Yeah, those things are … well they suck. And courts have consistently found them to be enforceable unless they’re hidden or overly vague. But even when they’re not, no one reads those things and everyone knows that no one reads those things. Hell, even I don’t read those things. Especially for software or an app. And I don’t read them because what are you going to do about it if you don’t like a term? It’s not like historic contract law where all contracts were the result of a negotiation. There’s no negotiation here. You accept the terms and use the app, or you don’t use the app. And we’re back to the power imbalance problem here. Consumers have no ability to negotiate terms on most of these things. And so people just use them without even reading the terms. And the frustrating part to me is that everyone knows this, even Supreme Court Justices, because do you really think Clarence Thomas has read all the terms of service for Microsoft 365? I’m sure they use that software. And there’s no way he read the TOS. But the courts just create this legal fiction that it’s a normal contract where the terms have been fairly negotiated between both sides. It drives me nuts. And I realize we can’t have that be something that is truly negotiated. But again, this is why we need more regulation of these products and services.
7 Likes
