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Northwest Privacy Lawsuit Dismissed
dritan writes "News.com is reporting that a judge has tossed out a privacy lawsuit against Northwest airlines. The plaintiffs claimed that their privacy was violated when Northwest gave their information to the government. From the judge: 'Although Northwest had a privacy policy for information included on the Web site, plaintiffs do not contend that they actually read the privacy policy prior to providing Northwest with their personal information. Thus, plaintiffs' expectation of privacy was low.' Do you always read the privacy policy?" If you haven't read a particular EULA, does that mean it doesn't apply either? Here is the Judge's order (PDF).
So it's okay to break a clause in your contract, as long as you contend that the other person probably didn't thoroughly read the contract? That's absurd. Especially in a country where ignorance of the law does not justify breaking the law. You should be required to uphold your contracts if both parties have agreed to them, whether nor not both people took the time to read each and every sentence of it (if they didn't, that's their problem). Further, how can they prove that the other party did not read the EULA?
the judge basically just told that "hey, the next guy that sues 'em should say that he read the statement".
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
From the court...
Further, the disclosure here was not to the public at large, but rather was to a government agency in the wake of a terrorist attack that called into question the security of the nation's transportation
system. Northwest's motives in disclosing the information cannot be questioned... the Court finds as a matter of law that the disclosure of Plaintiffs' personal information would not be highly offensive to a reasonable person and that Plaintiffs have failed to state a claim for intrusion upon seclusion.
Whoa... citing 9/11 as a reason why privacy rules should be ignored and a court saying that you can't question the motivations of those who are hiding behing a shield preventing terror attacks?
The fact that Northwest was doing this to fight for the side of good and that they didn't profit from this at all are mitigating factors that soften the blow, but should not be used to waive off the foul entirely. The whole point of the War on Terror is to protect our system of law... letting it to start going down the slippery slope towards an opressive system is exactly the way the terrorists want to push us.
...often rule that when not read an EULA is void. This has happened several times. Unfortunatelly there are not many ways to force a luser to read an EULA... remotely....
Cheers,
Ian
I am gathering that the only information they submitted was information gathered when tickets were purchased online and through their web site only.
Hmmm.
When Southwest posts a privacy policy they should be bound by it. Saying that they don't have to bound to what they said in (virtual) writing because people didnt actually read the policy does not excuse Northwest, or others, from their obligations.
By this logic we could say that parents who have children born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome can sue all of the beer companies because "no one reads those warning labels by the Surgeon General/Government anyway."
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
So, if I don't read the constitution does that mean it doesn't apply to me? If I don't read the driver's handbook from the DMV, does that mean I don't have to have a license to drive?
did they admit they hadn't read it- they could have at least read it before they ended up in court, but I do have to agree that if you don't take the time to read the privacy disclosure then you probably don't really care about it until you know that it was clearly breached.
on a similar note: you always have a right to bitch about politics, but I'm not paying any attention to you if you don't bother to vote and actually partake in the system yourself.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
If you haven't read a particular EULA, does that mean it doesn't apply either?
EULAs are non-binding anyway. Anyone who thinks he can impose additional terms after the point of sale is either an idiot, or is counting on his customers being idiots.
If you bought a TV and when you got home and opened the box the TV had a sticker over the power button saying, "By turning on this TV, you agree never to watch content not approved by XYZ Inc," would you be under the delusion that that was legally binding? Of course not, because you weren't born yesterday.
(Terms agreed to as part of the sale itself are another matter, but they still have limits.)
Although Northwest had a privacy policy for information included on the Web site, plaintiffs do not contend that they actually read the privacy policy prior to providing Northwest with their personal information.
Come on, this is Slashdot. We don't even read articles (sometimes even the blurbs!), let alone privacy policies. Well, except for the dedicated Tin Foil Hat Brigade.
Having said that, I think the court erred. If a company has a privacy policy, and the court says unless we read it and understand it we have "a low expectation of privacy"? That to me makes zero sense.
What should have happened was the government gathers the information in a time of vulnerability. Then after everything settles the courts order the information should not have been released. It gives us the best of both worlds. We can be protected in times of turbulence, and we can still have out fundamental rights protected in good times. That way the information is destroyed, no real damage done.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
A contract is a formal agreement. If you did not read it, you can't have agreement, and hence no contract.
Contracts can be overturned or broken if one can prove they did not understand or have an actual agreement.
what if u only had to read one standardised privacy EULA in you life time. wouldnt it make more sense that your rights to privacy were all in one space and everyone used the same standard. i realise this puts alot of lawyers out of jobs writing these things or who ever it is that makes them.
wouldnt it be easyer for all of us when we install programs with EULA's. If all said EULA's were the same.
