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> corporations can just have users sign them away by agreeing with some policy These shrink wrap licences can be legislated away. Lots of EU countries have con

> corporations can just have users sign them away by agreeing with some policy These shrink wrap licences can be legislated away. Lots of EU countries have consumer protection legislation that explicitly forbids/invalidates such imbalanced or unexpected terms in the fine print for consumer-facing contracts -- or indeed invalidates shrink-wrap licence terms outright.

matheusmoreira 6y ago
My country does the same thing but it's meaningless since companies are usually located in the USA.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Amazon is in USA but subject to EU jurisdiction when selling to EU residents.
jerf 6y ago
As is often the case, a lot of these things are either illegal in the US too, or far less settled than the companies would have you believe. The companies stick them in the license clauses anyhow, because when you can just stick a severability clause [1] in there, why not grab things willy-nilly? Plus a lot of people simply assume there's no recourse even when there in fact is ("the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections), and of those who don't, who really wants to spend a ton of time in any sort of legal or arbitration resolution over 40 books, which almost certainly total far less than any possible legal or arbitration battle will cost? The legal system, US, EU, or otherwise, doesn't have a good answer to when a company bones .01% of several million people to the tune of several hundred dollars, or bones its entire customer base for $1 or something. By the time you bust through their contract clauses against class action and even find everyone affected you've long since eaten up any value you're going to get from the lawsuit even if you win big and win punitive damages. Computers make it so much easier to do this kind of thing on the company's side, but they don't help anyone trying to fight it anywhere near as much. Very asymmetrical advantage for the companies to hit people like this at some scale. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/severability.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/severability.asp
- beagle3 6y ago
  > "the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections The biggest problem is that the US legal system is incredibly expensive. You can have justice, but only if you tens or hundreds of thousands of $$ to spend and prevail. In theory, everyone can get their day in court and (likely) enjoy reasonable protection. In practice, that's not happening. Instead, what's happening is that such things wait for class action lawyers to take the case - which I would guess happens to less than one in a hundred cases in which a company utilizes this asymmetry.
  - nobodyandproud 6y ago
    Class action suits discourage widespread or egregious bad behavior by the powerful. Yes, the lawyers rake in the money and the victims get virtually nothing but it created a market-driven method of enforcing rules; a immune to political whims. Sadly arbitration clauses have become the norm, but I don’t know if they have merit with EULAs. But I would like to see class action suits make a come-back.
  - jerf 6y ago
    Is the EU actually any better for this sort of case, though? In practice, not just in theory? I believe the EU has different cost/benefit tradeoffs, but they're still not something to be done casually or easily by a consumer at this scale of damage. For instance, "loser pays" sounds great until you lose. Even if your obligations are statutorily limited it's still not something to take on over, let's say, Amazon restricting access to the 40 books you purchased, to pull an example from nowhere. The damages in such a case are so low that it's difficult for any legal system to provide a reasonable mechanism for redress. Even if you valuate your time at the local minimum wage, even a small claims court is going to take more time than is worth it for one person. You'll probably be waiting in the courtroom for longer than the value of the books in question. The real problem here isn't that the US is a consumer rights wasteland when it isn't; the real problem is the huge asymmetrical advantages companies have, in any jurisdiction, in screwing significant numbers of people just a little bit.
regulation_d 6y ago
In the US, we do have precedence for rights that can't be waived. The implied warranty of habitability is the first that comes to mind.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

My country does the same thing but it's meaningless since companies are usually located in the USA.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
Amazon is in USA but subject to EU jurisdiction when selling to EU residents.

jerf 6y ago

As is often the case, a lot of these things are either illegal in the US too, or far less settled than the companies would have you believe. The companies stick them in the license clauses anyhow, because when you can just stick a severability clause [1] in there, why not grab things willy-nilly? Plus a lot of people simply assume there's no recourse even when there in fact is ("the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections), and of those who don't, who really wants to spend a ton of time in any sort of legal or arbitration resolution over 40 books, which almost certainly total far less than any possible legal or arbitration battle will cost? The legal system, US, EU, or otherwise, doesn't have a good answer to when a company bones .01% of several million people to the tune of several hundred dollars, or bones its entire customer base for $1 or something. By the time you bust through their contract clauses against class action and even find everyone affected you've long since eaten up any value you're going to get from the lawsuit even if you win big and win punitive damages. Computers make it so much easier to do this kind of thing on the company's side, but they don't help anyone trying to fight it anywhere near as much. Very asymmetrical advantage for the companies to hit people like this at some scale. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/severability.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/severability.asp

beagle3 6y ago
> "the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections The biggest problem is that the US legal system is incredibly expensive. You can have justice, but only if you tens or hundreds of thousands of $$ to spend and prevail. In theory, everyone can get their day in court and (likely) enjoy reasonable protection. In practice, that's not happening. Instead, what's happening is that such things wait for class action lawyers to take the case - which I would guess happens to less than one in a hundred cases in which a company utilizes this asymmetry.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  Class action suits discourage widespread or egregious bad behavior by the powerful. Yes, the lawyers rake in the money and the victims get virtually nothing but it created a market-driven method of enforcing rules; a immune to political whims. Sadly arbitration clauses have become the norm, but I don’t know if they have merit with EULAs. But I would like to see class action suits make a come-back.
- jerf 6y ago
  Is the EU actually any better for this sort of case, though? In practice, not just in theory? I believe the EU has different cost/benefit tradeoffs, but they're still not something to be done casually or easily by a consumer at this scale of damage. For instance, "loser pays" sounds great until you lose. Even if your obligations are statutorily limited it's still not something to take on over, let's say, Amazon restricting access to the 40 books you purchased, to pull an example from nowhere. The damages in such a case are so low that it's difficult for any legal system to provide a reasonable mechanism for redress. Even if you valuate your time at the local minimum wage, even a small claims court is going to take more time than is worth it for one person. You'll probably be waiting in the courtroom for longer than the value of the books in question. The real problem here isn't that the US is a consumer rights wasteland when it isn't; the real problem is the huge asymmetrical advantages companies have, in any jurisdiction, in screwing significant numbers of people just a little bit.

regulation_d 6y ago

In the US, we do have precedence for rights that can't be waived. The implied warranty of habitability is the first that comes to mind.