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There already is. There always has been! It's called fraud. If you trick someone into signing a contract, then that contract is fraudulent. If you tell someon

There already is. There always has been! It's called fraud. If you trick someone into signing a contract, then that contract is fraudulent. If you tell someone that you will ask their permission before doing something; then silently claim you already obtained that permission in a prior contract, you are committing fraud. I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth, but you sure as hell can't blame that on the citizens they are failing to defend.

rapnie 3y ago
"I consent to your [legalese with weasel words that only specialist lawyers have any chance to understand the implications of]." See. No fraud.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  Let me frame this in a story: Dave is a prostitute. He is hired by Sue via contract. In this contract, Dave agrees to have sex with Sue. Also in the contract is the agreement that Sue may introduce any sex toys that will not physically harm Dave. When they get together, Dave notices a camera pointed at them. Sue tells Dave that, "I only record sex with people who consent to my use of a camera." Later, Dave learns that Sue did in fact record the encounter. Sue's defense? The camera was a sex toy! It didn't physically harm you! This was all in the contract! Is Sue's defense valid? Of course not! Sue has committed fraud. --- We should hold corporations every bit as accountable as we would fictional prostitutes.
- banannaise 3y ago
  That's still fraud in most jurisdictions (although it's no longer provable unless there's a paper trail that says it's intentionally designed to deceive). However, even if fraud can't be proven, it may no longer be a valid contract. A contract is the mutual understanding of an agreement, not the words printed on a piece of paper. The paper can be used as evidence of mutual understanding, but it's not incontrovertible evidence of that. Many kinds of evidence can go the other way, such as unconscionability (terms that there's no way anyone would willingly agree to, thus suggesting coercion or subterfuge). Or, framed another way: consent, in both a moral sense and a legal one, requires awareness from both parties of what you are consenting to. Each party is, to some extent, responsible for using the resources at their disposal to ensure they understand the contract (e.g. a blind person must find someone to read them the contract), but intentionally undermining the process of mutual understanding is at best very good evidence against enforcement of the contract and at worst fraud.
- trinsic2 3y ago
  Its my understanding that contracts are only enforceable when there is a meeting of the minds. At lease on common law, and I think some of these people that run these companies should be dragged before a common law court to answer for these things.
jstarfish 3y ago
> I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth Easy. It's when we started treating the virtual reality of the internet as though it is actual reality. Digital contracts shouldn't be binding, any more than mowing down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto constitutes murder. These video-game contracts are mutable and ephemeral; how the hell do you prove what version of the contract/TOS you agreed to, when companies can change it arbitrarily-- and without any revision history? Tech makes it easy to gaslight the fuck out of anybody. There'd be an actual cost to them were they do play this game with paper contracts.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Are you saying that because something is digital and exists as data on a computer, that it is not valid? As opposed to something on paper? How is that different in any real way? Paper is transitory -- anyone can forge a signature or reprint a contract and photocopy your name on it and shred the original and put the modified one in the file cabinet. Just because the materials used are different doesn't make the law any less applicable.
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    This is an actual issue in consumer banking. If a bank forges a paper document, it's possible to hold up the original countercopy (assuming you filed it) and say "No, your document is fake, and you are attempting fraud." These agreements often have millions of copies, so it's easy to find the applicable version of the T&Cs. If all you have are digital T&Cs at the end of a web link, and those T&Cs can be updated at any time, and you are only ever sent the link, and not the updated T&Cs - you have nothing. You could argue that everyone should download every T&C update. In theory that's true. But in practice a problem that could be solved relatively simply - keep a single letter - now requires many more steps, backup strategies, and so on. You could also argue that banks should keep copies of their T&C versions and supply them on request. Which they do - except that in practice a bank that's trying to forge a document won't have a problem forging T&Cs. This not hypothetical. I've known people win court cases because they kept a single piece of paper.
JohnFen 3y ago
The courts (in the US) are only really useful for this sort of thing if you have money.
93po 3y ago
> I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth The actions of the government have been and likely always will be done for the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Policing itself was a concept first introduced by the wealthy to protect them and their interests. I mean just look at George Washington - he was the richest US president of all time after Trump at a present valuation of around $700 million.