Some thing like this would pop up instead
do you accept the privacy EULA Standard 1.0.3.1 set down by such and such agency.
uh oh. i think i'm making to much sense. i should be more careful or i might burn down the internet by accident.
Non-smokers die every day --Bill Hicks
That should certainly slow those Indian call centres down to five or six bookings per staff member per day...
If you ever go out and buy something like Knight os the Old Republic for the Xbox, turn to the back pages of the manual and read the EULA.
EULAs have begun to appear in many video games recently. They're usually amoung the most draconian, restrictive and probobly illegal EULAs to date, saying thing like the company reserves the right to recind all support, take the software from you, snoop on what your doing with it online and of course is not liable for ANY AND ALL damage that may be incurred from the software.
Most people I know never even read the manual, let alone the EULA. A lot of the agreements state that just by opening the box( the EULA is sealed within the box) you have agreed to the terms!
I know myself that I usually never do any more than glance at EULAs and I've certainly never gotten to the bottom of the Microsoft EULA.
Seemingly this judge has ruled that privacy policies, in themselves agreements, only apply if you read them. Usually this could be extended to other (unsigned)agreements. But of course we must Remember!!
EULAs are to do with COMPUTERS!!!
That means DCMA restrictions, patents and copyright rules all apply in computer mode. Meaning of course that normal rules _DO NOT APPLY_
. You have no rights, but many responsibilites.
And of course no privacy!
May the Maths Be with you!
"Although Northwest had a privacy policy for information included on the Web site, plaintiffs do not contend that they actually read the privacy policy prior to providing Northwest with their personal information," Magnuson noted. "Thus, plaintiffs' expectation of privacy was low."
So if I purchase a car and return it a couple weeks later, I can sue and win if I claim I never read the contract or understood it?
What kind of lunatic is this judge anyway?
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
I'd really like to see all those kids that got in trouble for downloading music counter-sue now.
I didnt RTFA or see if this had been posted before, so does that mean im not a troll?
Seriously these judges are on crack if they think they can get away with biased judgement (and im not sure since i dint RTFA but I think thats what this is). Not only would this not work if someone claimed they didnt read a EULA or didnt know a device could be used to violate the DMCA, but when corporations go around sueing for stupid patent infringements, they dont get thrown out of court on the grounds that they should never have expected to get away with patenting air!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
lalala fat fucks.
Must work up a sweat pressin those keys huh.
As lifted from their website. This is only the first portion, but I felt it was most relevant. For the record, the bold emphasis is not mine, but is included on the original.
nwa.com Reservations and WorldPerks Award Travel Reservations Usage Agreement And Notices
AGREEMENT BETWEEN USER AND NORTHWEST AIRLINES
This Web site is offered to the user conditioned on acceptance by the user ("User") without modification of the terms, conditions, and notices contained herein. By accessing and using this Web site, the User is deemed to have agreed to all such terms, conditions, and notices (the "Agreement").
PRIVACY POLICY
As a User of nwa.com Reservations, you are in complete control of your travel planning needs. This includes controlling the use of information you provide to Northwest Airlines and its affiliates.
When you reserve or purchase travel services through nwa.com Reservations, we provide only the relevant information required by the car rental agency, hotel, or other involved third party to ensure the successful fulfillment of your travel arrangements. We also use information you provide during User registration or as part of the reservation process to customize the content of our site to meet your specific needs and to make product improvements to nwa.com Reservations.
We do not sell individual customer names or other private profile information to third parties and have no intention of doing so in the future. We do share User information with our partners only for specific and pertinent promotional use but only if our customers have opted to receive such information. As a User of nwa.com Reservations you have the option to receive updates from Northwest and Northwest WorldPerks Partners about fare sales in your area, special offers, new Northwest Airlines services and noteworthy news. To receive this information you must register for our promotional email programs or check the appropriate box in your nwa.com Reservations Member Information profile. If you decide you would rather not receive these emails, you can always unregister or update your Member Information in nwa.com Reservations
We respect and will continue to respect the privacy of our customers who use nwa.com Reservations. For more information about protecting your privacy, please see Frequently Asked Questions or our Privacy Policy
Additionally, Northwest uses third-party advertising technology to serve ads when you visit sites upon which we advertise. This technology uses information about your visits to the sites upon which we advertise, (not including your name, address, or other personal information), to serve our ads to you. In the course of serving our advertisements to you, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser. In addition, we use web beacons, provided by our ad serving partner, to help manage our online advertising. These web beacons enable our ad server to recognize a browser's cookie when a browser visits this site and to learn which banner ads bring users to nwa.com. The information we collect and share through this technology is not personally identifiable. To learn more about our third party ad serving partner, cookies, and how to "opt-out," please click here
--LordPixie
I could also set up a potential weakness in the enforcement of the GPL - a developer that includes the code in a proprietary product could claim that he didn't read it. After all, unlike most EULA's, there isn't even a click-through "agreement" procedure.
