Well this is eleventy-million kinds of Fucked Up. LA Times (who once contracted with me as a freelance reviewer and whom I struggled to get paid by) asserts that *merely reading its website* constitutes a permanent waiver of your right to sue it under *any circumstances*. This means that freelancers like me who read the website would lose the right to sue the company if we got stiffed. #consenttheater #bindingarbitration #dickovers
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as someone who has read articles in the Los Angeles Times, and therefore legally bound into their legal collective,
i hereby grant to all reading this that in as much as i am a part of the LA Times data collective, so i grant access to me through this public network of instances that constitute the fediverse for all who want access to all property of the Los Angeles Times of which i am now part
⊶𝕎𝕋⓻ #WT7 😁 💙
@pluralistic So does this mean they can libel anyone they want, if they can show that the libeled party read their libelous article?
Wow. I saw that myself when trying to look at one dumb article and noped out, but didn’t think of broader implications. The media oligarchs can’t stop shooting themselves in the foot.
@pluralistic as I'm sure others have said, the LA Times position would not stand up in court.
@pluralistic
I am NOT a lawyer, so I would not presume to test this language in the real world (OR the simulation in which we may be living), but I greatly enjoyed the exercise of turning your paragraph on its head by rejiggering the first few words to serve ME rather than the vendor:
"By selling me this product or charging me a fee, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges."
#TermsOfService #CoryDoctorow #CorporateShenanigans
@pluralistic
In a sane country, T&C can be unenforcible and even automatically invalid if they violate law or rights.
i fucked off the LA Times when they put their website behind a paywall.
@pluralistic l find it quite interesting that in the ‘Age of the TechBros’ we (meaning your average citizen) now accept the right of the #TechBro to unilaterally renegotiate the terms and conditions of an agreement. This isn’t just the Times, mind you. It has become pervasive. No sane business would let another business get away with this garbage. Why do we?
@pluralistic Yeaaah, they're wrong. They need real lawyers not LLM advice.
@pluralistic @lisamelton It’s all kinda fucked up stupid but it’s not at all limited to these sorts of click-through agreements. I am always amused to read the stuff places put in the agreements before they take you rafting or rent you a boat, say. They’re always filled with claims that you’re waiving rights you cannot waive away and that won’t survive 2 seconds of contact with a real lawsuit.
@pluralistic That will get tested in court in 3, 2, 1...
@pluralistic How can they prove that you are the one reading the website, even if you are an ISP customer, how can they prove beyond all reasonable doubt that you are the one reading it and not a bot scraping pages? I would certainly like to see how that plays out in court.
Matthew Cole's book "Unpaid" is an eye opener.
Apparently, wageless work is the wave of the future, according to oligarchs & that "Make Me" impunity mindset.
@pluralistic I will maintain my "don't read the NYT" rule, not that that helps anything.
If this kind of thing is enforceable--which downthread, you say it is, which is heartbreaking--then America needs to fire its judges and start from scratch.
(I kid. I kid. Half it's judges.)
@pluralistic
Corporations would love to have the public believe that Terms of Service are written in stone and carry the weight of actual law. They don't.
Even the Supreme Court has made it clear that people cannot simply waive away all their legal rights through a clickwrap agreement, but companies certainly want you to think otherwise.