71–80 of 167 posts
Why is this on hackernews?
From the guidelines: Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…
With regards to very long contracts, and without meaning to defending all instances of them (since some are clearly just meant to obfuscate), how do you separate a contract "designed to not be read" from one that honestly tries to cover all edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are?
Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?
Or a novel way to get a bad review splashed all over national media. Did the hotel really think this was going to end well?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not a lawyer and I'm going to appear to play the devil's advocate here, but bear with me and let's say it's not illegal for an agreement to contain such a clause. If it breaks no laws, then why is it illegal? Assuming you have signed an agreement for this knowingly (or at least they presented this agreement to you and it's fair to presume that you've read it before signing it). So what you would have to do is ref…
> Maybe you'll have to find another hotel That's refusing you service and extortion. The "another hotel" might be 100 miles away, in which case it also costs you money.
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…
"Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better." Credit card charges that are pull-based are generally a bad thing, but not all pull-based payments are bad for consumers. For example, the Direct Debit scheme in the UK requires the consumer to be notified 5 working days before payment is taken, and the consumer has the right to get a refund from the bank without dispute; it is then the bank's jo…
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…
The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/leg…
I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract. If a standard contract is "agreed" between some company (Apple, this hotel, etc) and all of their consumers and some unacceptably high number of those customers don't now the content of this contract, I think it should be considered what it is: nonsense on a piece of paper.
These contracts are so blatant that it doesn't even matter what the thresholds are or how they are determined. The way these "contracts" are set up to be agreed to by people who haven't read them is so flagrant, it's unmistakably contemptuous of the whole idea of an agreement.
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…
I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read…
There's a contract system in place, and it may work fine for people who have the incentive and the resources to look over them (mergers and acquisition deals, house purchases), but a lot of the time the document is very long and written in legalese.
How many people are really going to hire a lawyer to read their Apple Store or World of Warcraft terms? Writing a hugely lengthy contract is simply a way to discourage you from reading it, and then pretending that you've agreed to whatever the terms are. I guess there's some help from the legal system - ridiculous clauses are thrown out - but that doesn't address the fact that you are discouraged from reading about relevant information.
I think someone must have written a post about how long it would take to just read the everyday ToS type docs that we're presented with. And South Park did an excellent episode about this (The Human CentiPad).