4 ms·

It's not that black and white. It's more a matter of: If you push your legal rights in such a contract to the absolute limits, well, you may run into some issu

It's not that black and white. It's more a matter of: If you push your legal rights in such a contract to the absolute limits, well, you may run into some issues later on when laws change. If you're a tiny company but you put maximum onerous one-sided rules in your contracts, AND you somehow have the government you're selling to by the short and curlies so they sign it anyway, yeah, this view of 'eh, microsoft has got it coming' would imply this small company is now on the hook for keeping a team of lawyers on the ball. That seems fair to me. In real life, there's no way a small company would even go for such a pushed contract in the first place, or if they did, that's because they messed up by copying the wrong contract text, or there's a big brother helping them out. Or, perhaps said simply: If this notion of 'oops the rules changed right in the middle of the contract, that is not fair!' becomes relevant, they probably were.. NOT acting in good faith in the first place.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> If this notion of 'oops the rules changed right in the middle of the contract, that is not fair!' becomes relevant, they probably were.. NOT acting in good faith in the first place That assumes a benevolent government. Rules can change because of balance-of-power shifts, or as a result of misinformed debates. If you do business in a heavily-regulated economy like Europe, part of the cost of doing business is legal and compliance. This is a valid tradeoff the Continent has made. It makes many consumers and workers happy while adding fixed costs to commerce.
- gpderetta 7y ago
  > That assumes a benevolent government. Rules can change because of balance-of-power shifts, or as a result of misinformed debates. that's true in any jurisdiction, right? Laws and regulations can always override contracts.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > that's true in any jurisdiction, right? Laws and regulations can always override contracts. What varies is how easily new rules can be introduced, how easily they can be challenged, and the number of entities with rule making power. Broadly speaking, Europe's systems make it easy for rules to be introduced and hard for them to be struck down by a competing arm of government. There also tend to be more regulators with independent rule making authority in Europe than in America. This derives, fundamentally, from differing levels of trust in government, and differing views on the scope of government's job.
    - gpderetta 7y ago
      The rule (i.e. the GDPR law) was introduced by the european commission and parliament. It is applied by the various regulating agencies, interpreted by the courts and ultimately by the ECJ. It is not like that governmental agencies are making up rules.
      - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
        > It is applied by the various regulating agencies I was making a broad statement about rule making processes in the Europe (EU and member states) versus Europe. That said, GDPR is independently interpreted by each of the EU's member states. It is a complain-investigate regime that does not bind one member state to the other's precedents. That's a lot of leeway for regulatory variance.
        gpderetta 7y ago
        divergence of rule interpretation is an issue, and harmonization is is the role of the ECJ (as final arbiter of interpretation) and ultimately the European legislative branch (for further harmonization). Still, I do not see you go from that to "[it is] easy for rules to be introduced and hard for them to be struck down ". edit: remember, the alternative is 28 potentially incompatible rules.
Alinax 7y ago
It is worth noting that governments may not act in good faith if they know that new laws will, for the most part, retrograde prior contracts.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> If this notion of 'oops the rules changed right in the middle of the contract, that is not fair!' becomes relevant, they probably were.. NOT acting in good faith in the first place That assumes a benevolent government. Rules can change because of balance-of-power shifts, or as a result of misinformed debates. If you do business in a heavily-regulated economy like Europe, part of the cost of doing business is legal and compliance. This is a valid tradeoff the Continent has made. It makes many consumers and workers happy while adding fixed costs to commerce.

gpderetta 7y ago
> That assumes a benevolent government. Rules can change because of balance-of-power shifts, or as a result of misinformed debates. that's true in any jurisdiction, right? Laws and regulations can always override contracts.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > that's true in any jurisdiction, right? Laws and regulations can always override contracts. What varies is how easily new rules can be introduced, how easily they can be challenged, and the number of entities with rule making power. Broadly speaking, Europe's systems make it easy for rules to be introduced and hard for them to be struck down by a competing arm of government. There also tend to be more regulators with independent rule making authority in Europe than in America. This derives, fundamentally, from differing levels of trust in government, and differing views on the scope of government's job.
  - gpderetta 7y ago
    The rule (i.e. the GDPR law) was introduced by the european commission and parliament. It is applied by the various regulating agencies, interpreted by the courts and ultimately by the ECJ. It is not like that governmental agencies are making up rules.
    - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
      > It is applied by the various regulating agencies I was making a broad statement about rule making processes in the Europe (EU and member states) versus Europe. That said, GDPR is independently interpreted by each of the EU's member states. It is a complain-investigate regime that does not bind one member state to the other's precedents. That's a lot of leeway for regulatory variance.
      - gpderetta 7y ago
        divergence of rule interpretation is an issue, and harmonization is is the role of the ECJ (as final arbiter of interpretation) and ultimately the European legislative branch (for further harmonization). Still, I do not see you go from that to "[it is] easy for rules to be introduced and hard for them to be struck down ". edit: remember, the alternative is 28 potentially incompatible rules.

Alinax 7y ago

It is worth noting that governments may not act in good faith if they know that new laws will, for the most part, retrograde prior contracts.