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Comment by imglorp | Hacker News Reader

There is absolutely no reason to read those contracts any more. As Louis Rossman keeps pointing out, most of them now include the ability for them to change terms at any time. That's basically the null contract.

Since the legal system has once again failed to protect users from corporations, it's up to users to use technical means for self defense.

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Depends on jurisdiction, just because someone wrote something in a contract doesn’t mean it’s binding.

In Poland/EU we have an (ever growing) list of forbidden clauses that even when written and signed by consumer are null and void. And I think these can be enacted retroactively - when corporations invent new shady clauses, government steps in and tells them these are invalid.

This helps to even out the consumer-corporation field.

That’s great! Because then you’re left with the simple task of raising it up with the government.

It’s actually the judiciary you’d bring it up with, I believe.

The judiciary is a branch of government. But more crucially, some countries have better consumer protection agencies, eliminating the need for people to go through costly court battles for common sense stuff.

Executive branch in Poland and I guess the rest of Europe as well. Bureau for Consumer Affairs. They make decisions, give penalties to corps and invalidate harmful ToS.

Then if a corporation doesn’t like it (and they never do), they can appeal in court.

E.g. PayPal is appealing rn because their shitty ToS were invalidated last year and they were punished for them.

There are governments with working institutions believe or not.

Also, I just read up and in our legal system a nonindividual agreement is nonbinding if “it is drastically against the consumer’s interests or against ‘good manners’”, with free legal help for consumers affected.

E.g. last year PayPal was forbidden from giving out bans and suspensions of user accounts based on vague and overly broad rationales. They were also charged $25M for that, but that’s peanuts.

If you think about, a good government has institutions where there are people whose full time job is to look at hands of corporations and listen to citizens. I know this may sound like sci-fi if you don’t live in a country like that.

> we have an (ever growing) list of forbidden clauses that even when written and signed by consumer are null and void

I'm pretty sure that's true almost everywhere. Law beats contract. The real question is how strong the laws are. In the US not so much because of small government and stuff, especially in red states.

The law matters very little when enforcing it in court often means a multiyear lawsuit against an opponent which employs an army of attorneys, has effectively unlimited amounts of money, will likely cost you ruinious sums of money, and for an outcome that's far from guaranteed.

>The law matters very little when enforcing it in court often means a multiyear lawsuit against an opponent which employs an army of attorneys, has effectively unlimited amounts of money, will likely cost you ruinious sums of money, and for an outcome that's far from guaranteed.

Or when you can't even enforce anything in court as you've already given up your right to spend all your money suing, as binding arbitration is the required and only mechanism to "resolve disputes." To make it extra fair, the corporation pays the arbitration firm for their "objective" decisions and not you.

What could go wrong?

Has it actually happened that someone went to court and the court told them no, you have to do binding arbitration? Or is it just something they put in the contract to scare you? Has anyone argued they didn't actually agree to what the country thinks they agreed to? You could start by just saying no, you didn't agree to that, and the company will have to prove you did.

In the Gamer's Nexus video, he gets drunk before accepting the terms so that it isn't legal consent. A drunk person can't enter a contract.

>Has it actually happened that someone went to court and the court told them no, you have to do binding arbitration? Or is it just something they put in the contract to scare you? Has anyone argued they didn't actually agree to what the country thinks they agreed to? You could start by just saying no, you didn't agree to that, and the company will have to prove you did.

Yes[0]. For over 100 years.

Next question?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration_case_law_in_the_Un...

You can do that too. You can show up, represent yourself and pay a few hundred dollar court fee, while the big company has to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend themselves from you. You'll probably lose the case if you don't have a lawyer, but in a place like the US, you don't have to pay the other side's legal fees unless the case is frivolous (which it won't be).

The US is not small government at all. It’s one of the largest governments in the world. It just exists almost exclusively to serve billionaires.

It’s “small government” when it comes to protecting your individual rights, and full flock powered ai surveillance state when someone has an abortion.

I obviously didn't invent that term. And in large part you're right that it means deregulation so companies can do whatever

Funny how the type system works in a legislative framework: null AND void

I'm never going to interpret that one with a straight face.

Interestingly, in Brazil and I'm sure in some other legislations, those contracts are essentially void because there's a presumption the average person does not have the time, patience, or ability to understand every clause—so they are by definition unable to agree to their terms.

I'd love to have a similar standard applied in the US but I'm not holding my breath.

>There is absolutely no reason to read those contracts any more

For another perspective, check out the comment you're replying to.

At the very least, you can be sure they'll never change the terms of the agreement to be more beneficial for you, though.

So just treat it as a best case scenario, knowing that it can get even worse.

Just assume the worse then, save yourself some time.

Well yeah, that's kinda the idea, but sometimes it's nice to know what 'the worst' will entail

At this point every EULA or TOS change should begin with the heading:

We Are Altering The Deal. Pray We Don't Alter It Any Further

PS, my technical means are keeping my TV off the internet.

Which doesnt work. LG tvs will scan for availible networks. Someone setting up a new router within range briefly disables encryption and "your" tv will jump on that network and transmit all the stored data.

It is tinfoil hats time, at least for LG tvs.

Give it a network, but don't allow that network to access the internet.

If it can't phone home, it's not connected.

A technical solution would presumably spoof the spaff but with E2EE and DoH is it possible? So then what, hacking firmware? I guess then TVs get a hard lifespan limit.

I guess you could remove the wifi antenna, or otherwise brick the wifi reception ability (faraday cage, lead block, etc). Or - just boycott LG. I'll never buy any of that corporate espionage nonsense, ever.

Also: the US intelligence agencies used Echelon ages ago to monitor what vast swaths of innocent people were up to. I think it's sensible to presume they've got their hooks into these devices too.

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