It's amusing, every so often, to see one of these posts arguing that "the issue is not important enough to justify a debate".
*ahem* It's a DEBATE. We are not even considering legal action, or even giving legal advice (IANAL). This kind of "metadebate" really does not belong here, until/unless we are debating drastic actions such as violence or enacting sweeping reforms.
I think one potentially good thing this ruling does point out is just how much of a joke the so-called "privacy policy" of any given company really is.
EULA's, contracts and other agreements are all well and dandy - but they cannot always circumvent or supersede actual law. So the EULA can talk about privacy all it wants. It can even state "we will not give your information out to ANYONE." If the feds come a knockin, they better have that information ready in a nicely wrapped package with a bow on it, and there is nothing the company (nor the company's customer) can do about it.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
This flies in the face of established contract law (other than allegations of procedural unconscionability). This is, however, dicta, since the judge dismissed for failure to state a claim, and did not rule on the merits of the contract claim. Even if he did, this case is not precedent, since it is not an appellate court, just a dumb trial judge editorializing.
The big problem is that the suit was poorly pleaded anyway. The dumb lawyer didn't allege a prima facie case for breach (didn't ask for contract damages), so there is no way the plaintiff could prevail on a contract cause of action. Malpractice! Jesus, I looked at the /. article, without even RTFA, and instantly thought "breach." Dumbass attorney.
Also, the judge suggests that a privacy policy is not actually part of the contract for air travel anyway, just an FYI, as in "hey, FWIW, this is our policy."
IAAL, but not your lawyer. This is not legal advice, and should not be construed as such. This is merely layman bullshit. Do not rely on it. Only a retarded baboon would do that.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
if it's not a contarct then it's PR, which means it's advertising.
So why sue NW over false advertising?
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
...read the order and try to understand something about the law here people.
IANAL but IAALS (I Am A Law Student)
This judge ruled as a matter of law and much of this case was procedural. You cannot just allege something and bring it into court and hope that you find a judge that sympathizes. A key component of this order is Rule 12(b)(6) that allows a case to be dismissed for failure to state a claim. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule12.htm
This concept is more complicated than it might seem to readers that don't even RTFA and just assume whatever they want to, but there are solid procedural rule in place (established by the US Supreme Court) that require certain things to be stated in order to for a claim to be properly stated. These rules are partly to promote efficiency in the court system, and also to keep incomplete causes of action out of the system because they aren't sufficiently stated.
The purpose of a motion to dismiss under F.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) is to test the formal sufficiency of the statement of the claim for relief. It is not a procedure for resolving a contest about the merits of the case. 5A Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure 1356 (West 1990)
Procedure is important. Honestly, discussions about this sort of thing may be over the heads of those that prefer to offer their rabid opinions about a topic rather than trying to understand the real issue at hand here.
A dog sniffs something on you at the airport. They can't find anything on you so you are arrested for a couple months while a thorough search is performed in your house and the house of every friend you have visited in the past ten years.
You might feel it's "illegal", you might feel violated, that some "minor rights" (I'll humor you on that one) were lost, but hey, they are just doing their job to protect us. The kind of choices they make on a daily basis.
If you haven't read a particular EULA, does that mean it doesn't apply either?
No, because a privacy policy dictates customer expectations while an EULA dictates vendor expectations. A person is expected to abide by a contract they agree to whether they read it or not. Of course the EULA hasn't been validated in court yet AFAIK, but that's another story.
Developers: We can use your help.
What is the lesser of the 2 evils, Pushing some minor rights to the side or ensuring another 9/11 doesn't happen.
And exactly how is giving NASA my credit card number going to prevent another 9/11?
Uh, what gave you the idea that minors have any rights not granted them by their legal custodian/guardian? Esp the right to privacy. And what makes such a search "illegal"?
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
There goes SCO's case.
Does this mean I should require someone to sign a contract before I give them my telephone number?
If a retailer sells you off-the-shelf software, you have all the normal rights that copyright gives you without needing to agree to the EULA.
So, you can load the software onto your computer, make a backup copy, and even sell the software on (provided you remove it from your computer and destroy the backup copy). You are allowed to reverse-engineer the software for interoperability purposes.
