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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

The Steam user agreement includes a binding arbitration clause preventing you from suing: https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#11. There is no escape.

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Actually there is: be a EU resident. It's even explicitely stated there.

Have these actually been tested in court? I believe if someone actually decided to sue it would go about as poorly as non-compete clauses in employment contracts.

Yes, SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld binding arbitration clauses as valid, and that they even override state law and apply in cases of naked fraud by the company:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc... (binding arbitration overrides state law)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/business/supreme-court-up... (binding arbitration overrides workers' rights)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/supreme-court-backs-... (binding aribtration applies even in cases of fraud and deceptive advertising)

In a sense this is just codifying what has always been tacitly true - the court system isn't really intended to protect the common man against the economic, political and social elites, it's primary purpose is as a dispute resolution mechanism among those elites.

They teach arbitration and related matters in many law school curriculums now, another sad sign of the continued slide into privatised legal systems.

Unfortunately they have been successfully tested often in many legal systems.

If you’re testing an arbitration clause outside of arbitration then it’s already clear that the arbitration clause wasn’t binding.

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