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> [Amazon] says that it will “correct the problem” if your property gets damaged. (In the fine print, you also agree to arbitration, rather than a lawsuit, if s

• drawkbox 9y ago
  > binding arbitration should be made illegal Binding arbitration and non-competes, are both disgusting anti-business, anti-American, anti-worker, anti-innovation, anti-rights that need to be killed. These two horrible tactics have crept in since 2000 into nearly everything. Signing away your right to compete and your right to use the legal system should both be illegal and have no place in America. How did we let this happen? For non-competes, NDAs should suffice. Arbitration should be a step towards legal rather than supplanting it. Many times arbitration is better for both parties in terms of cost/time but when it isn't people shouldn't be signing away the right into forced arbitration to go further.
  • gthtjtkt 9y ago
    Couldn't agree more. I called State Farm last month just to get a quote on a potential car purchase. Instead, I ended up canceling my current policy on the spot because the agent tried to push Limited Tort as if it was just an easy way to save money. It made me so furious because most people don't understand what they're giving up, and they won't understand until they get into an accident and learn they signed away their rights years ago. The way agents sell Limited Tort gives you a completely inaccurate impression of the potential consequences. That sort of thing should absolutely be criminal.
    • r00fus 9y ago
      Can you explain what Limited Tort meant in this case?
      • gthtjtkt 9y ago
        In car insurance it means you give up your right to sue for pain and suffering unless you suffer serious injuries. The PA definition of a serious injury is "a personal injury resulting in death, serious impairment of body function or permanent serious disfigurement." So even if you're injured badly enough to need a year of physical therapy for full recovery, you would likely get no money for your pain and suffering under Limited Tort. Without Limited Tort you'd probably get anywhere from $30,000 - $100,000 for that amount of pain/suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, etc.
        • erjjones 9y ago
          Out of curiosity, which insurance did you end up going with?
        • michaelmrose 9y ago
          Do you think the additional money actually serves to offset in any way shape or form the persons suffering? If so what is the conversion factor between pain and money? Do you think quantifying pain and suffering has a positive value even if its very hard to come up with a meaningful way to define suffering in terms of dollars?
          • mgkimsal 9y ago
            > "actually serves to offset in any way shape or form the persons suffering" If you're injured to the point where it impacts your ability to work, or you need extra care from someone... of course it offsets it.
            • michaelmrose 9y ago
              Paying for care has nothing to do with pain and suffering. I wasn't asking the pointless question you imagine I was asking an actual relevant nonobvious question.
  • phkahler 9y ago
    >> For non-competes, NDAs should suffice. With all that complaining about signing away your right to sue and work, why do you think it's OK to sign away your right to speak? Serious question.
    • disillusioned 9y ago
      Because a company still needs some level of protection against having their trade secrets spread to their direct competitors by way of a defecting employee.
      • phkahler 9y ago
        So you think a companies trade secrets are more important than a person's first amendment rights? I'm playing devil's advocate here BTW. I think trade secrets might be over rated.
        • GrinningFool 9y ago
          "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech [...]" This is not related to 1st amendment; this is no law being passed by congress or any government body. Nothing prevents a person from speaking after an NDA is signed - they won't get tossed in jail, because no law was broken. However, after doing so, they will be responsible for any civil penalties they agreed to when they signed the contract.
          • phkahler 9y ago
            I only brought in the first amendment to highlight the importance of the right to free speech. Contracts are important but perhaps some things should not be allowed in them. Many contracts are unfair, but people enter into them anyway for various reasons.
      • phkahler 9y ago
        People have been trying to charge rent on ideas for just about forever. We have patents and copyrights for that purpose. Not that I'm a fan of where that have gone (the length of copyright and even 20 years on patents).
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • Latty 9y ago
    Arbitration, just like plea deals, are an obviously terrible idea that is legal almost entirely because it reduces the cost of having trials. Less trials is cheaper, which everyone running things likes. Of course, that's trading justice for money, which most people would agree is a terrible idea. Of course, that isn't reflected in the actual state of the law.
    • Hermel 9y ago
      Arbitration can make sense in an international setup with contracts between large companies. For example, if an American company does business with a Russian company, they might agree to do arbitration in the UK in case of a dispute. However, what Amazon does here is just wrong.
