• Xeno
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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

There's a tendency for Terms of Service Agreements to protect the interests of the service providers and not the clients receiving services. Sometimes,TOS agreements might place the client in danger of incurring damages by voicing grievances; resulting in self-censorship which infringes on free speech; and in the case where the service provider is a virtual monopoly, the self-censorship of clients from voicing grievances out of fear of getting sued results in incrementally worse service to the public, which in turn results in systemic injustice and may even endanger the public's safety.

For example, I would never start a discussion on IC's Terms of Service Agreement out of fear that Stefan might sue me for damages incurred by this discussion.  If I were to start a discussion, might I get banned?  Might the thread be closed by mods?

What if IC were an essential, government-run service like health care or the mail system and their TOS included such a clause that would make people afraid of voicing grievances?  Their only alternative would be not accepting the TOS agreement and thus not having access to said essential service, which in turn would prevent them from functioning in society.  Additionally, they wouldn't have any grievances to express because they wouldn't have used the service.

TOS agreements should be the focus of grievances themselves imho.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

your "what if they were essential service" question acknowledges that many of these services are NOT essential

that is you have no right to them just the option to buy them

it then becomes a question of whether the terms are essential unjust or unrelated to the cost of getting the service

for instance cell phone companies charge 2 year contracts to recover the cost of the phone and to subsidize operations in the 3rd world

you can get a cell phone, in Thailand, for pennies a month.

the American price pays the phone company to put up the satellites

but there is no tendency for TOS to serve the provider rather than the consumer

they absolutely serve the provider rather than the consumer

the trick is to prove the TOS violates state regulation of commerce
thenn the provider has to shell out for going against public interest

what sucks is, when you put them in that hole, you are still screwed because they will settle with the state
possibly providing cheap service to little old ladies and welfare recipients
serving the social good
making the prosecutor a hero
giving YOU buttkiss

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

xeno- forcing health insurance mandate with all kind of terms and conditions and penalties if you don't comply is ok
xeno- businesses offering services that one can choose to buy and then putting terms and conditions on the services is wrong

the if it helps me then whoopie but if it doesn't then poopoo argument from liberals

can we compare this to the "it's ok if i illegally download music, games, etc because the works of art belong to the audience it is designed for but we must not change the rules of IC because this game belongs to the myth, the man the legend that has long abandoned it and which the few people left in the game pay for?"

So I told the cop, "No YOU'RE driving under the influence... of being a JERK!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFjjO_lhf9c

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

seems like pretty obvious language to me

So I told the cop, "No YOU'RE driving under the influence... of being a JERK!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFjjO_lhf9c

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

Steam (Valve's digital distribution software) just changed their ToS to forcing people to give up  the right to bring class action lawsuits against them. Fortunately they don't hold any water outside the US \o/

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

Actually no TOS can limit lawsuits whatsoever in US.


Xeno is backing an ideal I cannot support.


DPenguins ofc long, useless, archaic, devoid of life forms excite you....

________

This is however one area where I think a Government/Corporation standardized set of rules could work.

My thoughts are standard versions (say 10 most) would have a maximum 24 word description and a maximum 4 word describer, with a link for people to feel free to follow (to Government website) where the full TOS would be.

This way I could read:


Standard Game Licence
This game license allows you usage of a maximum of one copy of this game. You may not create copies for others to use. www(dot)imaginarygovernmenturl(dot)gov

Everything bad in the economy is now Obama's fault. Every job lost, all the debt, all the lost retirement funds. All Obama. Are you happy now? We all get to blame Obama!
Kemp currently not being responded to until he makes CONCISE posts.
Avogardo and Noir ignored by me for life so people know why I do not respond to them. (Informational)

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

> Baratheon wrote:

> The TOS is a nightmare to read for the average workaday consumer. Having degrees in English and Linguistics, I find that the abundance of verbiage and verbose exposition of the terms are done so on purpose. Better to have a consumer be daunted out of reading the terms or otherwise unable to understand them, than to have consumers who read the entire TOS with clarity, and perhaps begin to realize how low they are being made to bend over.

I have issue, Baratheon, with those TOS agreements for services which are provided by virtual monopolies.  If a consumer can't understand or doesn't like the TOS agreement of one service provider he or she could switch their patronage to another service provider whose TOS agreement they can understand and like.  The problem is, that all too often, service providers maintain such a huge market share and essentially operate a monopoly that the consumer doesn't have much choice; the service provider could put any terms and conditions in their TOS agreement and the consumer would have to accept them or be denied service. 

Let's take the terms of conditions of a TOS agreement for auto insurance in a country where there is only a single, government-controlled provider; in a country where there isn't really a viable alternative means of transportation.  I'd argue that 1. auto insurance is an essential service, and 2. that because the provider operates a virtual monopoly, the TOS agreement should not be legally binding; that because the service provider could theoretically put any terms and conditions in its TOS agreement, this situation could result in the endangerment of the public good, public safety.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

>Let's take the terms of conditions of a TOS agreement for auto insurance in a country where there is only a single, government-controlled provider; in a country where there isn't really a viable alternative means of transportation.  I'd argue that 1. auto insurance is an essential service, and 2. that because the provider operates a virtual monopoly, the TOS agreement should not be legally binding; that because the service provider could theoretically put any terms and conditions in its TOS agreement, this situation could result in the endangerment of the public good, public safety.<

Sounds like Obamacare to me

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

Indeed it does Chris:

I believe that is worth an epic +5

Everything bad in the economy is now Obama's fault. Every job lost, all the debt, all the lost retirement funds. All Obama. Are you happy now? We all get to blame Obama!
Kemp currently not being responded to until he makes CONCISE posts.
Avogardo and Noir ignored by me for life so people know why I do not respond to them. (Informational)

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

It's dpenguins point

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

> Einstein wrote:

> Actually no TOS can limit lawsuits whatsoever in US. <

"While it

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

well if you had nonbinding arbitration first many people would waste money fighting through arbitration and then appeal automatically

binding arb can be cheaper and simpler

and it saves the courts
can take 2 years to get heard in a federal court

The core joke of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that of course no civilization would develop personal computers with instant remote database recovery, and then waste this technology to find good drinks.
Steve Jobs has ruined this joke.

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Re: Terms of Service Agreements

When you say that TOS agreements might place clients in danger of incurring damages by voicing grievances, would you like to provide us with an example or few of whatever you're talking about?

Can you give us a single example of TOS which include nondisclosure agreements in which the provider of the product/service has a virtual monopoly of that market and can sue over criticism?

What are you talking about?

[I wish I could obey forum rules]

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