6 ms·

I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid

by netcan 12y ago

I think this is an example of contracts being broken, often online but elsewhere too. You can't rent a hotel room without a credit card which helps hotels avoid you running off without paying for minibar peanuts or rock star damage to a room. OTOH, the fact that you can't update your iphone, rent a hotel room or do a lot of other things without agreeing to a "contract" or policy so long that it's impractical to read it, is a clear sign this institution is broken. We need new laws. Not the vague hodgepodge we have now. Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid. This credit card charge should be treated like any merchant taking a card and then charging £100 more than expected. Fraud, theft, some mild form of racketeering, whatever that falls under. I think the most common abuse of this sort is "out of contract" telecom charges where using 2X the contract number of minutes or data could result in over 10X (often over 100x) the cost of the original contract. I'm not sure how exactly the laws need to work, but there is obvious stretching of the systems well past the point of ridiculous. An iphone privacy policy or a hotel "sign this" agreement is not free actors contracting freely. Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better. If hotels need some sort of escrow, then it should be an escrow.

binarymax 12y ago
We live in a culture of liability and a culture of blame. This is a symptom of legal liability running the governments and corporate world. Change the culture and this problem will go away. Not an easy task.
- netcan 12y ago
  That's definitely a problem too, but I don't think that's the whole reason. I think this is an extrapolation of contracts which are a good thing where appropriate. An agreement between parties, ideally with input from both that everyone understands and agrees to. Now, we make dozens of 10k word (or 100k word) agreements every week that no one understands. It would cost thousands or tens of thousands to understand them. You can't read them all and even if you did, you would find that being the odd one out in this regard left you unable to get a hotel room, phone or read a newspaper. So, we lean on standards, norms, consumer protection laws and to keep us safe from these damned contracts. Common law (or my lay understanding of it) suggests that there is grounds for completely invalidating a "contract" which no one expects any one to read. If either party don't know what they're agreeing to, it's not a contract. I'f you hand me a one page, large font bullet pointed list of things to agree to, that is something you expect me to read. If you hand me a 40 page small print book while I'm standing at a counter with people behind me, it's obvious what is going on.
- rayiner 12y ago
  Complaining about a "culture of liability" makes no sense in this context. The legal system doesn't create liability for posting a bad review--it just enforces the voluntary contract you made with someone agreeing to that restriction. What you're actually asking for is the legal system to intervene and invalidate certain types involuntary agreements. Which I would agree with. What we live in is in fact a culture of excessive insulation from legal liability! 99% of all those "contracts designed not to be read" that the parent poster complains of, those TOS you have to agree to just to use hardware you paid for, those are designed to make you to sign away rights you have under tort law.
rmc 12y ago
The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contracts/unfair-contract/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=MWhVJsRFhtxhLVvPkWkyYTTb7sJ58pyvXdknnvQ82L37ybJJ0tRM!715408534?uri=CELEX:31993L0013 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID...
- netcan 12y ago
  falling on the side of consumers (as we mostly do here in the EU) isn't the right solution either. I don't think this is about a contract being fair. Some laws about legal agreements are ok, but they aren't the tool for this job. At least not in my opinion. I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract. If a standard contract is "agreed" between some company (Apple, this hotel, etc) and all of their consumers and some unacceptably high number of those customers don't now the content of this contract, I think it should be considered what it is: nonsense on a piece of paper. These contracts are so blatant that it doesn't even matter what the thresholds are or how they are determined. The way these "contracts" are set up to be agreed to by people who haven't read them is so flagrant, it's unmistakably contemptuous of the whole idea of an agreement.
  - rmc 12y ago
    This law refers to "A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated ... A term shall always be regarded as not individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term ... if an overall assessment of the contract indicates that it is nevertheless a pre-formulated standard contract. .. Where any seller or supplier claims that a standard term has been individually negotiated, the burden of proof in this respect shall be incumbent on him." Which I think is a fair balance. If a company presents you a big long standard contract that their lawyers due up 5 years ago, then it's not really a contract between 2 equals.
