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Click Like? You May Have Given Up the Right To Sue
sandbagger (654585) writes "The New York Times reports that General Mills, the maker of cereals like Cheerios and Chex as well as brands like Bisquick and Betty Crocker, has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, or 'join' it in social media communities. Who'd have imagined that clicking like requires a EULA?"
They could also write in that if I click 'like' on a cereal facebook page I would have to kill myself, but that doesn't make it legally binding.
We need an E.L.E. ASAP!
Consideration.
yeah, that will stand up in court. Really the people who put that in there should be fired. It will only end with a lawsuit and bad PR
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Shit
General Mills... has quietly added language to its website to alert consumers that they give up their right to sue the company if they download coupons, or 'join' it in social media communities
It might even be worse than that, according to an interview I heard on NPR earlier - the language of General Mills' new terms appears to include merely purchasing any of their products as a method of forcing you to waive your right to sue.
Of course, they also said one could "opt-out" by sending an email to the company... Anybody got a list of everybody's email addresses?
"Everybody" as in, every-fucking-body.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Never forget!
and this ought to cement it. nobody reads that stuff. not even the lawyers. Microsoft was forced to allow refunds. some other cases ruled that click-through terms may be invalid for some claims. keep on keeping on, and if General Mills wants to waste lawyers generating snarky comments all over the public space, have at it. you will lose face.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Since Facebook seems to think that "usability" is a four-letter word, I found that http://www.manageyourlikes.com is an excellent way to trim your likes.
Evil is as eval("does");
I can "Like" General Mills Chex without liking General Mills. They can't enforce this any more than I can force them to pay me because I'm their customer. There's no offer, there's no consideration, and there's no acceptance - there isn't even an offer *of* anything. Whichever moron expected this to work clearly needs to take contract law 101.
This landgrab by companies to admonish themselves of any and all responsibility and liability for anything whatsoever runs contrary to the basic social contract. Yes, you ARE bound by that because your company is an American one. It sits on American soil. It follows the laws of the land. Period.
Seriously. The level of stupid is reaching...stupid levels.
Companies like these are trying to take a page out of the software industry playbook. Nice Try but I doubt if I buy a Chevy in the future it will eliminate their liability should the ignition fail while driving it or I happen to use a $10 off oil change coupon at one of their dealerships. Likewise if General Mills says you can't sue them because you like them on Facebook or use a coupon won't protect them should you get poisoned from a box of Cheerios.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
IANAL, but can I send them this? Note that I would include my name and birth year per their legal requirements if I decide to send it.
Any attempt to contact me via phone, email, or newspaper, constitutes acceptance of these legal terms. Any coupons for products produced by your company that are sent to me without my explicit request or that show up in an advertisement on the internet confirm your agreement to these terms.
I do not agree to binding arbitration. I do not agree to any terms which General Mills has proscribed. I hereby agree to ignore any response, and only to send bills in the amount of $100,000.00 to General Mills if I receive a response. If I currently have any existing customer relationship with General Mills I hereby declare that relationship null and void. Any coupons from General Mills which arrive in my mailbox or in my email will result in a $10,000.00 per coupon recycling charge.
ANY attempt to reply to my email will cost General Mills $100,000.00. There are no exceptions. If you disagree, if you think these terms are unfair, the only acceptable way to avoid payment of these terms that I have proscribed is to change your legal terms: http://generalmills.com/Legal_... to something compatible with US Constitutional law.
Again, I am not bound by your legal terms. If your legal team finds some way that I am inadvertently bound by your legal terms (e.g. member of a particular website, that I was not aware was owned by General Mills), then General Mills owes me $100,000.00 and is required to remove me from that website at its own expense. If after that removal, you find that I'm still somehow related to General Mills in anyway, that will be another $100,000.00. So get it right the first time! Because I explicitly requested not to be bound by your legal terms and this notice serves as a record of that statement per your own legal terms.
Click-through agreements fail for certain specific things. Just like at a retail store how their posted policies can only cover so much ground. The question is about the scope of the terms, not the existence of terms. Certain things require a more rigorous and explicit form of consent. But most of the boilerplate nonsense is just fine as a click-through/shrinkwrap agreement.
...it just makes me want to sue them on principle.
Dark Reflection
Until we hear about this actually holding up in court, which I highly doubt it will. Large companies are preemptively covering their asses in any way they can by flinging shit against the wall and seeing what sticks. I imagine that they've done this in several other ways that also wouldn't be likely to stand up in court, but if any one method does, then the payoff is huge so it makes sense to do it.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
My rights to sue are forbidden.