    • dd36 9y ago
      Forced consumer arbitration has been widely adopted solely because it is used to preclude class actions. Some state courts send matters to public arbitration, which is decidedly different. There are parts of forced consumer arbitraiton that companies do not like, but there's too much upsdie to precluding class actions. Things companies don't like include: the high up front cost and the lack of appeals. There's nothing legally preventing arbitrators from being vehemently pro-consumer. The incentives prevent it but, legally, an arbitrator could award a crazy amount of money to a consumer on a tenuous basis and there's little that could be done. It's interesting that no such examples exist, however.
      • deleted 9y ago
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      • Latty 9y ago
        Nothing preventing them? How many companies will hire the arbitrator that is pro-consumer? There are obvious incentives for the arbitrators to favour the people paying them - individuals are not going to be doing a lot of business with them, companies are.
        • megy 9y ago
  • meddlepal 9y ago
    You're using the legal system... by negotiating away your right to sue. Don't sign the agreement if you don't like it.
    • hobs 9y ago
      That's fine until its inculcated into every commercial agreement going forward, and you have no legal power to challenge the entire system.
      • meddlepal 9y ago
        The answer seems pretty obvious... live a simpler life that doesn't depend on these services.
        • pmiller2 9y ago
          That's entirely workable... if you want to not have a job, or a bank account, or a credit card.
        • landryraccoon 9y ago
          Exiling yourself from society shouldn't be a requirement of wanting equal access to the justice system.
        • michaelmrose 9y ago
          There is zero reason not to include such a contract in every point of contact between you and society if you let people run with this one eventually the bottom of your receipt for a pound of grapes will contain such language and they'll call it a contract of adhesion. If mandatory binding arbitration included as part of your standard interaction with businesses is a net negative for 99% of people and a positive for business owners and large stock holders there is no particular reason why the 99% can't vote not to allow the owners to do that.
        • jfaat 9y ago
          A few months ago my car got covered in white paint from the garage of the apartment I live in. I had it detailed, which they agreed to pay for right away. They credited my account for the cost of the detail, then added it back as a rent charge when I refused to sign away my right to sue over the incident (well, the contract said basically they weren’t liable for anything that happened at all around that time on the premises. also the detailing didn’t remove the paint). They required me to pay back the money in order to make my rent payment the next month, or i would have been charged 10% of the rent + detailing charge as a fee. So yeah, avoid services like renting an apartment and you’ll be all set. Good luck!
  • goldenkey 9y ago
    I had good experience arbitrating with AT&T over a missing credit for an old phone I sent in when upgrading. They didnt know where the phone was even though tracking showed they received it, and they werent giving me a credit. I tried to escalate and speak to more and more agents but ultimately I sent a letter to their legal department with a Request For Arbitration form. A paralegal from their legal department contacted me and offered me a good sum of money shortly after. Really was a smooth process..
    • conistonwater 9y ago
      But you didn't reach arbitration? Somebody from the legal department thought the best way to avoid legal risk was to give you money, which is how they avoided the possibly more risky legal process.
      • goldenkey 9y ago
        I filled out the request for arbitration. Ive never arbitrated before so I assumed that was the process. But are you saying they settled instead of arbitrating? What is the difference?
  • otakucode 9y ago
    The thing with non-competes is that most businesses realize that their employees could run circles around them and out-compete them without even trying if they were brave enough to try. So they fear that. I mean, no overhead of a radically expensive office building plus its utilities and maintenance, those multiple layers of ineffective management, the executive cherry on top charging an ultra premium to make your company look good? Cut that stuff out and you barely need to charge anything to continue making a perfectly opulent living for a typical technology worker. And it's not like the office or any of those things actually add anything of value, they're all just maintained mostly through sheer force of will and tradition - things proven to fail at any moment. So if you sign something that severely penalizes going out on your own and competing against your employer, they're going to jump on that and treat it like a lifeline because it very much is exactly that.
  • gnopgnip 9y ago
    The alternative of going to trial more often has its own downsides. Similar parallels to plea bargaining. If the cost of a plea bargain or arbitration is $500, and the cost of a trial is $5000, with trials only there are many injustices that would never be pursued.
    • deleted 9y ago
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  • djsumdog 9y ago
    I walked away from a job offer recently. It was the first company that refused to remove their non-compete clause. They're illegal in California. In Illinois, they're illegal if you made less than $13/hr. They should be made illegal everywhere. I know one software developer personally who has been screwed over by a non-compete. I know others who simply ignore them, which is dangerous since different states have rules differently on their enforceability.