The EULA has no legal standing. For a company to be able to restrict your regular rights, they need a "fair contract" -- that is, you must meet with a representative of a company, both you and they must draw up a contract, and each clause of the contract must be accepted or denied by you or them. A contract is not "fair" unless you have the opportunity to remove any clause you dislike. Either you cannot agree on a contract, or you both agree to and sign a contract that both parties had full control over.
The GNU GPL avoids this, because its clauses only kick in when you want to do something that copyright does not generally give you a right to do -- redistribute multiple copies of the software. Therefore, you can only get this right by agreeing to the GPL, or contacting the copyright holder to negotiate a fair contract.
This is acceptable for a PARENT. Did i miss something some where... where I voted for a Parent? "We voted these people into office, they are doing what we asked them to do.. Serve and Protect us to the best of there ability." Your right. Serve and Protect. Where did the parenting occur? Serveing and Protecting have nothing to do with parenting.
Piracy is Adam Smiths invisble hand fisting you in the ass, Mr. Gates. - MightyMartian (840721)
Do they get to go to court? Do they have to take an exam to prove they have read it? Or is the privacy policy there for mere decoration? Looks nice but otherwise meaningless...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
It's a death by a thousand cuts; a few minor rights here, a few minor rights there. Pretty soon, you have no rights left at all. With the Patriot Act (on top of previous minor rights reductions), the 4th Amendment has been practically eviscerated.
What a truly awful analogy. Minor children have limited rights and parents have guardianship over them.
The government is not our mother or father, nor should we ever want or allow it to be.
Their lawyers forgot to claim breach of contract! If they had, they would have had a lot more to stand on... as it was, relying on the ECMA and FCRA (shakey at best) did not help their case much in the eyes of the judge because they weren't relevent.
When you piss off a judge with clearly irrelevant arguments, they're less likely to give you the benefit of the doubt later.
Next time you're complaining about a Privacy Policy, spend some time studying what that policy was and don't forget contract damages.
For that reason, I'm not sure if this is relevent to the EULA debate or not, sadly.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Furthermore, generally a contract consists of an offer, acceptance, and consideration
They did not even allege that this was accepted by the Plaintiffs (even if this was considered an offer)
Next, they did not seem to allege any actual damages (under contract law)
In this case it seems the judge did what he was supposed to do: Rule on a Breach of Contract Claim.
There may even be a claim under another law, and there is no indication that the misrepresentation portion as covered by the ADA would aplly to non-airline matters.
Your arguments are idealistic and you don't touch on the deeper complexities involved here. Your comparison of our civil liberties to the rearing of a child is completely off-base. Searching your child is not an illegal search. The citizens of the United States are not the government's children.
There is no such thing as the "lesser of two evils" here. You can't PICK, it's not that easy. "I don't want terrorism, so therefore I choose to let the government completely invade the privacy of every citizen."
There is a concept of the slippery slope and unthethered and unchecked power in one wing of our government. The basis of the entire US system is the idea of checks-and-balances, that no wing of the government will act without another doing a sanity check. Where is this sanity check coming from in this instance? Never forget that absolute power corrupts absoultely.
So the government knows I went to Hawaii, big deal right? But what if they track where I go every day on my way to work, then, track my grocery shopping, then my spending habits, etc etc. What if they put this in a database and constantly monitor all our rights. Who is sanity checking their use of all this information?
The point here is that by analyzing these very issues we are keeping the people in office honest. And do you really believe that the people we voted into office have anything to do with this? Your local congressman is not the wing of government collecting your flight information from NWA. That's the whole problem here!
there have to be other circumstances i.e. a law saying this specific type of promise is enforceable, contract law, etc.
Namely, you can't contend that you can't have 'expected' a company to act a certain way with your information based on a Privacy Policy you haven't read. Buying something over the counter/phone gives a certain expection of privacy. But that is often different than what you expect out of a website. The PP creates a pretty definite expectation for that site, but the plaintiffs seem to be trying to apply that elsewhere. It's pretty hard to do that if they hadn't read the damn thing.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am the son of a NWA pilot. So perhaps I'm just biased.
--LordPixie
So you would toss your kid's room, destroying trust and putting significant strain on your relationship rather then waiting to see if kid smelled like smoke often? Or even just smelling the kid's hand?
Under the theory of social contract that our government was formed, they have the duty use the least restrictive solution to any problem. "Pushing some minor rights to the side" as you called it, is not only shortsighted, it's poisonous.
