More precisely, these agreements generally aren't legally binding in Europe, but generally are legally binding in the US.
Personally, this is what I detest the most. There's always a bit in the boilerplate that's akin to "you agree to everything here, even the unenforceable bits. If we're ever challenged on the unenforceable parts after the fact, you still agree to be bound by everything else here."
IA[very_much]NAL, but to me this always sounds like "We can and will stick whatever nonsense we want in this contract, whether the terms are illegal or not, and you will be bound by them for as long as we can get away with it. If you do ever discover the illegal bits, that doesn't void anything else (including any other illegal bits you haven't found yet!) and you can't sue us- you've given up that right and can only use a mediator from our approved list. May the odds be ever in your favor."
This is separable from the abusive nature of ToS of course.
That sounds like a good thing? Why should abusive illegal contracts be allowed to continue after the law has found them to be unacceptable?
It's one thing if the legislation is specifically targeting those contracts, quite another if the unintended consequence is much broader than you intend. It's easy enough to imagine legislators unintentionally invalidating basically all of a states employment contracts this way, for example.
> Signer agrees to become contract murderer unless pre-empted by local laws and regulations.
I'm over-exaggerating, and I get the value when it's prohibitively expensive to write a TOS when it's essentially impossible to pre-emptively vet the legality of all possible clauses internationally as laws constantly change. But if the clause I wrote is technically valid, then what's the point? Just write a short phrase saying "We're going to do whatever we like, unless it's prohibited by law. Accept? Y/N"
Literally who cares? Let them deal with it. It doesn't matter how much money they lose. They should have considered the consequences of abusing people's trust and violating their privacy under questionable consent.
Corporations are vastly more powerful compared to individuals. Courts obviously need to favor the latter in the vast majority of cases. To do otherwise is injustice.
"doesn't matter how much money they lose" -- of course it does, these companies employ people and generate lots of government revenue (even if they skirt corporate taxes).
There are political and economic concerns, not judicial. The fact the company is important does nothing to remedy the fact that it exfiltrated private information to foreign intelligence agencies.
I'm afraid you are correct, but hasn't the whole system collapsed if:
- Is this good for our businesses?
is is part of your consideration when you are trying to find out if something is illegal or not?
Example; how one individual singlehandedy forced the hands of Spotify to reverse an API decision they made blocking the export of your playlists. Note how Spotify thinks their TOS supersedes the GDPR. It does not. Otherwise, we would have corporations directly creating laws.
For example the UK's enforcement arm, the ICO, recently found that the adtech industry was in violation of the GDPR, then did nothing:
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/the-ico-must-fix-the-ad...
As far as I know, I can't personally sue these companies for this, and if the ICO does nothing then what's the law is meaningless.
The follow up from the Open Rights Group is here:
https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/parliament-must-hold-th...
If you care about privacy in the UK, please donate to ORG, I started a direct debit years ago and have always been impressed with their work and focus:
Couldn't you sue ICO then?
https://action.openrightsgroup.org/help-us-protect-your-data...
Reality is generally less fussy about categorical boundaries. It likes spectrum. Linnaean classification is an approximation. Biology isn't strict about species, or even organism barriers. It's the same with a lot of cultural stuff.
On one end of the spectrum, we can have a business agreement negotiated diligently and in good faith between equal partners. On the other end, we have take-it-or-leave it agreements: The T&Cs stack a bank hands you when you take a loan. The wall of incomprehensible legalese we consent to when we use an app or website. An employment contract is somewhere on that spectrum. Employees may be able to submit "red line corrections" depending on their seniority and confidence, but generally its written by employers and treated as under their control.
In philosophy, contracts (including rhetorical ones like "moral contracts) are a popular mechanism for problem solving. They certainly are in law. In normal human life, norms are much more common.
Partly it's because consumers cannot tell a good from a bad contract.
And partly I think it's that a lot of people say the right signals ('I care deeply about privacy!') As it's the cause de celebre, but don't actually care.
Sometimes they just want to watch Hulu without going on a stallman esque campaign.
Some people just seem to feel "smart" by wording things as convoluted as possible, using fancy words and references. The truth is, it is much harder to express thoughts clearly with simple, yet elegant words. Mostly because that makes everyone understand it, and everyone able to see through the facade. Meaning that whatever you say will need to hold up to much more scrutiny and you can't hide behind a facade of "fancyness" that scares off readers.
It's similar to coding. Writing simple code for complex programs is much much harder than writing complex code for complex problems, or even worse complex code for simple problems, which many people like to do.
My comment wasn't categorical. IE, I didn't get on either the "T&Cs are evil bullshit" or "contracts are the basis of civilization" side. If you're reading for category, everything else is flowery nonsense. Just tell me which side you're on and why.
I reread it. One fancy word: Linnaean. Considering this is HN, that should be OK.
I get the feeling you're reacting to the fact that I didn't state a position or a conclusion in my short HN comment. So basically, you don't like that my HN comment isn't a tweet.
If nobody did this, we would not have political sciences :-)
Most people of course, akin to how paying with card makes you overspend because you don't see the money, agree to anything because it's just a button on the screen not a potentially predatory human person.
In the case of overly vague terms of service, people agree to them because there are essentially no options or alternatives.
Sure, it does not help that people agree to them without thinking about it. Which is somewhat similar to people spending money without thinking about how much they have.
The whole culture around closed smart phone apps is completely rotten.
When you install an iphone it's even worse
They have a screen describing privacy.
You can click and see the privacy policy.
And then the privacy policy is actually pages and pages and pages of pointers to individual sub-privacy policies.
and there is no "I agree", they just show you all this.
You can opt out of some things later, but already they're a token gesture.
It can always get worse...
> .. pages of pointers to individual sub-privacy policies.
At this point expecting someone to have read them is just nuts. The "lawsuit culture" in the US, where you have to guard yourself from possible lawsuits all the time, have made these legal contracts comically bad. They have always been strange, since you typically get to read them after you unpack the phone/computer etc.
Seems as reasonable a way to negotiate the contact as the way it was presented to me in the first place.
After all, is Democracy not the best mechanism possible for executing the aggregate will of the people? And would the will of the people not be to not be tracked in this manner?
I predict this undesirable situation will be eliminated in less than one year - or, in case it is more complicated than it seems (and therefore takes more time to resolve), will at least have significant attention from both the government and the media until it is resolved to the satisfaction of voters.
I will keep my eyes open for an upcoming entry for this matter on the "Top 10,000 Concerns of the General Public" KPI tracker where we monitor matters of public concern like this, and I will use 10 of my monthly allocated voting units to express my level of concern.
I hate this whole premise. We have to agree to an incomprehensible text wall of vague legal nonsense, that very often violate our own laws (as in this case), in order to install an app.
These illegal contracts are completely void of any meaning, and it should not matter that you "agreed" to be screwed over like that. Being screwed over like this is illegal, so those who do this, should not stay safe just because you clicked "I agree".