Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 255 posts

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#91

Post by AnthonyMouse »

gizmo385 wrote: post #57
mooneater wrote: post #47

True of legalese in contracts, but also Law in general has multiplied like Gremlins. Hammurabi's code of laws, was written in common language, and was brief enough every subject could understand them. It makes no sense that we should be subject to a volume of law that we could never even read, let alone understand. Musk is correct in insisting that laws should expire, and it should be easier to remove a law than add…

> Hammurabi's code of laws, was written in common language, and was brief enough every subject could understand them. While laws being written in common language sounds like a good idea, common language is open to lots of ambiguity and loopholes. Shouldn't our laws, in general, be written to be as precise and narrowly defined as possible?

> Shouldn't our laws, in general, be written to be as precise and narrowly defined as possible?

But they aren't that either.

There will always be more diversity in real life than on paper. You can't predict everything that will ever happen.

The real problem is structural.

We have a set of laws and if they're overly broad and prohibit lots of things they shouldn't, nobody really notices because prosecutorial discretion is a thing. As long as prosecutors mostly don't charge honest people with the overly broad laws, nobody gets up in arms to fix them even though everyone is in violation.

On the other hand, if someone does something unpopular and there is no law against it -- or there is a law against it but there isn't a law specifically against it and Something Must Be Done -- then we get a new overly broad law.

Laws get added but never removed, and each one prohibits more than it should. Over a hundred years of this and you get Three Felonies A Day, the only reason everyone isn't in prison is prosecutorial discretion, and lawyering is an exercise in figuring out which parts of which laws you actually have to follow to avoid being prosecuted without ever admitting that that's what's happening.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#92

Post by [deleted] »

jerf wrote: post #77
downandout wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Access to Facebook, Spotify, or Netflix is not a human right. These are private services offered by private companies who are free to offer those services on any terms they choose. It’s fine and completely understandable that you may not have time or cannot understand the agreements under which they may choose to offer you access. Your remedy for that is to not use the services in question. Your remedy isn’t to lie t…

Bold words. Question: Off the top of your head, for what period of time may you make a claim or cause of action arising out of or related to use of Hacker News or its terms of use? I'm just curious whether you've read and understood the terms of use for the site you're making these bold claims on.

[deleted]

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#93

Post by haZard_OS »

jve wrote: post #20
ams6110 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have an ass-covering-oriented legal team who will say "the user was unable to legally agree to the terms" thefore we (PayPal) will be vulnerable if they were to do something fraudulent.

Why not ask accepting terms NOW or else account will be blocked on m/d/y?

Likely they didn't do this because of concern that a person could update their agreement to the T&C, then do something fraudulent, then claim the updated agreement was coerced because the person's livelihood was somehow attached to the PayPal account.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#94

Post by grabeh »

doomslice wrote: post #70
solomatov wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should never write a contract yourself unless you are a lawyer. There's a case law which usually involved, and if aren't careful, you might have big problems.

But it seems like getting a lawyer involved is exactly what leads to these complicated Terms of Service. I would have to find a lawyer who agreed to significantly dumb down the Terms of Service, which I would suspect they would be opposed to -- I mean they are writing these things like this for a reason, right?

There is no reason why terms should not be written in plain English and indeed under European consumer protection laws, you should be writing the terms in plain English because it means the user has a better chance of understanding them, and (regardless of the first part) you have a better chance of enforcing them should the need arise.

Please be aware that not all lawyers are the same and you can find many who will be more than happy to write a set of terms that are in plain English, ambiguity-free and protect your company against any areas of concern that are legitimate for you to protect against.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#95

Post by howard941 »

chrisBob wrote: post #66
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If agreement for a contract requires easily understood English, what does that mean for my mortgage?

