

It's American libertarian maximalism with references to McDonalds hamburgers.

The entire comment is thought terminating cliche.

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

#246

Post by bombcar »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #213
Forgeties79 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I canceled all of our subscriptions about two years ago and set up a Plex server. I don’t love the direction Plex is going in so I’m teeing up to flip to Jellyfin, but still, it has been so much better than dealing with all of these companies and nonsense. I feel like we can’t even call it “advertising“ anymore. It’s such a misnomer. It’s basically data fracking and psychological warfare to make us all into little ad…

Similar boat...I'd also like to swap off Plex but a few of my less techie friends use it and I'm worried about the compatibility/ease of setup of Jellyfin on their devices. Thought about running both in parallel but that seems like a waste. Think I just need a migration day eventually

Jellyfin has been fine "around the house" but I don't know about remote access as I've not needed it.

Jellyfin + Infuse + AppleTV is basically bulletproof; however Swiftfin as a client has been working fine.

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

#247

Post by gruez »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #211
juleiie wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t live in US or five eyes so I pirate all the stuff basically Scot free. I understand that it’s not so easy for Americans whose internet activity is constantly scrutinized. I’ve had the privilege of choosing exactly who and what I pay. I usually don’t subscribe to any streaming service, but when I do choose to pay for something, my money goes to smaller entities that I don’t actively want to see fail. In my boo…

Any $10/mo VPN solves this, and probably advertises it as a selling point. Of course, then you're spending $10 to save $10.... I have the whole *arr stack setup with Plex running in the US just fine, but that's for sure not for everyone and was a few headaches to get up and running

>Of course, then you're spending $10 to save $10....

Most VPN subscriptions are around $5, whereas netflix with ads costs $8, and $18 without ads. Even at $18 though, it's still not 4K, whereas you can easily pirate 4K versions with your VPN subscription.

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

#248

Post by hansvm »

tclancy wrote: post #118
silvestrov wrote: post #78

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.

Please do not inquire about the location of the beef.

The beef is in the fries actually -- well, beef substitute -- they have a wheat-derived beef flavoring used to make the fries taste richer. The jury is still out on whatever is between the burger buns.

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

#249

Post by devilbunny »

dpoloncsak wrote: post #213
Forgeties79 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I canceled all of our subscriptions about two years ago and set up a Plex server. I don’t love the direction Plex is going in so I’m teeing up to flip to Jellyfin, but still, it has been so much better than dealing with all of these companies and nonsense. I feel like we can’t even call it “advertising“ anymore. It’s such a misnomer. It’s basically data fracking and psychological warfare to make us all into little ad…

Similar boat...I'd also like to swap off Plex but a few of my less techie friends use it and I'm worried about the compatibility/ease of setup of Jellyfin on their devices. Thought about running both in parallel but that seems like a waste. Think I just need a migration day eventually

I've never run Plex, or Jellyfin for that matter. There's a video share on my NAS.

I point Infuse on Apple TV 4K's at it. It works, and cleanly.

Downsides: you have to pay for Infuse Pro to play some formats and deal with some audio codecs. It's IIRC $17 for a year, though, so pretty reasonable for continued development. Your non-technical friends and family can't do the initial setup themselves (it's shared over Tailscale, they can all use the same limited account on your plan), but anyone I'm going to let do this can ship me their Apple TV 4K and let me set it up for them.

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

#250

Post by Ajedi32 »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #84
danlitt wrote: 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…

Personally I have no issue with people mutually agreeing to any terms (within reason) as long as it's an actual agreement and not just some boilerplate legalese that nobody really expects you to even read, let alone carefully study and give informed consent to.

"Use implies agreement" should not be allowed. Probably even "check the box to agree" should not be allowed. If a company wants to force all their customers to agree to something in a legally binding way beyond the basic standard of what the law requires (things like don't violate our copyright, don't DoS us, etc) they should have to mail a contract and wait for the customer to sign it with ink and send it back. (Well, maybe not literally that, but at the very least some similarly weighty process which makes it clear to all parties that this is something they need to read carefully and take seriously.)

It's nonsense to on the one hand treat a ToS like "no big deal" and expect everyone to passively agree to it with no friction or push-back while at the same time treating it like a contract signed in blood as soon as lawyers get involved.

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