rapnie 3y ago

"I consent to your [legalese with weasel words that only specialist lawyers have any chance to understand the implications of]." See. No fraud.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
Let me frame this in a story: Dave is a prostitute. He is hired by Sue via contract. In this contract, Dave agrees to have sex with Sue. Also in the contract is the agreement that Sue may introduce any sex toys that will not physically harm Dave. When they get together, Dave notices a camera pointed at them. Sue tells Dave that, "I only record sex with people who consent to my use of a camera." Later, Dave learns that Sue did in fact record the encounter. Sue's defense? The camera was a sex toy! It didn't physically harm you! This was all in the contract! Is Sue's defense valid? Of course not! Sue has committed fraud. --- We should hold corporations every bit as accountable as we would fictional prostitutes.
banannaise 3y ago
That's still fraud in most jurisdictions (although it's no longer provable unless there's a paper trail that says it's intentionally designed to deceive). However, even if fraud can't be proven, it may no longer be a valid contract. A contract is the mutual understanding of an agreement, not the words printed on a piece of paper. The paper can be used as evidence of mutual understanding, but it's not incontrovertible evidence of that. Many kinds of evidence can go the other way, such as unconscionability (terms that there's no way anyone would willingly agree to, thus suggesting coercion or subterfuge). Or, framed another way: consent, in both a moral sense and a legal one, requires awareness from both parties of what you are consenting to. Each party is, to some extent, responsible for using the resources at their disposal to ensure they understand the contract (e.g. a blind person must find someone to read them the contract), but intentionally undermining the process of mutual understanding is at best very good evidence against enforcement of the contract and at worst fraud.
trinsic2 3y ago
Its my understanding that contracts are only enforceable when there is a meeting of the minds. At lease on common law, and I think some of these people that run these companies should be dragged before a common law court to answer for these things.

jstarfish 3y ago

> I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth Easy. It's when we started treating the virtual reality of the internet as though it is actual reality. Digital contracts shouldn't be binding, any more than mowing down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto constitutes murder. These video-game contracts are mutable and ephemeral; how the hell do you prove what version of the contract/TOS you agreed to, when companies can change it arbitrarily-- and without any revision history? Tech makes it easy to gaslight the fuck out of anybody. There'd be an actual cost to them were they do play this game with paper contracts.

Eisenstein 3y ago
Are you saying that because something is digital and exists as data on a computer, that it is not valid? As opposed to something on paper? How is that different in any real way? Paper is transitory -- anyone can forge a signature or reprint a contract and photocopy your name on it and shred the original and put the modified one in the file cabinet. Just because the materials used are different doesn't make the law any less applicable.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  This is an actual issue in consumer banking. If a bank forges a paper document, it's possible to hold up the original countercopy (assuming you filed it) and say "No, your document is fake, and you are attempting fraud." These agreements often have millions of copies, so it's easy to find the applicable version of the T&Cs. If all you have are digital T&Cs at the end of a web link, and those T&Cs can be updated at any time, and you are only ever sent the link, and not the updated T&Cs - you have nothing. You could argue that everyone should download every T&C update. In theory that's true. But in practice a problem that could be solved relatively simply - keep a single letter - now requires many more steps, backup strategies, and so on. You could also argue that banks should keep copies of their T&C versions and supply them on request. Which they do - except that in practice a bank that's trying to forge a document won't have a problem forging T&Cs. This not hypothetical. I've known people win court cases because they kept a single piece of paper.

JohnFen 3y ago

The courts (in the US) are only really useful for this sort of thing if you have money.

93po 3y ago

> I don't know when our judicial system lost all of its teeth The actions of the government have been and likely always will be done for the interests of the wealthy and powerful. Policing itself was a concept first introduced by the wealthy to protect them and their interests. I mean just look at George Washington - he was the richest US president of all time after Trump at a present valuation of around $700 million.