    • azernik 9y ago
      If you don't mind my asking, what state was this in? And did you get the impression that it's treated as a norm locally?
      • jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
        I can say I looked up the ruling history in Oregon and the longest one that I found held was ~6months. Generally courts in OR state are narrow towards non competes. So that's at least some evidence it varies by state.
      • djsumdog 9y ago
        This was in Illinois. Chicago has a vastly different hiring environment than any other place I've lived in. The interviews are long, there are a ton of behaviour questions (one interview had a solid hour dedicated to behaviour questions; and they wanted really detailed specifics). It's a far departure from other markets I've worked in. I've personally never even asked behaviour questions during an interview, and really I think you can get a good judge of behaviour just by watching the candidate answer technical questions. I'm not sure if non-competes are the norm. I have a feeling they might be as they recently passed laws to ban them for low income earners. I've only had one job offer, and they refused to remove it. I have no problem signing NDAs, IP wavers, patent wavers, etc. But I refuse to sign anything that restricts my right to work after a company stops paying me. If it turns out all of them do the same thing, I might have to head back to the west coast.
        • infinite8s 9y ago
  • GrinningFool 9y ago
    I recently bought furniture. There was small print that said I was agreeing to the terms and conditions on the back. Historically you're used to seeing warranty and financing (if any - none in this case) information. When I flipped it over, it turned out it was a binding arbitration agreement. For a furniture purchase.
  • wpietri 9y ago
    > Binding arbitration and non-competes, are both disgusting anti-business, anti-American, anti-worker, anti-innovation, anti-rights that need to be killed. Agreed. Here's how I look at it: If a company really screws you over, you can sue. It's a lot of time and money, but it's worth it for a big problem. But what if the problem is small? If I get screwed out of $5 by a dodgy company, I won't bother to sue. But if they've done the same to a lot of people, a class action lawsuit makes it worth some lawyer's time to go after them. Arbitration clauses destroy that. Without class action, we need much more vigorous government intervention. Failing that, consumers lose the trust in the marketplace, harming commerce and making everybody poorer. And we'd likely see more proactive regulation as well, reducing innovation.
  • mehrdada 9y ago
    I'm proud to have turned down a economically-maximizing offer with a margin on principle of not signing non-competes. I understand that I was lucky to have the luxury to be able to say no and not everyone is able to do so on a different circumstance, but I believe if you have the option of taking a lower offer without a non-compete you have the moral obligation to your profession to push back and resist, and let them know that a non-compete is morally repellent.
• huebnerob 9y ago
  Binding arbitration is probably the only thing making the legal risk of such a high-liability product/service manageable from Amazon's point of view. If it wasn't available, the product may not even exist. Which is fine. Maybe something like this shouldn't exist until we have the technology to make it foolproof. At least to the extent where the expected lawsuit frequency is something Amazon is willing to take on.
• kevin_b_er 9y ago
  The arbitration monkey courts are perversely incentivized by money to go with who gives them the most business. Their bias is inescapable. The agreement thus effectively means you hold amazon blameless for their drivers activity, as you'll never get a dime out of mandatory binding arbitration against a large corporation.
• jethro_tell 9y ago
  >You want me to believe that you'll protect my most valuable asset after I give you free access to it I mean, Maybe I'm just an old man and you should get off my lawn but jesus, what could possibly go wrong here? You give it away willingly then expect there to be no abuse? Why would they give you the right to sue? You just gave them a key to your house and they assume you'll accept any licence because you're so desperate for the convenience that you won't say no anyway. If they wanted to install an amazon locker on my front porch, that would solve the problem for everyone. But that's not a cool project to work on with computer vision so . . ..
  • mikeash 9y ago
    Why wouldn't I expect them to correct any abuse, when they explicitly state that they will do so? If they just went, "We'll do our best, but if anything goes horribly wrong you're fucked, sign here," then whatever. I wouldn't sign up for it anyway, but at least they'd be honest. But to say that they will "correct the problem" if anything goes wrong, but force you into binding arbitration, is just wrong.
    • jethro_tell 9y ago
      Yeah, I'm just saying, you just gave them a key to your house, which is probably a mistake, and you'll probably sign the arbitration clause because why wouldn't you make two mistakes for ultimate convenience? Most companies will take as much as you give them. Seems like an easy win in this customer demographic
      • II2II 9y ago
        Giving someone a key to your house is quite different from signing a contract with a binding arbitration clause. The former is an indication that you trust the key holder or the safeguards that are in place. The latter is signing away a legal right, which should carry much more weight.
