EA Joins the Sony EULA bandwagon | Hacker News Reader

EA Joins the Sony EULA bandwagon

ngohq.com

25 pointsfomojola9 comments

The legality is not even the point; the point is to weed out as many people as easily as possible from even trying to sue.

If there's the slightest doubt as for whether you can even sue you'll be fighting on two fronts: first against the question of whether your lawsuit might be void and then the issue you're suing for itself.

Lawsuits are PITA and lawsuits for the sake of just suing are doubly so. Everybody knows it. It's just logical to try to scare people off unless you subscribe to the school that tries to minimize legal hassle by not giving too many reasons for people to sue you. But still some assholes will if you operate in litigious cultures.

Has the legality of these sorts of things ever been tested? I can easily imagine that the courts wouldn't actually stand for the idea that someone can throw away their right to sue by clicking on the bottom of a thirty-page ALL CAPS agreement.

I'm not even sure whether someone can waive their right to sue by signing a single sheet of paper labelled "Waiver of right to sue".

Yes: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/scotus-rules...

It's not a waiver of a right to sue, or any disclaimer of liability. It's an agreement not to be in a class action lawsuit. Some of them can also force you to use an independent arbiter instead of suing. But wither way, they can still be held accountable.

Forced arbitration clauses, with an arbiter of the companies choosing, are in no way "holding them accountable". They are pretty much the definition of an unjust kangaroo court.

It also seems to waive trial by jury?

What are they going to do if you form a class anyway? Void your agreement and ban you? Countersue?

Of course, the real question is: is this legal? Not just in the sense of whether EULAs in general are enforceable, but whether one can really give up their right to sue with a clickthrough.

Stopped reading as soon as I hit "civil rights"; the second sentence.

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