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At least my irritation comes from the increasing amount of "consents" and "agreements" that are obviously not designed to be read, let alone understood. Not onl

At least my irritation comes from the increasing amount of "consents" and "agreements" that are obviously not designed to be read, let alone understood. Not only cookie nags, but things like EULAs and ToS and privacy policies. And they are often not even legally valid. It's all a performative sharade of "voluntary contracts", which are in practice just forced down people's throats due to power inbalances.

TeMPOraL 2y ago
Yes, but how much can you blame this on regulation, where the regulatory intent is clear, and it's the industry that collectively chose to engage in malicious compliance?
- jampekka 2y ago
  If the regulation has unworkable enforcement system, the regulation is to blame. E.g. that while around 2% want to be tracked while the majority is tracked is clearly a catastrophic failure in the design of the regulation. For the case of nags, something like a legally mandated respect of DNT would have solved the problem, at least on the UI level. Instead now it's a cat and mouse game with dark patterns obviously against the spirit of the law, where some Irish judge bends over backwards to find loopholes.
dijksterhuis 2y ago
IANAL > EULAs and ToS often seems to be liability protection for the service provider for the service provider/company. “when we were made aware of these account we immediately removed them from the service for a breach of the ToS”. ring any bells from any news articles? basically, “please don’t take us to court and sue us for everything users might do with our software. thanks.” > privacy policies consumer protection. don’t sell my phone number to direct marketing companies without me explicitly saying you can do so, or without you explicitly saying you will do so. this is being enforced: * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-claims-limited-en/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-c... * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre-limited/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre... more complete list: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ — like, yeah, these are not perfect. and they are sometimes frustrating to deal with, for everyone on either side of the agreement. and figuring out someone has done something against one of these agreements is sometimes impossible. but it is better than having nothing. don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
- jampekka 2y ago
  There are also things like mandatory arbitration, bans of reverse engineering, handover of copyrights and personal information etc etc hidden in the ToSs and EULAs and privacy policies (or in byzantine nagboxes). Often not even legally enforceable, but how many want to go to court with some megacorporation with the risk of having to pay huge legal fees? The terms should be in law, not by whatever some lawyer army cooked up, whenever applicable and the enforcement should be done by public authorities. And proposing legally unenforceable clauses in ToS and EULAs should be criminalized. They are essentially fraud.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

Yes, but how much can you blame this on regulation, where the regulatory intent is clear, and it's the industry that collectively chose to engage in malicious compliance?

jampekka 2y ago
If the regulation has unworkable enforcement system, the regulation is to blame. E.g. that while around 2% want to be tracked while the majority is tracked is clearly a catastrophic failure in the design of the regulation. For the case of nags, something like a legally mandated respect of DNT would have solved the problem, at least on the UI level. Instead now it's a cat and mouse game with dark patterns obviously against the spirit of the law, where some Irish judge bends over backwards to find loopholes.

dijksterhuis 2y ago

IANAL > EULAs and ToS often seems to be liability protection for the service provider for the service provider/company. “when we were made aware of these account we immediately removed them from the service for a breach of the ToS”. ring any bells from any news articles? basically, “please don’t take us to court and sue us for everything users might do with our software. thanks.” > privacy policies consumer protection. don’t sell my phone number to direct marketing companies without me explicitly saying you can do so, or without you explicitly saying you will do so. this is being enforced: * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-claims-limited-en/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/quick-tax-c... * https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre-limited/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/bonne-terre... more complete list: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/enforcement/ — like, yeah, these are not perfect. and they are sometimes frustrating to deal with, for everyone on either side of the agreement. and figuring out someone has done something against one of these agreements is sometimes impossible. but it is better than having nothing. don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

jampekka 2y ago
There are also things like mandatory arbitration, bans of reverse engineering, handover of copyrights and personal information etc etc hidden in the ToSs and EULAs and privacy policies (or in byzantine nagboxes). Often not even legally enforceable, but how many want to go to court with some megacorporation with the risk of having to pay huge legal fees? The terms should be in law, not by whatever some lawyer army cooked up, whenever applicable and the enforcement should be done by public authorities. And proposing legally unenforceable clauses in ToS and EULAs should be criminalized. They are essentially fraud.