        • jethro_tell 9y ago
• sliverstorm 9y ago
  This is such crap. If they really were committed to making things right in the event of a problem, they wouldn't have to fear being sued. I mean, even if you have the best of intentions, it's still nice to have all the cards stacked in your favor for your own protection.
  • mikeash 9y ago
    It is, but that doesn't make it nice to put unreasonable conditions in a contract. If I put a clause in a contract saying I'm allowed to kill you if I get annoyed with you, while promising that I definitely won't kill you and I'm just trying to cover my bases, I don't think that would go over too well.
• jawns 9y ago
  I am vehemently opposed to binding arbitration, but one thing I've often wondered is what effect it would have on the courts if it were made illegal. Would they experience clogging, in the short term? Would fees increase to help fund expansion (and deter suits until expansion can accommodate the increased number of filings)?
  • mikeash 9y ago
    Maybe we could just use taxes? Courts should be a public service just like roads and schools and firefighters. Courts don't cost that much in the grand scheme of things, so even if we had to expand them by a factor of 2 to handle all the arbitration cases, that would be entirely doable. I would be interesting to know just how much volume arbitrators see, and how many of those might be expected to turn into court cases in the absence of binding arbitration clauses.
    • jessaustin 9y ago
      If we're going to spend more on courts, let's do so on the criminal side in the hopes that fewer than 95% of defendants will plea out.
• astura 9y ago
  Binding arbitration, when both parties readily agree it's the best way forward, has it's place to settle disputes and shouldn't be outright illegal. It's a lot cheaper and quicker than the legal system and many times court is overkill for minor contact disputes. Take the "court room" TV shows like Judge Judy, they are an example of binding arbitration that both parties benefit from. The producers look for cases pending in small claims court and offer them to drop their case and settle their dispute in arbitration instead, that arbitration is what's shown on TV. The show pays all parties an appearance fee plus travel expenses and the show pays any judgement that is awarded instead of the defendant. Since it's not a judgement it doesn't show up on public records so it wouldn't affect the defendant's credit report or public records. Being forced into binding consumer arbitration is certainly terrible and ought to be illegal. Arbitration should not be forced when one party has significant less power than the other. Especially when only one party gets to pick the arbitrator.
  • mikeash 9y ago
    Seems like there are two rather different meanings of "binding arbitration." I agree that the kind where both parties come together and agree, for a specific case, to engage in arbitration and be bound by the result is OK. The kind where you agree beforehand, when no damages have occurred, that if any case comes up then you will both go to arbitration instead of court, is not OK.
    • marcoperaza 9y ago
      The parties to a contract may want an impartial way to settle any disputes that come up down the line, without the high costs, risks, and complexities of litigation. It can be highly rational for both parties to agree to binding arbitration. Look at the NFL and the players’ association. They have an arbitrator, the very capable Professor Stephen Burbank, handling disputes. Both sides (and the courts) strongly prefer this to having to go to court. Arbitration is more controversial when foisted upon consumers in contracts of adhesion, i.e. the take-it-or-leave-it contracts you sign all day at stores, amusement parks, websites, etc. Also very controversial is that arbitration clauses are now being used to prevent class action litigation altogether. In those cases, the Supreme Court has nevertheless upheld it through a very broad reading of the Federal Arbitration Act.
• JackFr 9y ago
  > binding arbitration should be made illegal Why do you want to interfere and limit my right to execute a contract?
  • mikeash 9y ago
    Because there are some rights it's bad to be allowed to give up. You can't sign away your right to life or freedom. Being able to have your grievances heard in a court of law should be considered a fundamental right, like the right to life.
  • landryraccoon 9y ago
    There has to be equal information, equal negotiating power and recourse for both parties. There are many cases where there is a huge disparity in information between the parties : Doctors and patients, for example, is an obvious case, or between lawyers and their clients. I would argue that Amazon has far more negotiating power and information in any contract with the average consumer, and therefore the law should be heavily biased in favor of the consumer. Even if there was no binding arbitration and Amazon does screw up and harms the consumer, will the consumer even have the resources to prevail in a lawsuit? Binding arbitration stacks the deck even more in the favor of the more powerful party. If Amazon were signing a contract with Google or Apple, I assume that they both would have relatively equal negotiating power and access to information. With you or I? I highly doubt I can afford it.