We are always going to be in danger. But in 20 years, who would you rather be in danger from: some random-ass religious zealot, or your own government?
one of these days I'm gonna patent the technology that lets Jason Vorhees catch up to cars by moving at a slow walk.
Such "privacy" concerns seem way overblown. If you are ashamed of where you've been traveling, then perhaps you need to sit down, rethink your life, and don't travel there any more. Why does it become the airline's or the government's fault if your itinerary is troubling your conscience?
As demonstrated numerous times, the patriot act does give the government considerable leeway in subpoenaing information from private companies on the basis of national security
Much as I hate to believe it, 1984 is here and although I'm not a pessimist, things are not going to get any better. We have ISPs, banks and other entities with whom we do business with a certain expectation of privacy, being forced to give out their records on a mere request (from the RIAA or the government to look for money laundering.
Freedom is the absence of constraints on the acts you perform and not the presence of rules that govern the actions you are permitted to perform
Fact of the matter though to the people in office its not that simple. When you hold office you have to look at it from multiple points of view.
What is the lesser of the 2 evils, Pushing some minor rights to the side or ensuring another 9/11 doesn't happen.
False dilemma. Why does NASA need your credit card information? Does that help prevent another 9/11? Maybe it does, but that's why we have warrants: to demonstrate a need for otherwise private information.
We voted these people into office, they are doing what we asked them to do.. Serve and Protect us to the best of there ability.
Does that involve violating our "minor" 4th Amendment rights?
Except where this applies to copyright and patent law may I assume?
Oh...the hypocrisy. And on slashdot no less!
For the licenses, the majority just click next, or agree, etc... Those are the words which stick to memory.
I wonder if the entire license has to be crammed into one big button or they will make us click ~ 100 buttons consecutively!
If their expectation of privacy was low, why are they suing when it was violated? I didn't read the "change fee" rules, either - I want a free, last-minute itinerary change, upgraded to first class! The federal coddling of the airline business is the depths of hypocracy: after the billions in corporate welfare, bailouts, anticompetitive laws, monopoly protection, and total subsidies, all at your tax expense, the "free trade" administration has now made clear that passengers are merely the feast on which airlines dine.
--
make install -not war
You're a troll but I'll bite. She was forced to peel off her pants and have sex or else lose her life. That's rape right there.
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
In the linked PDF file, the judge notes that the plaintiffs DID read the privacy policy and their complaint is that it says their info will not be shared.
So wtf is with all the comments (including the editor comments) about EULAs being invalid if you don't read them?
Tiny font before an eye exam? What a combination! I wonder how many people that come in couldn't read it anyway.
The space unintentionally left unblank.
That's just a bizarre ruling. I mean, just because you don't read the fine print doesn't mean you can't assume some things are in there.
If a customer not reading a privacy policy means it's void, we've got a real problem. I could see websites figuring out how long a person looked at a privacy policy, or if they even clicked on one, and then selling their information willy-nilly if they think the customer didn't.
Honestly, these privacy policies (and EULAs) are legal constructs anyway, I think there ought to be some regulation of these things (after all, the government is required to enforce them).
What I'd like to see is simple 'ratings' for privacy policies. you could call them A, B, C, level 1-9 whatever. And they would correspond to specific guidelines indicating what you can and can't do with the data. Any deviation from the standard would only be to increase your privacy.
That way, rather then page after page of legal jargon, customers would see "This website follows level 3 privacy standards, with the exception that we won't email you." Or something.
I'd like to see the same thing done for EULAs, as well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Go buy a house, and tell the lender you will not sign away your right to sue and have arbitration instead.
See how far you get.
...I didn't read the law that says I can't kill someone, does that mean I'm still guilty of murder?
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
I read your whole post and failed to find a single mention of Dr. Dre or Eazy E.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
that the microsoft EULAs don't apply to me if I didn't read them, or that Dell's EULA doesn't apply to anyone because it doesn't come with the computers any more?
-Tim Louden
At least, as practiced by Ubersoft.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I wonder if this would work:
When you sign a purchase contract, staple a note to it containing 3 pages of legal verbiage. Somewhere near the bottom say, "customer reserves the right to void any terms of this contract at any time, and/or withhold payment for an indefinite period of time while assessing the value of the product or service." Then when the collections people come knocking, show them the contract with your clause highlighted and tell them to have a nice day.
Make sure you interrupt them at least a dozen times to re-read paragraphs.Tell them there's static on the line. Keep them going ON THEIR 800 nickel for at least an hour or two.
Finally, tell them you've changed your mind about the ticket and hang up.I figure they have at most about 1000 telephone reservation people at a given time - less late at night. It would be fairly easy to bring their reservation system to its knees by complying with this judge's requirements. After all, THEY made the rules - all you're doing is following them!
