>... WiFi Sense can do a lot of things for you to get you connected to the Internet using WiFi, so you don't have to do them on your own. These include:...
> - Accepting a WiFi network's terms of use on your behalf...
That doesn't seem appropriate.
Apple deals with this somewhat by opening a Webkit view of apple.com (unsecured) and displaying it the user if it's not in fact apple.com. But an even further level of automation would be great.
Let's be honest, no one reads these things anyway. If you're one of the handful of people in the world who would decide not to use a WiFi network because you didn't like its TOS, then you're 1) probably not running Windows anyway and 2) could turn this feature off.
Time and again courts have upheld click-through TOS and EULAs. Ignorance is rarely an excuse. So if something clicks through a captive portal for you, the defense of "I didn't know..." isn't going to hold much water.
The only defense might be that Microsoft accepted the terms and they should accept responsibility for any violations on their behalf. But good luck getting them to voluntarily indemnify you.
If there was no reasonable way for you to even know the terms were there at all, I don't think any court is going to consider them to be binding. That's why these places show them to you when you try to use their network, instead of just hiding them in the freezer.
It's quite possible that using the Microsoft software to bypass a captive portal without agreeing to the terms will land you in jail for a felony.
Is Microsoft going to indemnify you against being the trial case of that legal theory?
How do you define "quite possible"? I'd estimate that this is exceedingly unlikely to happen.
In the US perhaps. Most other places have consumer protection laws that require a much higher standard for contracts to be legally binding.
It isn't as though anyone actually reads the terms of use anyway.
Probably the best feature of Wi-Fi Sense.
I'd love this feature - connecting to all the open wifi connections around downtown and then letting my phone/laptop log me in through their terms of use acceptance pages (looking at you Tim Horton's) seamlessly.