acabrahams 12y ago
"Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better." Credit card charges that are pull-based are generally a bad thing, but not all pull-based payments are bad for consumers. For example, the Direct Debit scheme in the UK requires the consumer to be notified 5 working days before payment is taken, and the consumer has the right to get a refund from the bank without dispute; it is then the bank's job to go and get the money bank from the merchant. This latter feature in particular is important, and should be implemented for credit card pre-authorisations as well.
- icebraining 12y ago
  I don't see how is that direct debit system better for consumers than what we have here in Portugal, where the consumer is the one initiating the debit authorization (using a code provided by the merchant).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - mnw21cam 12y ago
    Because it would be unfortunate if one were to accidentally forget to authorise one's mortgage payment to be paid for a few months, only to find oneself repossessed. Direct debit allows a regular bill payment to be forgotten about, but with the protection that you are informed well in advance of any changes (for instance if the mortgage interest rate goes up).
    - icebraining 12y ago
      If your house gets repossessed after missing a payment, you have something very wrong with your legal system. Not even my $5 VPS gets repossessed after missing a payment.
  - ubercow13 12y ago
    The point is it gives you all the same powers with the added convenience of being able to passively approve payments. Active direct debit agreements can be viewed through banks' online banking services and you can cancel them with one click. I don't really see how your system is better for consumers.
icebraining 12y ago
As others said, clauses like these are already considered null & void and the charge fraudulent, so I don't see this as a particularly good example of why laws must be changed. With regards to very long contracts, and without meaning to defending all instances of them (since some are clearly just meant to obfuscate), how do you separate a contract "designed to not be read" from one that honestly tries to cover all edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are? Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?
- netcan 12y ago
  One test could be proportionality. If the contract is in regards to a loan, major purchase or similar spending time and money understanding the implications of the policy is reasonable. With Siri, I don't propose anything. I am simply stating the obvious. As an owner of an ipad, I have not really agreed to anything with Apple. They are pretending like we have an agreement, but we don't. If people really needed to read and understand the terms and conditions, 99% of people would not have updated the OS and Apple would have to change the way they do things. Maybe they just need to make the information available and not get my consent. Maybe some feature require consent and so can't be pushed to my phone without an action on my part. I don't know what the alternative is. I do know that this agreement between me and Apple is much more like an agreement between Apple and a 6 year old then the one between me an my employer. In the real world, it is not a contact. My click does not really denote agreement.
  - askinakhan 12y ago
    Don't you think that the reason your click doesn't denote agreement is because of how we have evolved and adjusted over time? The process of agreeing to terms and conditions has become subconscious. Although I agree that the contract between Apple and the buyer is essentially worthless, it has only become worthless because of how consumer habits have evolved therefore essentially making our clicks non-consensual. I can only state the problem as it's not my place or area or expertise to state the solution but here's my opinion; buyer/seller contracts aren't standardised and therefore when people sign a contract they are not reading through it either because of: 1. Laziness 2. Evolution/Habit Therefore we need to somehow make it so there isn't asymmetric information between the buyer/seller. This has to accomodate for the habits that have evolved through our evolution and somehow be more explicit to our newly formed habits. A shit suggestion would be: Standardise contracts for certain procedures e.g. getting a hotel room should have a standardised contract but then should have very short appendices that indicate any customisations that the hotel has made. As I said, it's a bad suggestion but i'm sure someone else can and should solve the problem. Although one question we should ask ourselves... should we re-invent the wheel for outlying situations like this one? Doubt it. Sorry for typing so much, got bored.
iolsantr 12y ago
I think contracts signed without some sort of comprehension test having been performed should be considered suspect. This would have the effect of preventing things from being hidden in the small print, and making for much shorter (and probably more standardized) contracts.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