  • PeterisP 9y ago
    A contract requires a "meeting of minds", informed consent, and both parties having reasonable power to negotiate the contract. Such contracts definitely can contain clauses like binding arbitration, and you should be free to execute such contracts. However, there's a strong opinion (e.g. encoded in EU law) that the standard contract forms offered by companies to consumers are not really properly negotiated contracts (even if consumers willingly sign them) and thus in such contracts you're not allowed to enforce a certain set of terms that are considered abusive. One of such terms is a binding arbitration clause. Your customer is free to negotiate and make a contract containing such clauses with you, and then it'd be valid, but if you simply get all your customers to sign on the dotted line under such a clause, it's understood that you don't really have obtained informed consent from any of them.
• flatline 9y ago
  Binding arbitration does not preclude criminal prosecution. I mean, that’s what I tend to think of when I hear “really wrong.” I’m not a huge fan of arbitration clauses generally but they are not unilaterally evil. Have you ever been involved in a lawsuit? It can take over your life for years and leave you broke.
  • mikeash 9y ago
    Criminal prosecution against a company?
    • flatline 9y ago
      IANAL but if their delivery guy commits a crime, it’s on him. If it becomes known that Amazon knowingly contributed to their delivery personnel committing crimes, or in some way covered them up, or is in some related way defrauding customers, they carry a legal risk beyond what arbitration covers. Everything is a trade off.
      • croon 9y ago
        Sure, but your contract is with Amazon, they have a subcontractor, that person steals something, Amazon cuts ties with them, You lost something, Amazon is home free, and you may or may not get your stuff back, but you can't go after Amazon whom you have a contract with. I doubt there's a scenario in which you can claim Amazon did anything criminal. But IANAL either.
        • flatline 9y ago
          OTOH you can file a claim with insurance, and I bet that arbitration clause does not permit your insurance company from going after Amazon or their contractor to recoup damages.
• pishpash 9y ago
  Once again, the problem is one-side contracts which should have no legal force. If we follow that principle, it may even mitigate the need for explicit antitrust and consumer protection rules.
• DannyBee 9y ago
  Arbitration is actually a really good dispute resolution mechanism, but mainly between two commercially equal parties :) That is what it's main use used to be.
• rhino369 9y ago
  >If they really were committed to making things right in the event of a problem, they wouldn't have to fear being sued. I'm a litigator and I'd rather arbitrate small disputes. Litigation is absurdly expensive and slow. I've had great experiences with AAA arbitrators. They were fair and reasonable. They kept costs down too. My biggest complaint about arbitration is that its too much like court. I thought it could have been more streamlined. I've even used it as a consumer. When Sprint kicked me off their service for using BitTorrent, threatening arbitrator got them to buy back my two month old phone. Plaintiff's lawyers hate arbitration because they like dumb juries.
  • shostack 9y ago
    How would you respond to views that arbitration outcome statistics favor the corporation paying for it?
    • philipodonnell 9y ago
      Facts, not views. Facts says it favors corporations. It may seem like we live in a post-fact world, but here, I believe, you can still call a fact a fact.
    • pas 9y ago
      A lot of consumers are indeed in breach of contract. Even if socially not fair, they agreed to a contract that seemed like a very good deal at the time. That's because of the costs/risks they haven't foresee at the time.
• dmichulke 9y ago
  > ... should be made illegal Sorry this may seem personal but my own experience is that any phrase ending with these words is usually a good indicator of cluelessness. It often means: I don't understand the motivations and reasons of the parties involved, I disagree with free and voluntary contracts and my opinion should override the will of the signing parties. Needless to say, there are many unintended consequences, a "talk and don't ask or listen" attitude and a naive egocentrism at play that is also often prevalent in politics.
  • mikeash 9y ago
    This would be a lot more convincing if you explained why you thought I was actually wrong. There are lots of "free and voluntary" contracts that are illegal. You can't sign away your life or your freedom. You can't even sign a contract where you agree to work for $4/hour. In many jurisdictions you can't sign away your right to work for a competitor. You can't sign away your right to privacy or use of the legal eviction process in a rented apartment. It's generally agreed upon that there are certain rights that are so important you can't sign them away. It seems to me that access to the courts should be one of them.
• hennsen 9y ago
  Maybe people could just stop signing such end user agreements and let amazon et al feel that their idea of putting all risk to the customer is flawed...