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Comment by johndhi | Hacker News Reader

I'm a lawyer in this space. Couldn't agree with you more.

Edit to add some more detail. There's a lot of scholarship that more information or transparency can't be bad - and I don't disagree too much - but the cluttering and intrusiveness is too much. Every legal regime (privacy, safety, consumer protection, IP, etc) clambors to be the most important and worthy of being front page news. But this results in a brutal web experience. I miss the old, simple websites we had as kids. Can't we all agree that a privacy policy or terms link is enough? That's what links are for.

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> Can't we all agree that a privacy policy or terms link is enough? That's what links are for.

Ultimately those are written by lawyers for lawyers. They're extremely long, verbose, and hard for a layman to parse. And that's on purpose. It's a dark pattern to get people to agree because they lack the time to read and to understand [0][1][2].

Reading isn't the same as understanding, and that's a separate bag of worms which comes up all the time in legal affairs. Take the recent Disney fiasco. I don't think the average person would read the ToS and come to the conclusion that Disney can more or less kill your loved ones with impunity in their parks if you watch Disney Plus. Not that other lawyers agree either, but apparently that's the understanding of Disney's lawyers.

Not that pop ups, modals, and warnings are much better. But I think a clear warning/opt out pop up is far better than a link buried in account settings or policy/ToS.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/readi...

[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/it-would-take-17-hours-to-read-th...

[2] case in point, I'm sure better links exist but I'm sort on time and just plugging what I reviewed from the top of Google results.

Yes -- that is the downside of the current privacy policy model.

There's a continuum, though: from a dense legal meaningless document, to a hyper-loud intrusive but meaningless pop-up. I'd argue that the lawmakers should try to understand the entire market factors at work here, and propose laws that incentivize companies to produce useful/meaningful documents and policies.

IANAL, but my understanding of the Disney agreement is that it states that completely clear. Just like every other terms of use I've read.

What people disagree is in whether it's actually enforceable.

It's not so cut and dry, or maybe it is to lawyers, IANAL. I don't think the average person would believe that forced arbitration would be applied to a separate Disney service, and that it's for all time.

That using a Disney plus trial promo several years ago would force arbitrartion in a wrongful death suit stemming from a visit to a physical establishment is well beyond, IMO, a reasonable expectation.

Personally, I would not believe that forced arbitration would be applied to the context of physical harm, nor would believe that Disney would dare to try it.

Evidently, I was wrong... But the arbitration clause clearly says it applies to the case. You are expecting things that aren't written there (nor in any other of those "contracts" you sign every day). IMO, you should be correct on that, but the world seems to disagree.

We're getting into the weeds a bit, but in regards to Disney plus, I expect the terms to apply to Disney plus, for the duration I use Disney plus. And I expect there to be legal boiler plate covering their bases.

E.g. For physical harm, perhaps I was upright/walking when something scary was on, and in my fright I stumbled/fell/flailed etc and experienced some bodily harm/death. I could totally understand and accept forced arbitration in this instance.

However, I don't expect that to continue for eternity. If I watched Disney plus for a day, canceled my subscription, and went to see Frozen on Ice years later, I wouldn't expect the Disney Plus ToS to have any bearing.

But anyways, back on point, I don't think the average person is legally competent enough to enter into these agreements. Laymen can read and argue what we expect/understand something to mean, but that's very different from what it legally means. This is why I think a ToS/Policy page are not good stand alone solutions.

I agree with you about what the Disney arbitration agreement should (fairly) apply to.

I'd argue that the ToS/policy page solution can still work, though. We just need higher standards and greater clarity for what those policies are allowed to do, and what they are not allowed to do, and greater clarity on what the bright lines are for companies -- like, there should just be a rule about how contracts work in this Disney case, not a rule about where you need to tell people about the specific thing.

My understanding as a layperson is that most of those banners are not mandated by law and it's companies choosing this approach rather then picking other options such as not storing PII unless strictly necessary for the interaction with the user. So why fault the laws here?

You're right, I guess -- but if you want to build a competitive business in today's world, you simply need to collect a lot of personal information and do analytics on your website. If it were outlawed to place cookies on people's browsers, then it would be easy - Amazon.com would have only strictly necessary cookies, Facebook.com same, etc.

But given it's possible to comply with the law by throwing up obnoxious banners, that's what these companies do, and you're basically forced to do, if you compete with them.

Whether you blame 'capitalism' or 'the marketplace' for those things or, you believe 'the government' has the job of understanding this and putting in place laws that make it easier across the board, is kind of up to your political affiliation.

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