4 ms·

You agreed to their terms and conditions upon sign up. It says: "We may, without prior notice, change the Service;"

jacquesm 14y ago
And my terms of service read 'and if you change your terms of service in a way that I don't like I will disable your plug-in and I'll bitch about it'.
- patrickaljord 14y ago
  That doesn't make any sense. You agreed to their terms of service and now you're complaining because it doesn't match your ideals. Disqus is a great service provided for free, what did you expect?
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    I did not expect to see myself recommending products and services that I would not ever think of recommending to others and I would not expect to see my site change from non-commercial to commercial and I did not expect to see ads masquerading as regular content. Terms of service are a fig leaf, how you act is what matters and these actions are not acceptable, especially not for an opt-out that wasn't there when I signed up.
    - patrickaljord 14y ago
      In what way are they not acceptable? They are totally acceptable to me. They provide a great service for free and now they want to monetize it with ads, shocking! I think it's extremely generous and quite remarkable of them to offer both a cut and an option to opt-out. They should be rewarded for that, not blamed. I think the sense of entitlement you have knowing that disqus offered you a great and free service for years and now a way to opt-out or even make money is really disgraceful.
      - jacquesm 14y ago
        You do realize that such ads are called 'stealth' ads and are quite possibly not legal in plenty of places? What is acceptable for you and what isn't is your affair, just like it is my affair what I find acceptable. I don't think you're helping the discussion with your continued personal attacks ('entitlement', 'disgraceful') so I'll leave it at that.
        patrickaljord 14y ago
        They are not stealth ads as they warned their users a long time ago. I learned about that a few months ago already. You can't blame them for your inability to read your email correctly. Second, you had pretty strong words against disqus calling their decision "bullshit" and encouraging some sort of boycott. All because a free service decided to start making money in order to survive by proposing optional ads with a cut for you to make money on their free service. Sorry, but the sense of entitlement is really too strong here to let go. Had to point it out.
        shabble 14y ago
        Stealth on the part of misrepresenting their origin as endorsed by the site owner, not stealth as in hidden from the site owner (an understandable mistake, given that both are at issue here). I am not a disqus user, therefore I have no idea 'recommended content' is their term for paid adverts. I sometimes read jacquesm's site, therefore I could reasonably mistake something[1] with that title to be recommended by him. He dislikes that this should happen without his explicit opting-in to such a system. He's allowed to be pissed. Is principle so rare to you that you're mistaking it for entitlement? [1] if disqus wasn't blocked by Ghostery, anyway
      - chc 14y ago
        If I offer to paint your house for free, and I do a good job of it but also steal your TV, you actually are entitled to be upset and even call the cops. You can't say, "Hey, I was working for free, and now I want to monetize it with his TV. He's acting so entitled, like I need to ask if it's OK first." (Obviously I'm not saying they stole anyone's TV, but more extreme examples demonstrate the flaws in an idea better than more subtle ones. The principle of "It's free, so I can do whatever I want and you're being an entitled brat if you object" is simply fallacious.) Long story short: Working for free does not give you free reign to violate people's trust. Something that isn't OK doesn't suddenly become OK just because you were working for free. If you acted under-handedly, don't be surprised when they call you under-handed on their blog. Being free doesn't immunize you from accusations of under-handedness. It does limit their recourse, but they still have every right to be unhappy.
  - qu4z-2 14y ago
    I have to say, if it advertises by pretending I endorse its arbitrary links, then it is not a great service.
bcoates 14y ago
Blockbuster, Zappos, and AOL have all been burned by having language in their ToSes to that effect. It's a bad idea if you want any legal cover from your TOS. IANAL, but this guy is and he says STOP PUTTING CLAUSES INTO YOUR CONTRACTS THAT SAY YOU CAN AMEND THE CONTRACT AT ANY TIME IN YOUR SOLE DISCRETION BY POSTING THE REVISED TERMS TO THE WEBSITE http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/06/stop_saying_we_1.htm http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/06/stop_saying_we_...