You can totally rent a hotel room without a credit card if you pay up front, they might require a deposit.
moron4hire 12y ago
Statements like "we need new laws" are problematic, because they boil down to "we need completely new people". Laws are written by people--specific, finite, real people. If you tossed out every law book today, you would end up with the same laws tomorrow. And that isn't an endictment of congress critters and judges. They are of us, selected by us. To say, "we need a new legislature" is to say "we need completely new people." They are the way they are because we have made and allowed them to be that way. Now, I agree that the laws we have and the legislature we have are objectively bad. But I have come to admit it is because we have a bad culture. We live in a world trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma over pillaging our neighbors.
- netcan 12y ago
  I disagree, if you tossed out the law books you would get a very different set of laws. Laws have a long tradition inherited over thousands of years. Contracts is one of those traditions. It's a good tradition. It's just taken a bad turn, being applied badly to the wrong kinds of things.
  - moron4hire 12y ago
    Good point, we would end up with different laws. Probably wholly worse laws. They'd certain pay lip service to concepts of liberty, but there'd be so many disclaimers and emergency provisos that it wouldn't mean anything.
    - netcan 12y ago
      I'm not as pessimistic as you. I don't think we need revolutions, just a moderately substantial adjustment to laws which take the flashing signs of absurdities as evidence that some premise is incorrect. In this case, the premise to adjust is (imo) the definition of contract or agreement that's all. Rather than all the consumer protection approach which is hairy and ambiguous, just leave contract laws roughly where they are and applicable only to things which are to some degree of accuracy real agreements. If a company is informing you of the rules of a game which you have no control over, lets not call that an agreement. Those rules can be subject to as many or as few consumer protection laws and regulators as we like but taking the stupid "but they agreed to pay £100 for posting a bad review" argument completely out of the picture. If a hotel has a "no breakfast after 10am" policy. That's fine. House rules. No need for a contract.
madaxe_again 12y ago
On the note of bullshit contracts... We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance. This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering starting a business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email, which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.
- sjehay 12y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but have had a similar argument with a recruiter in the past (their claim sounds like it was rather more concrete than this one). We sent them a firm letter from a lawyer, and never heard from them again. It might be worth taking advice before paying the £15k.
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.
    - mortov 12y ago
      sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to protect my customers (and myself). There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care to share those ? Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.
mikeash 12y ago
"Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid." I think this is key. The law assumes that contracts are a big deal for both parties, that they are relatively rare, and that they're given attention on both sides. But it's hard to get through daily life anymore without signing a ton of contracts. Software update for your phone? Contract. Sign in to some random online service? New T&C I have to agree to i.e. contract. Pay for something with a credit card? That's a mini contract you're signing. Now, in some cases there's no real excuse for not reading a contract. To take a random example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with a cell phone provider and you're given a stack of paperwork and you sign without reading through it first, I'm comfortable saying that's on you. This isn't something you do often and you have ample opportunity to read the thing first. On the other side of things, Apple keeps tossing these gigantic contracts my way whenever I do much more than breathe. I'll literally get fifty or sixty pages of contract when trying to download a software update or just sign into the store after they made some random change to their T&Cs. Nobody reads these things. I know it, you know it, Apple knows it, and because of that they should be strongly limited in what they can do. I think an important test for a contract should be asking the hypothetical question, "what if everyone who signed it read through it in detail first?" For something like buying a house, this would obviously change nothing. For a cell phone contract, it would change little. For random gigantic software EULAs and web site T&Cs and similar things, it would drive all the customers away. If having everyone read through it before signing it would break the process the contract was made for in the first place, the contract shouldn't be valid.