I'm wondering if the judge was just lazy and wanted this at a higher level, so he made an asinine ruling to get it bumped up on appeal. Doesn't make sense - he would get dinged for the crappy judgement at some point, but it's kinda like not vetoing a bill hoping the court will rule it invalid.
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...
I wonder about all those contracts on the computer that you just click a button that says "I agree." Are they now all invalid because you didn't sign them? What if you didn't read it? I always thought they were illegal anyway. All legal documents I know of have to be signed and dated. Now if the text is already backed by law, then there is no need of a contract. Say, if the wrong person clicked "I agree" no one would know. You could always come back on the ISP or "contract" provider that they have no proof that you clicked on the "contract." You could really get away with anything! Whatever is in the contract that is not backed up by a signature can be thrown out in court.
So we're supposed to blindly go access the web site with the article http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D08MNXC/ 04-04317.PDF without reading the privacy policy for the site? The courts don't seem to have a privacy policy.
Isn't the posting of a privacy policy and refusing to follow it Interstate fraud?
wake up and hold your nose
Why should ignorance of the privacy agreement change anything?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If privacy policies can't be enforced since people don't read them and hence "expectation of privacy is low", are EULAs unenforcable since companies know people don't read them?
Last post!
So if you take a picture of me naked through my bathroom window and publish it, you've violated my privacy. Take the same picture with me on my front lawn, and you haven't.
That being said, I think it's a terrible standard in the modern world, because it allows for the general erosion of privacy as we expect less and less - we no longer expect our purchases to be private, for example. As technology allows more and more of our information to be public, we lose more and more privacy. It's our own cynicism eating away at our legal rights.
There ought to be a new standard, but I haven't a clue as to what it would be.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
the post seems resonable to me. he was making a point that there is a difference between national security and minor crimes. i guess that must have gone over the head of the moderator who modded it flaimbait.
Would the same apply to and End User License Agreement?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Agreements between parties cannot be one-way. In fact, I would believe (standard disclaimer: IANAL-BWI -- IANAL But Who Is?) the moment NorthWest published their privacy policy, they unilaterally bound themselves to it regardless of passenger actions.
The case should be appealed.
The Appeals Court should promptly reinstate it.
This judge should be immediately removed for incompetence.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
_I_ for one read do, goddamit, read privacy statements, and the dark-grey-on-light-grey fine print on the back of auto rental agreements, and so forth. I read whatever I sign. OK, sometimes I skim it pretty quickly if there is a long line behind me.
Is the court saying that what I do doesn't count, since most people don't read them? (Sorta like the FDA saying that it's OK for fish to have higher levels of mercury than other foods because most people don't eat that much fish...)
Does this mean that whenever I get one of these fine-print things I now need to ask someone at the airline, bank, etc. to initial a statement saying that they have seen me read it and understand that I am expecting them to live up to it?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Since it seems a company won't be held liable if I don't read their policy, why should this be any different?
Are there any third party sites that rank the EULA of other sites? I'd love to see a system with clear "icons" of explanation similar to how creative commons dies theirs (except for ranking EULA/privacy instead of content usage).. I'd love to see NWAir with a little icon of the FBI for "bends over for the feds"... maybe a few other similar ideas. (icon for "0wn3d" if they are known to have been hacked in the past 6 months or so, etc). I can think of a whole slew of little icons. Then you can create a little toolbar/addin to IE/Moz that shows you the "status" of the site you are visiting.
meh
Because that is a law. Ignorance does not release you from following the law.
so do I owe that to you now? No!
Generally speaking (if I remember correctly), an oral contract would be "I promise to pay you 200, if you do 'X', you agree to do X"
A contract typically consists of
- An offer (Will you do X?)
- Acceptance (Yes I will do X)
- Consideration ($200)
of course there are usually different terms for what constitutes performance, etc.Also, typically for contracts above $500 the statute of frauds aome into play, i.e. contracts above $500 must be in writing to be enforceable.
Assumming they aren't shipped off for a one-way vacation to Gitmo first...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
but various EULA or ToS 'contracts' also tend to include a clause "we can change this at any time, without telling you, and it's your job to check if we've changed it, in the mean time we'll assume that you agree to the changes".
uuuuuh, right. They can change the agreement without telling me and it still be legally binding.
If a company did change their EULA so that usage of the software was against it, sent a letter saying "we're gonna sue you because you've broken x-million laws in violating our EULA" and someone settled, would they then have a case for obtaining money by deception?