I don't typically have my lawyer review the TOS of each website I sign up for, but I did have him review my mortgage. Everyone picks a different place to draw the line between careful understanding (or hiring out a review from someone with careful understanding), and just blindly signing on the dotted line. For me that is somewhere between purchasing a tractor and purchasing a house. The point is the no sane person i…

Curious if you tried to change any of the boilerplate terms and if you did, how did it work out?

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#96

Post by haZard_OS »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #63
ams6110 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama's 2011 Title IX "Dear Colleague" letter was a big part of it, establishing the lowest standard of proof in claims of sexual assault on college campuses. Schools responded by saying, effectively, that if you have sex with someone who's had a drink, and that person later regrets it, regardless of what they might have told you at the time, you have no defense. It's all ridiculous because universities have no compe…

> So anyone who was in college in the past 10 years will have had drummed into their heads that there is no consent possible by an intoxicated person. Which creates all kinds of weird outcomes when both parties were equally drunk.

Well, it would if logic were the overarching guideline on these topics.

As it stands, the male is presumed guilty on college campuses when both parties are drunk and he must then meet a draconian burden of proof to extricate himself from the situation.

At least, that has been my experience.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#97

Post by mooneater »

CPLX wrote: post #73
mooneater wrote: post #47

True of legalese in contracts, but also Law in general has multiplied like Gremlins. Hammurabi's code of laws, was written in common language, and was brief enough every subject could understand them. It makes no sense that we should be subject to a volume of law that we could never even read, let alone understand. Musk is correct in insisting that laws should expire, and it should be easier to remove a law than add…

> Musk is correct in insisting that laws should expire This is a terrible idea. Stability and gradual, generally understandable, evolution in response to real world conditions are positive attributes of the current precedent-based system that has grown out of the common law.

The current default is accretion. There is no end to it. We will drown in laws.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#99

Post by sigstoat »

doomslice wrote: post #64
hshehehjdjdjd wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People suing if a bug in my software causes them to lose access to their account or coins Everything else sounds pretty reasonable, but this doesn’t. If you cause someone harm, you should expect that they will attempt to recover damages from you, regardless of what your T&C says. I cannot fathom why you think you should be protected against this eventuality. Buy insurance instead. Regarding your question, notwithst…

Fair enough. I guess this is why I should get a lawyer involved! I was assuming there was some distinction between accidental negligence and fraud as far as what could be protected against.

why shouldn't the customer be able to recover damages from you if you had an accident, or were negligent? they were paying you to take care of this stuff for them. if they wanted the risk of accident and incompetence, they'd just do it themselves.

Re: The ‘Terms and Conditions’ Reckoning Is Coming

#100

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Letmesleep69 wrote: post #61
mooneater wrote: post #47

True of legalese in contracts, but also Law in general has multiplied like Gremlins. Hammurabi's code of laws, was written in common language, and was brief enough every subject could understand them. It makes no sense that we should be subject to a volume of law that we could never even read, let alone understand. Musk is correct in insisting that laws should expire, and it should be easier to remove a law than add…

> It makes no sense that we should be subject to a volume of law that we could never even read, let alone understand Why does that not make sense? The law must cover everything from "dont kill certain species" to "don't commit this very specific type of fraud". Society is so advanced we need more laws. Of course Hamurabi's code was short because it didn't need to stop investment bankers committing fraud or voting law…

Laws are not meant to be an exhaustive blacklist. If they were we wouldn't need juries, judges and lawyers. Laws are rules of thumb that make it efficient enough to enforce a society's moral code to the point where it can be done at scale.

There will always be exceptions and details argue over and ultimately you need a critical mass of society to agree to abide by them to a great enough degree.

Expecting any reasonably non-homogeneous society to be able to agree on where to draw lines what constitutes bad behavior in anything other than the obvious cases ( murder, theft, etc) is naive. Expecting laws to cover the vast majority of bad behavior is naive. Expecting to be able to enforce that theoretical set of laws is naive. Expecting to enforce those theoretical laws without creating something akin to 1984 is just insane.

Post reply on HN