by netcan 12y ago

binarymax 12y ago

We live in a culture of liability and a culture of blame. This is a symptom of legal liability running the governments and corporate world. Change the culture and this problem will go away. Not an easy task.

netcan 12y ago
That's definitely a problem too, but I don't think that's the whole reason. I think this is an extrapolation of contracts which are a good thing where appropriate. An agreement between parties, ideally with input from both that everyone understands and agrees to. Now, we make dozens of 10k word (or 100k word) agreements every week that no one understands. It would cost thousands or tens of thousands to understand them. You can't read them all and even if you did, you would find that being the odd one out in this regard left you unable to get a hotel room, phone or read a newspaper. So, we lean on standards, norms, consumer protection laws and to keep us safe from these damned contracts. Common law (or my lay understanding of it) suggests that there is grounds for completely invalidating a "contract" which no one expects any one to read. If either party don't know what they're agreeing to, it's not a contract. I'f you hand me a one page, large font bullet pointed list of things to agree to, that is something you expect me to read. If you hand me a 40 page small print book while I'm standing at a counter with people behind me, it's obvious what is going on.
rayiner 12y ago
Complaining about a "culture of liability" makes no sense in this context. The legal system doesn't create liability for posting a bad review--it just enforces the voluntary contract you made with someone agreeing to that restriction. What you're actually asking for is the legal system to intervene and invalidate certain types involuntary agreements. Which I would agree with. What we live in is in fact a culture of excessive insulation from legal liability! 99% of all those "contracts designed not to be read" that the parent poster complains of, those TOS you have to agree to just to use hardware you paid for, those are designed to make you to sign away rights you have under tort law.

rmc 12y ago

The EU has the "Unfair Contract Terms Directive", which means contracts which are just presented to you as a consumer are not always valid. It lists things are "unfair" and hence not binding. e.g. enablying the seller to alter the terms. When deciding if a contract term is fair, it must be decided on the side of the consumer. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contracts/unfair-contract/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra... http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID=MWhVJsRFhtxhLVvPkWkyYTTb7sJ58pyvXdknnvQ82L37ybJJ0tRM!715408534?uri=CELEX:31993L0013 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;ELX_SESSIONID...

netcan 12y ago
falling on the side of consumers (as we mostly do here in the EU) isn't the right solution either. I don't think this is about a contract being fair. Some laws about legal agreements are ok, but they aren't the tool for this job. At least not in my opinion. I think before you can determine if a contract is fair, you need to determine if a contract is even a contract. If a standard contract is "agreed" between some company (Apple, this hotel, etc) and all of their consumers and some unacceptably high number of those customers don't now the content of this contract, I think it should be considered what it is: nonsense on a piece of paper. These contracts are so blatant that it doesn't even matter what the thresholds are or how they are determined. The way these "contracts" are set up to be agreed to by people who haven't read them is so flagrant, it's unmistakably contemptuous of the whole idea of an agreement.
- rmc 12y ago
  This law refers to "A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated ... A term shall always be regarded as not individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term ... if an overall assessment of the contract indicates that it is nevertheless a pre-formulated standard contract. .. Where any seller or supplier claims that a standard term has been individually negotiated, the burden of proof in this respect shall be incumbent on him." Which I think is a fair balance. If a company presents you a big long standard contract that their lawyers due up 5 years ago, then it's not really a contract between 2 equals.

acabrahams 12y ago

"Also, the sooner "pull" payments become a rare exception, the better." Credit card charges that are pull-based are generally a bad thing, but not all pull-based payments are bad for consumers. For example, the Direct Debit scheme in the UK requires the consumer to be notified 5 working days before payment is taken, and the consumer has the right to get a refund from the bank without dispute; it is then the bank's job to go and get the money bank from the merchant. This latter feature in particular is important, and should be implemented for credit card pre-authorisations as well.