FGD 135
Funny thing - that isn't what I remember. I remember our President sitting there on his ass reading to kids after hearing about the second plane hitting. He didn't get an angry look, he didn't look fearful (good thing), he didn't look dismayed, he didn't look agitated in any way. He just sat there continuing to read. This was at least 15-30 minutes (according to various timelines I have seen) after the both planes had hit, and two others were known to be on thier way. The Vice-President was nearly bodily carried out by the Secret Service to a bunker as our President sat there getting the news - then he just kept on reading.
It almost seemed like it didn't surprise him - like he knew more than he was letting on. It was also curious how later that day (and several times in the following weeks) he made mention of seeing the first plane hit the WTC - even though video of this wasn't available until the following day, September 12!!!
Oh, and where is the forensic evidence and investigation on why and how the towers fell? They carted away the steel and the rest of the building faster than anything I have seen! Where are the parts of the planes that hit (something had to be left - what about the black boxes)? Why haven't we the people heard or gotten vetted transcripts of those tapes?
Finally, what the heck happenned at the Pentagon? Why were the pictures of the plane's engines showing engines much smaller than what is on an actual 757? Why do they look like engines from a small fighter plane or cruise missle? What was that fleeting image from the security camera that flashed by immediately before the Pentagon was struck (it didn't have the profile of a jumbo jet, that is a certainty)?
Why is it that nobody in the mainstream media or otherwise are asking these questions? I want answers, real answers. At this point, I don't care who did it - I just want the truth. That truth may be mundane, or it may be absolutely frightening - but damnit, I am an adult, and I can deal with the facts.
Unfortunately, we will probably NEVER KNOW...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
You say:
Not that I would ever give my liberty away, but if it means a few weeks of less rights for years of greater security I am all for it.
But you have given many of your liberties away, thanks to the PATRIOT Act and numerous other pieces of legislation (both recent and those during Clinton's reign) - several of your rights have been gone for YEARS now - do you feel safer, and more free? Huh?
So if the police search a house where they think there are drugs, but do not get a warrent, even if they find drugs that person can not be charged based on that evidence.
True in theory, but what happens in practice is far worse. Even if the search was illegal (and with the PATRIOT Act's "sneak-and-peek" warrants - you will never know), your life is turned upside down. I have seen a house after it was "raided" (with a proper warrant, I might add) - cabinet doors ripped off the hinges, holes busted in the walls and ceiling, carpet ripped up, etc - searches aren't all "proper and nice" like you see on TV (hell, if you watch enough COPS, you sometimes do see what happens in a real search, but rarely). Your property is destroyed. Some of it may be taken. You have to go to court and fight to get it back (if there wasn't a warrant). Even if there was a warrant, and you are later found innocent of any charges - it is hell to get your property back, if you ever do. Typically, when you do, it is smashed or otherwise damaged.
This isn't the work of a government "of the people, by the people, for the people" - this is tyrannical in so many ways. If you can't see this, you are blind.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
If you actually take the time to read the judgement (I know, reading articles before commenting is bad form on slashdot), you'll realise:
The privacy policy was one minor point in a long list of much more salient points. Every single one of those points were struck down first.
What the judge was saying was that the vast majority of the case's real merits were struck down. With this one point left, which was frankly tacked on the end to try and just add some additional weight, it alone isn't strong enough to hold up the whole case.
Imagine the RIAA came after someone and sued them for mass producing CDs, of violating copyrights across the globe, of harming legitimate sources of revenues to the turn of tens of millions of dollars, oh, and also copying other people's CDs for your own personal use. If the defendent could then prove the whole case was bullsh*t except for the last point, we'd be hailing the judge for throwing out the case as being, to all intents and purposes, groundless.
Sure, the RIAA could replead the case on the one debatable point but they certainly couldn't maintain it in the form it was originally presented.
In the same way, the case against NorthWest might be debatable in the significantly more limited form of soley being about violating the privacy policy but, in its current form, it can't be maintained.
The only problem is: Violating a privacy policy entitles people to... well most privacy policies entitle you to third party arbitration and the arbitration board will likely say, "Very bad, don't do it again." (NW's policy doesn't even specify that) It was the other charges, which were actual laws, that had the potential for a massive punative payout.
To keep the case moving forward, the lawyers needed the potential of a big payday. That's the real reason this is an issue - because they were trying to hang a big payday off something much smaller in an attempt to keep the non-justified but bigger issues in play.
In that regard, the judge was right to kill the overall case.
I liked your example. I recently got a 2004 Juno nominee [Canadian music awards] CD in the mail. The envelope was marked as coming from Frito-Lay, and inside was a claim form that I had to mail back to Safeway. It must have been a club card promotinon, I suppose, as I don't remember entering such a contest, nor was I aware of one.
