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More and more TOS contain Mandatory Binding Arbitration. Once Mandatory Binding Arbitration is invoked, no other law matters. It supersedes other state and fede
by kevin_b_er 5y ago
More and more TOS contain Mandatory Binding Arbitration. Once Mandatory Binding Arbitration is invoked, no other law matters. It supersedes other state and federal laws with respect to contracts. The contract will then be judged by arbiters who can be blacklisted by the company if they rule against them too often. State law is not permitted to prevent mandatory binding arbitration.
The fairness, reasonableness, or conscionableness of the rest of the contract is then not reviewable or adjudicate by a court of law. The arbiter will decide the fairness.
Due to clickwarp, you are not required to understand or perceive your loss of rights for them to be lost.
Corporations love them.
So, yes, they can be "gotcha"s
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y agoI should've put my emphasis on the "anything" part, surely there will always be aspects that can't override established law. At least for now, who knows if in the future Zuckerberg sneaks some Droit du seigneur [1] clause into Facebooks ToS once Silicon Valley has successfully "disrupted" Bodily integrity. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoA couple of companies have been burned by that when a large number of customers all filed for arbitration at the same time. Because the company is responsible for the arbitration costs, it quickly became much more expensive than defending a class action lawsuit would have been. Arbitration is good if you're only expecting random one-off lawsuits here and there but if you're going to anger a large number of people, using it as an alternative to the legal system can quickly backfire.