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But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements. You're making a fallacy of the exclud

But I think it's a bad idea to completely remove the right of consumers and businesses to enter into specific agreements. You're making a fallacy of the excluded middle. Very few would argue that we should completely remove the right to enter into a contract. However, that's not what a purchase is. When you pay for an object, that is a sale. When your business is oriented to selling a service to many individuals, that is also, properly, a sale, and is quite distinct from entering into a contractual arrangement with another corporate entity. When you pay for a service, the terms of that service should be easy to understand and not require pages of legal boilerplate. A service oriented to consumers should have no expectation that the customer has a lawyer reading the terms of that service. As such, the terms should be clear, explicit, and most of all, short. The solution to the horrendous way it's done in the US is not to point at Europe and say "look, it's also horrendous there!" That is a silly, thoughtless, contentless argument that far too many are using just reflexively. Edit: Removed "In other words" at the beginning of last paragraph.

mseebach 17y ago
I'm Danish, so I'm not "there", I'm "here". I'm criticizing my own system from within. The article I'm reacting to is from an Australian website referencing a UK firm. What people do and don't do in the US doesn't seem to apply, and certainly not for for calling me silly and thoughtless, thank you very much. A purchase is the entering of a contract to exchange goods for money. The terms of the contract are for most developed nations fixed and encoded in culture and the law, so we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a contract. You appear to be American, skim the TOC of Article 2 (Sales) of the Uniform Commercial Code if you don't believe me. (http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/)
- drunkpotato 17y ago
  The fallacy doesn't change based on your perspective. It's still an excluded middle. It is silly and thoughtless to pretend that if one is against terms of service on every service sale, that one is advocating no rights for businesses to enter into contracts. If you don't wish to be silly and thoughtless, then don't be. The commercial code you point to is part of the framework of laws which form the social contract in the U.S., not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. (If your rejoinder is "well, you should", which others have also pointlessly argued, don't bother, I refuse to entertain such thoughtless trash.) In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase. You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt. Yes, every transaction between two entities is trivially a contract, do you have anything more substantive to add?
  - mseebach 17y ago
    I stated explicitly, twice, that I think consumer protection is a good thing. I don't know how many more precautions you want me to take. > not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Yes they do. Really, ask a lawyer. > Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. They don't need to, because they generally match consumers expectations in a given culture. Merchants and those engaging in B2B trade should however read them. > In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase. Exactly. You seem to have this image of contracts as being reams of paper wheeled around by paralegals. They are not just that. There are such things as oral and implied contracts and they are just as binding as written ones (but might be harder to enforce). > You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt I don't know anyone for whom the accepted common usage of the word contract isn't also the legal one. And in the legal definition of the word contract, even buying a soda in a vending machine is entering into a contract. Never the less, commerce seems to be doing OK.

mseebach 17y ago

I'm Danish, so I'm not "there", I'm "here". I'm criticizing my own system from within. The article I'm reacting to is from an Australian website referencing a UK firm. What people do and don't do in the US doesn't seem to apply, and certainly not for for calling me silly and thoughtless, thank you very much. A purchase is the entering of a contract to exchange goods for money. The terms of the contract are for most developed nations fixed and encoded in culture and the law, so we don't think about it in our day-to-day lives. But that doesn't change the fact that it is a contract. You appear to be American, skim the TOC of Article 2 (Sales) of the Uniform Commercial Code if you don't believe me. (http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/)

drunkpotato 17y ago
The fallacy doesn't change based on your perspective. It's still an excluded middle. It is silly and thoughtless to pretend that if one is against terms of service on every service sale, that one is advocating no rights for businesses to enter into contracts. If you don't wish to be silly and thoughtless, then don't be. The commercial code you point to is part of the framework of laws which form the social contract in the U.S., not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. (If your rejoinder is "well, you should", which others have also pointlessly argued, don't bother, I refuse to entertain such thoughtless trash.) In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase. You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt. Yes, every transaction between two entities is trivially a contract, do you have anything more substantive to add?
- mseebach 17y ago
  I stated explicitly, twice, that I think consumer protection is a good thing. I don't know how many more precautions you want me to take. > not something one explicitly signs off on every time they buy a good or service. Yes they do. Really, ask a lawyer. > Few people ever read such laws in anything other than summarized form. They don't need to, because they generally match consumers expectations in a given culture. Merchants and those engaging in B2B trade should however read them. > In that case, it's a background framework for every transaction, and shouldn't require supplementary pages of legalese on every service purchase. Exactly. You seem to have this image of contracts as being reams of paper wheeled around by paralegals. They are not just that. There are such things as oral and implied contracts and they are just as binding as written ones (but might be harder to enforce). > You've merely redefined contract away from its accepted common usage into a legal nightmare that would drag commerce to a screeching halt I don't know anyone for whom the accepted common usage of the word contract isn't also the legal one. And in the legal definition of the word contract, even buying a soda in a vending machine is entering into a contract. Never the less, commerce seems to be doing OK.