:-D I didn't agree to any contest rules, either.
I sold the CD to a co-worker and never bothered to return the claim form. It seems that they should give you the prize after you fill in the claim form
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Only then will we be safe from another 9/11.
You didn't read our contract, so we're not bound by it. That's the subtext.
No, it means that even the court system is corrupt, and willing to bend-over for corporate interests, while screwing the individual.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It is astonishing that the judge seems to suggest that by not reading a contract, one is not bound to its terms!
I read the handy PDF link, and I don't think the judge is suggesting that at all.
The judge is saying that the plaintiffs failed to claim that they had read Northwest's privacy policy; therefore, the plaintiffs could not have relied on the privacy policy. To me, it looks more like a deficiency in the plaintiff's pleading than anything else. It would be like, say, suing a store for cheating you on an advertised price from a newspaper, but failing to claim that you had read the newspaper ad. It doesn't mean that privacy policies (or newspaper ads) are not binding; it just means that if a plaintiff wants to sue somebody for violating their policy/ad, the plaintiff better get their ducks in order and state that they read the policy/ad and then relied on it for their purchase decision.
Later on in the memo, this judge does slag the privacy policy on other grounds, though.
I have to agree with you, from reading the judge's memo, it looks like the plaintiffs left several critical elements out of their complaint. I'm saying this without actually seeing the complaint though -- just the judge's reaction to it.
(And thanks for teaching me about dicta).
As far as the pentagon - look at the facts, there are plenty of sites on the internet, that have speculations linked to actual news story archives (except in the cases where the story has been moved or deleted - I have seen this happen, read the story on the site, follow the link, it is there - it gets popular, then the reffered site off the speculation site pulls or moves the story). These stories show engines and other parts, in which case the engines are smaller than what is in a jumbo jet. Numerous witnesses report being flung about inside the building - this is more inline with a bomb or cruise missle, not a plane. The plane was supposed to have mostly crumpled in the outer wall area - photos of the pentagon show penetration all the way inward to some of the inner walls (lots of reinforced concrete walls and columns for an easily shatterable metal tube to penetrate - which is it?)...
Regardless, we have yet to see or hear what was on the black boxes - nobody has. There have been plenty of plane accidents in the past which reduced the aircraft to "tiny bits", but there has always been a black box left, or at least recognizable pieces of it. But in all these planes, none were found. Nobody is asking about it (well, except some people on the internet).
I don't know what the answers are. I certainly wonder about the actions which occurred. I am not saying none of this happenned - something most definitely did happen. What I am saying, though, is that there seems to be either misdirection or coverup over what really did happen. We already know this administration lies, or at least severely distorts the truth (ah, hell, who am I kidding - they are lying. Now, they are flopping back to the whole "War in Iraq because of Al Queda" - WTF about "Weapons of Mass Destruction"? Oh, I guess that was last weeks "waffling"...
Why do you think I am nuts? Because I question the lack of evidence? War is being perpetrated in my name as a citizen - I demand absolute proof of what happened. I, nor anybody else, has seen any of that proof - three years should be more than enough time to come up with it.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Shoe Lane said "No, piss off! Our terms and conditions, displayed on the ticket and at the entrance to the parking station say that it's not our problem if you are injured on our premises. Your entry into the car park implies acceptance of our terms".
My Thornton says "No, you piss off" and proceeds to brief a brief. (English legal joke, prolly won't work in America, although the concept of sueing people at the drop of a hat probably will!!
Anyhoo, it eventually made it all the way to the English High Court. After much careful consideration, Lord Justice Denning MR found for the plaintiff (Thornton). Held that Shoe Lane couldn't avoid responsibility because they couldn't show that Thornton knew of and understood the conditions. Lord Denning said...
"No customer in a thousand ever read the conditions"
Because it was the High Court, and on a matter of law that hadn't been thoroughly considered in that context before, the finding passed into England's common law. It it adopted by Australia and other Commonwealth countries in lieu of any other more binding statute or common law.
That little tid-bit is maybe the only thing I ever remembered from first year Law, but it stuck with me. I happily click "OK" at EULAs and take tickets presented by parking machines without ever considering the contents of the conditions (I actually make a point of looking the other way!!!) because I know that the law says that I didn't read the conditions! :-)
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Tim
Shrinkwrap and clickwrap licenses work about the same. They passively show you a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo and by continuting to use the product you "show" that you agreed to the contract.
So if it isn't enforcable on one side why should it be for the other?
So it depends on the type of walkie-talkies.