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A comment on PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agreement. Parent comment

Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by droithomme on Saturday February 11, 2017 @02:45PM (#13624359)
Your english is good. It's very unclear what it means as the sentence can be parsed different ways. That suggests that either their lawyers are incompetent and shouldn't be let near a contract, or they are are competent and therefore are intentionally trying to fool their customers.

It's probably incompetence though since this can work both ways. If PayPal tried to bring legal action with this clause, the first defense one would look at is to simply respond, "Where did I say it was a payment method? The clause says I can't mischaracterize it as a payment method, and I didn't."

In any case as it reads most simply it says you can't call PayPal a payment method. I doubt that's what they really meant to say.

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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by randallsquared on Saturday February 11, 2017 @03:38PM (#13624671)
It can only be parsed different ways under incompatible assumptions about whether PayPal is a payment method.

If it actually is a payment method (as their lawyers undoubtedly take as a given), then it limits mischaracterization to aspects of PayPal that do not involve its character as a payment method.

Only if you already believe it is somehow "not a payment method" does the other reading make any sense.

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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by __s on Saturday February 11, 2017 @04:14PM (#13624830)
I also interpreted it as "PayPal is not a payment method" when reading. Legal statements shouldn't rely on out-of-contract context to parse
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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by guptaneil on Saturday February 11, 2017 @04:49PM (#13625033)
IANAL, but it's not exactly "out-of-contract." The term "payment method" appears 49 times in the User Agreement[1].

Having said that, a quick skim suggests the term is used inconsistently. Sometimes it refers to PayPal as a payment method, other times it refers to the information you enter into PayPal (ie credit card, bank account, etc) as payment methods. This is because PayPal is both a payment method itself and a wrapper service for many payment methods. For example:

  Your PayPal balance, if you used your PayPal balance as the payment method or a bank account as the payment method, once the money clears the bank.
So while it is confusing, I don't think you'd get very far with the "PayPal is not a payment method" interpretation.

1: https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/ua/pdf/US/en_US/ua.p...

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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by droithomme on Saturday February 11, 2017 @05:09PM (#13625140)
That is not correct. When one contracting party is in a superior position, courts consistently rule against the drafter of the agreement when there is ambiguous language. It's a long held legal principle taught in contract classes at law school.
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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by eriknstr on Saturday February 11, 2017 @07:59PM (#13625923)
Glad to hear that.
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Re:PayPal adds “non-discouragement” clause to their User Agr... by arkades on Saturday February 11, 2017 @07:54PM (#13625900)
They ordinarily don't. A normal contract - and most EULAs, even - include explicit definitions before a term is used repeatedly.

e.g. The party receiving payment ("seller") shall...

This one didn't.

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