icebraining 12y ago
I don't see how is that direct debit system better for consumers than what we have here in Portugal, where the consumer is the one initiating the debit authorization (using a code provided by the merchant).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mnw21cam 12y ago
  Because it would be unfortunate if one were to accidentally forget to authorise one's mortgage payment to be paid for a few months, only to find oneself repossessed. Direct debit allows a regular bill payment to be forgotten about, but with the protection that you are informed well in advance of any changes (for instance if the mortgage interest rate goes up).
  - icebraining 12y ago
    If your house gets repossessed after missing a payment, you have something very wrong with your legal system. Not even my $5 VPS gets repossessed after missing a payment.
- ubercow13 12y ago
  The point is it gives you all the same powers with the added convenience of being able to passively approve payments. Active direct debit agreements can be viewed through banks' online banking services and you can cancel them with one click. I don't really see how your system is better for consumers.

icebraining 12y ago

As others said, clauses like these are already considered null & void and the charge fraudulent, so I don't see this as a particularly good example of why laws must be changed. With regards to very long contracts, and without meaning to defending all instances of them (since some are clearly just meant to obfuscate), how do you separate a contract "designed to not be read" from one that honestly tries to cover all edge cases and explain exactly what the terms are? Some products - like the iPhone - are very complex. It's not easy to describe what information is gathered, with whom it is shared and how you can withdraw your consent, for each feature (Location, Siri, messaging, calls, etc) without a very long document. What do you propose they should do?

netcan 12y ago
One test could be proportionality. If the contract is in regards to a loan, major purchase or similar spending time and money understanding the implications of the policy is reasonable. With Siri, I don't propose anything. I am simply stating the obvious. As an owner of an ipad, I have not really agreed to anything with Apple. They are pretending like we have an agreement, but we don't. If people really needed to read and understand the terms and conditions, 99% of people would not have updated the OS and Apple would have to change the way they do things. Maybe they just need to make the information available and not get my consent. Maybe some feature require consent and so can't be pushed to my phone without an action on my part. I don't know what the alternative is. I do know that this agreement between me and Apple is much more like an agreement between Apple and a 6 year old then the one between me an my employer. In the real world, it is not a contact. My click does not really denote agreement.
- askinakhan 12y ago
  Don't you think that the reason your click doesn't denote agreement is because of how we have evolved and adjusted over time? The process of agreeing to terms and conditions has become subconscious. Although I agree that the contract between Apple and the buyer is essentially worthless, it has only become worthless because of how consumer habits have evolved therefore essentially making our clicks non-consensual. I can only state the problem as it's not my place or area or expertise to state the solution but here's my opinion; buyer/seller contracts aren't standardised and therefore when people sign a contract they are not reading through it either because of: 1. Laziness 2. Evolution/Habit Therefore we need to somehow make it so there isn't asymmetric information between the buyer/seller. This has to accomodate for the habits that have evolved through our evolution and somehow be more explicit to our newly formed habits. A shit suggestion would be: Standardise contracts for certain procedures e.g. getting a hotel room should have a standardised contract but then should have very short appendices that indicate any customisations that the hotel has made. As I said, it's a bad suggestion but i'm sure someone else can and should solve the problem. Although one question we should ask ourselves... should we re-invent the wheel for outlying situations like this one? Doubt it. Sorry for typing so much, got bored.

iolsantr 12y ago

I think contracts signed without some sort of comprehension test having been performed should be considered suspect. This would have the effect of preventing things from being hidden in the small print, and making for much shorter (and probably more standardized) contracts.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

You can totally rent a hotel room without a credit card if you pay up front, they might require a deposit.

moron4hire 12y ago

Statements like "we need new laws" are problematic, because they boil down to "we need completely new people". Laws are written by people--specific, finite, real people. If you tossed out every law book today, you would end up with the same laws tomorrow. And that isn't an endictment of congress critters and judges. They are of us, selected by us. To say, "we need a new legislature" is to say "we need completely new people." They are the way they are because we have made and allowed them to be that way. Now, I agree that the laws we have and the legislature we have are objectively bad. But I have come to admit it is because we have a bad culture. We live in a world trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma over pillaging our neighbors.

