I completely agree that companies shouldn't do this, but I don't think that most people on HackerNews do. A while back a co-worker of mine wrote a blog post abo

I completely agree that companies shouldn't do this, but I don't think that most people on HackerNews do. A while back a co-worker of mine wrote a blog post about how a patent troll signed up for our service, and we decided to let them use it even though we really didn't want to. That seems like the same story with the opposite outcome. Nearly all of the comments on HackerNews said that the decision showed a lack of conviction and that we should have denied service to the patent troll. I don't think that's appropriate for all the reasons you listed, but it would seem that we're in the minority. Note: I agree with you that companies should not be allowed by their users to get away with this, I don't agree there should be a law prohibiting it.