Comment by free_bip
3 days ago
It's really a miracle that any judicial system considers "clicking accept without reading" to be a valid form of binding contract in the first place.
3 days ago
It's really a miracle that any judicial system considers "clicking accept without reading" to be a valid form of binding contract in the first place.
And that they let businesses change the license at any time, with just an email notification, and the only way to opt out of the new terms is to stop using the service.
How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too?
Most people don't care about the Terms of Service. Would you have a more positive assessment of the judicial system if it infantilized its citizens? If someone doesn't read it the first time or ignores an email what is the system supposed to do? Stand over your shoulder and make you read it? Do you want citizens to be prosecuted for signing things on the theory they didn't actually read them?
What number of people actually read the terms, actually read the new terms, decide they don't like the new terms, but after caring this much decide they don't want to "opt out" (I'm still not clear what remedy you want to invent for this)? Do you think this number is so high that you should be shocked that for some reason this is not a priority? I'm not even sure you've actually articulated a problem.
Is there a Terms of Service change you find particularly offensive that might better explain your concerns here? If so, I would be interested to hear you describe it with greater specificity.
> How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too
If the TOS changes you should be automatically opted out until you explicitly accept the new agreement
That way if you stop using the service because of the new TOS, it actually means your old activity is still bound by the previous TOS not the new one. Weird how that's never an option though.
2 replies →
> How else would you "opt out"? You want to have your cake and eat it too?
I should have the option to continue using the old terms. If they want to be able to change the terms after I initially agree to them, then the initial terms need to explicitly state how long the terms are good for, and they can't be changed before that. No "we can change the terms at any time". And yes, to accept the new terms, they should require that I explicitly acknowledge the changes, not just assume that I read an email lost in all the marketing spam they send me.
> Is there a Terms of Service change you find particularly offensive that might better explain your concerns here?
Changes in terms that I've found offensive include:
- Requiring that I don't participate in any class-action lawsuits or arbitration
- Using my data to train AI
- Limiting the devices I can use the service on
- Allowing them to share my data with third parties
- etc.
Admittedly, I haven't always opted out. But largely because I don't have much of a choice, in many cases there either isn't a realistic alternative to switch to, or all the alternatives have similar terms, which is it's own problem.
As for what changes I would like to see:
- There should be well-defined limits on what can be put in a ToS. Ex. you can't prohibit participating in class-action lawsuits. There should be a process for appealing arbitration to an actual court. etc.
- For paid subscriptions/license any ToS apply for the duration of the subscription/license. They cannot force you to change the terms until your current subscription expires. For on-demand or free services, they must guarantee the terms won't change for some period of time.
- They must provide easily understandable terms or at least easily understandable (and accurate) descriptions of the terms, that don't leave out subtle loopholes for the company.
- If the terms do change, they notify you with enough notice that you have time to migrate off of the platform before the new terms take affect.
- The new terms can't be retroactively applied to data I gave them before the change in terms, unless I specifically opt in.
1 reply →
In Canada at least it currently has the same level of legal binding as signing a paper contract with a pen.
It’s not really different from paper contracts. Nobody reads them, they just sign where they’re told to.
I regularly fully read and try to understand paper contracts before signing them. Every time, it's clear that no time was set aside for me to read the contract, and the other party expected me to sign the contract within a few seconds of first receiving it. Often, I get the sense that the other party is annoyed or frustrated that I take time to read the contract before agreeing to it.
I've read that contracts fundamentally require a "meeting of the minds", where two parties come to a mutual understanding of an agreement. At the same time, overwhelming people are expected to not read and understand contracts they agree to. I don't understand how these two facts don't combine to mean the vast majority of written contracts are not legally binding, but apparently judges don't share my confusion.