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Re:Until Today, If You Were 17, It Could Have Been Illegal T... by Digit-Al on Friday April 05, 2013 @10:42AM (#5498685)
Good point. If you put a final clause on your ToS that said "Reading these terms of service is a criminal offence" could you make criminals out of everyone who reads your ToS? :-)
Re:Until Today, If You Were 17, It Could Have Been Illegal T... by _kst_ on Friday April 05, 2013 @10:54AM (#5498760)
It wouldn't have to say "Reading these terms of service is a criminal offense". It would merely have to say "Reading these terms of service is a violation of these terms of service".
Re:Until Today, If You Were 17, It Could Have Been Illegal T... by freehunter on Friday April 05, 2013 @01:46PM (#5499876)
You cannot be held legally liable for reading a contract if it is presented to you. If ToS is meant to be a contract, then no. However, minors cannot consent to a contract, so it would fall on their parents to enforce the contract on the minor.

However, if the ToS is meant to be law, then yes. But courts are known to throw out ToS sections that are written in bad faith. Anything like weev and Aaron are far edge cases with big money and names behind them. Hearst and the DoJ would be highly unlikely to pursue even civil action for breaking the ToS.

Re:Until Today, If You Were 17, It Could Have Been Illegal T... by rmc on Friday April 05, 2013 @12:33PM (#5499428)
Well if you're in a real country with real laws (like, y'know everywhere), only governments can make criminal offences, not private individuals.

You can put that "Reading this sentence makes the sky yellow" in your ToS if you want as well. Doesn't make it true.

Re:Until Today, If You Were 17, It Could Have Been Illegal T... by thedufer on Friday April 05, 2013 @05:08PM (#5501040)
The point of this article is that breaking a ToS is illegal, so ToS's themselves are de facto laws.