And my terms of service read 'and if you change your terms of service in a way that I don't like I will disable your plug-in and I'll bitch about it'.

patrickaljord 14y ago
That doesn't make any sense. You agreed to their terms of service and now you're complaining because it doesn't match your ideals. Disqus is a great service provided for free, what did you expect?
- jacquesm 14y ago
  I did not expect to see myself recommending products and services that I would not ever think of recommending to others and I would not expect to see my site change from non-commercial to commercial and I did not expect to see ads masquerading as regular content. Terms of service are a fig leaf, how you act is what matters and these actions are not acceptable, especially not for an opt-out that wasn't there when I signed up.
  - patrickaljord 14y ago
    In what way are they not acceptable? They are totally acceptable to me. They provide a great service for free and now they want to monetize it with ads, shocking! I think it's extremely generous and quite remarkable of them to offer both a cut and an option to opt-out. They should be rewarded for that, not blamed. I think the sense of entitlement you have knowing that disqus offered you a great and free service for years and now a way to opt-out or even make money is really disgraceful.
    - jacquesm 14y ago
      You do realize that such ads are called 'stealth' ads and are quite possibly not legal in plenty of places? What is acceptable for you and what isn't is your affair, just like it is my affair what I find acceptable. I don't think you're helping the discussion with your continued personal attacks ('entitlement', 'disgraceful') so I'll leave it at that.
      - patrickaljord 14y ago
        They are not stealth ads as they warned their users a long time ago. I learned about that a few months ago already. You can't blame them for your inability to read your email correctly. Second, you had pretty strong words against disqus calling their decision "bullshit" and encouraging some sort of boycott. All because a free service decided to start making money in order to survive by proposing optional ads with a cut for you to make money on their free service. Sorry, but the sense of entitlement is really too strong here to let go. Had to point it out.
        shabble 14y ago
        Stealth on the part of misrepresenting their origin as endorsed by the site owner, not stealth as in hidden from the site owner (an understandable mistake, given that both are at issue here). I am not a disqus user, therefore I have no idea 'recommended content' is their term for paid adverts. I sometimes read jacquesm's site, therefore I could reasonably mistake something[1] with that title to be recommended by him. He dislikes that this should happen without his explicit opting-in to such a system. He's allowed to be pissed. Is principle so rare to you that you're mistaking it for entitlement? [1] if disqus wasn't blocked by Ghostery, anyway
    - chc 14y ago
      If I offer to paint your house for free, and I do a good job of it but also steal your TV, you actually are entitled to be upset and even call the cops. You can't say, "Hey, I was working for free, and now I want to monetize it with his TV. He's acting so entitled, like I need to ask if it's OK first." (Obviously I'm not saying they stole anyone's TV, but more extreme examples demonstrate the flaws in an idea better than more subtle ones. The principle of "It's free, so I can do whatever I want and you're being an entitled brat if you object" is simply fallacious.) Long story short: Working for free does not give you free reign to violate people's trust. Something that isn't OK doesn't suddenly become OK just because you were working for free. If you acted under-handedly, don't be surprised when they call you under-handed on their blog. Being free doesn't immunize you from accusations of under-handedness. It does limit their recourse, but they still have every right to be unhappy.
- qu4z-2 14y ago
  I have to say, if it advertises by pretending I endorse its arbitrary links, then it is not a great service.

bcoates 14y ago

Blockbuster, Zappos, and AOL have all been burned by having language in their ToSes to that effect. It's a bad idea if you want any legal cover from your TOS. IANAL, but this guy is and he says STOP PUTTING CLAUSES INTO YOUR CONTRACTS THAT SAY YOU CAN AMEND THE CONTRACT AT ANY TIME IN YOUR SOLE DISCRETION BY POSTING THE REVISED TERMS TO THE WEBSITE http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/06/stop_saying_we_1.htm http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2009/06/stop_saying_we_...