netcan 12y ago
I disagree, if you tossed out the law books you would get a very different set of laws. Laws have a long tradition inherited over thousands of years. Contracts is one of those traditions. It's a good tradition. It's just taken a bad turn, being applied badly to the wrong kinds of things.
- moron4hire 12y ago
  Good point, we would end up with different laws. Probably wholly worse laws. They'd certain pay lip service to concepts of liberty, but there'd be so many disclaimers and emergency provisos that it wouldn't mean anything.
  - netcan 12y ago
    I'm not as pessimistic as you. I don't think we need revolutions, just a moderately substantial adjustment to laws which take the flashing signs of absurdities as evidence that some premise is incorrect. In this case, the premise to adjust is (imo) the definition of contract or agreement that's all. Rather than all the consumer protection approach which is hairy and ambiguous, just leave contract laws roughly where they are and applicable only to things which are to some degree of accuracy real agreements. If a company is informing you of the rules of a game which you have no control over, lets not call that an agreement. Those rules can be subject to as many or as few consumer protection laws and regulators as we like but taking the stupid "but they agreed to pay £100 for posting a bad review" argument completely out of the picture. If a hotel has a "no breakfast after 10am" policy. That's fine. House rules. No need for a contract.

madaxe_again 12y ago

On the note of bullshit contracts... We are about to shell out ~£15k to a recruiter who sent us the CV of someone (completely cold, without the person's consent, or us having any relationship with them) we hired via another recruiter, but a year down the line are pressing a claim, as in their contract, receiving an email from them is deemed acceptance. This is apparently perfectly legal in the UK, and I'm considering starting a business which simply sends spam, with T's and C's in each email which state that by receiving the email you have agreed to become a paying customer, and to pay any fees we demand for "the service", which is receiving the email, which allows you to know that your email is working. The intent of course not being to be another scammer, but to get the law changed.

sjehay 12y ago
I am not a lawyer, but have had a similar argument with a recruiter in the past (their claim sounds like it was rather more concrete than this one). We sent them a firm letter from a lawyer, and never heard from them again. It might be worth taking advice before paying the £15k.
JonnieCache 12y ago
Really? A judge is actually ordering you to cough up? Can you share any more details?
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  No, we're fighting via our lawyer, but if it does end up in court, we will likely lose as contract law is pretty strong in the UK - and apparently this is a significant part of this recruiter's business model, so they're well practised at it and have test cases in which they've been victorious.
  - mortov 12y ago
    sender domain please ? I need to update my block list on my mailservers to protect my customers (and myself). There must be public links/references if this is their business model - care to share those ? Also, what test cases ? Those are public record in the UK - they are no liablity issues in pointing to matters of public record/factual court records.

mikeash 12y ago

"Policies designed to not be read need to be considered completely invalid." I think this is key. The law assumes that contracts are a big deal for both parties, that they are relatively rare, and that they're given attention on both sides. But it's hard to get through daily life anymore without signing a ton of contracts. Software update for your phone? Contract. Sign in to some random online service? New T&C I have to agree to i.e. contract. Pay for something with a credit card? That's a mini contract you're signing. Now, in some cases there's no real excuse for not reading a contract. To take a random example, if you sign up for a two-year contract with a cell phone provider and you're given a stack of paperwork and you sign without reading through it first, I'm comfortable saying that's on you. This isn't something you do often and you have ample opportunity to read the thing first. On the other side of things, Apple keeps tossing these gigantic contracts my way whenever I do much more than breathe. I'll literally get fifty or sixty pages of contract when trying to download a software update or just sign into the store after they made some random change to their T&Cs. Nobody reads these things. I know it, you know it, Apple knows it, and because of that they should be strongly limited in what they can do. I think an important test for a contract should be asking the hypothetical question, "what if everyone who signed it read through it in detail first?" For something like buying a house, this would obviously change nothing. For a cell phone contract, it would change little. For random gigantic software EULAs and web site T&Cs and similar things, it would drive all the customers away. If having everyone read through it before signing it would break the process the contract was made for in the first place, the contract shouldn't be valid.