I don't have a cite but it's been challenged in court and found to be an unobtainable right (USA).
Obviously the Supreme Court has fallen into dogmatic hell and we can not count on sane or fair decisions from our courts. But even considering that state of affairs such a defensive device by corporations probably would not hold up in court and they know that well enough. But what it will do is add more difficulty and expense to challenging them in court. Far too few people can afford to enter into a dispute when they are harmed as it is. This disclaimer will simply shrink the number of potential suits by raising the difficulty of recovery just one more, little bit.
print a sign saying by reading this I'm not responsible for theft and you will not do anything to me. Hang it over your self and go to town at stores, banks and more.
Since 99% of the people have never read a ToS, it's safe to assume it won't be a problem, ignorance of the law is a defense.
If clicking 'like' where I have no way to read to and agree to a contract stands up in court, can I also email them a contract of my own telling them that by accepting my 'like' then they are bound to the terms of my contract?
The model is unsustainable and it's well known that by mid century important resources will be depleted and that the Earth will not be able to feed the ever growing population. Just be patient , they are on a crash course to disaster , famine ,poverty and death. They will pay a high price for their lifestyle : the end of the capitalist system and society.
No, ignorance of the contract is a defense - without a meeting of the minds there is no contract. Ignorance of the law will still absolutely get you penalized, incarcerated, etc. if you break it. But in one case you're talking about a private party or company and yourself, in the other you're talking about your relationship to the state.
Don't buy their products. Boycott.
Corporations only listen to their bottom line, and we can make a lot of noise by simply not buying and encouraging everyone we know to do the same.
Sadly, I was not a fan of General Mills' products to begin with. Fortunately, it'll make a boycott for me rather painless.
But sending a message that this sort of behavior is unacceptable would be a good thing.
... that we have courts to redress grievances so that people can go there instead of, you know, forming a mob and lynching somebody. Does this mean that General Mills is now OK with the ropes and torches and all that whenever someone gets sick or thinks they got sick from a General Mills product? Fantastic.
Municipalities should simply place a large tax on items sold with an arbitration clause. Then General Mills can watch what happens to there market share as people learn Tastee O's taste pretty damn similar to Cheerio's. And on another front, I guess minors will no longer be able to buy food because they are not old enough to enter binding contracts of any form?
It occurred to me, maybe if we, as in as many of us as possible, crafted asinine EULA's for communicating with each other, then sueing each other over breaches.. if we all started doing this, flooding the court system with all these retarded EULA's which we created just to be jerks to the system.. how do you think the legal system in the USA would respond?
Could be interesting!
I think small claims court is an under utilized weapon that we have. Everyone wants to sue big. We need a lot of people to start nickle and dime these companies in small claims court. In my state it costs $35 and claims could be up to $3000. The company can send only one person and it cannot be a lawyer. We can file in our local towns and they would have to travel there. Odds are, they will settle.
Please, give me even more reason to not buy food-like substances. I also appreciate another reason to not use Facebook. It's time we support sustainable economies and the slow-food movement and leave prepared crap behind. These companese use legalese because their products are not real food anyway. Eat a healthy breakfast, chomp on an apple or banana if you don't have time. Just don't support these cancers to society. I am giving GNU Social a try, bring power back to the users, to the people.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
see, the bankruptcy discharge for Bad Old GM stated that it was the place to sue for defects in cars made under their watch. New GM is now testing that by petitioning the bankruptcy court to honor that agreement, since a bunch of lawyers are now circling them due to the blood in the water over the funky ignition switches and keylocks.
there is, of course, no Bad Old GM left.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Title says it all.
I was predisposed to hate this movie.. They changed my mind very quickly. .. you are almost certainly wrong about what happened and are being endangered by a great number of things you are signing away..
If you think you know the story, and are even close to the average american in listening habits
The one thing the founding fathers gave us to defend ourselves in these cases is the right to sue.... and one case at a time that is being taken away.
http://www.hotcoffeethemovie.com/Default.asp
Microsoft states in their EULA that you can get a refund (but you already knew that since you read it, right?). Using that as an example gives power to the EULAs.
However, I've never understood the "I don't agree" button. The license says that if I don't agree then I can't use the software and have to press that button. However since I'm not agreeing with that text, I'm also not agreeing with their request to not click the ok button. The software still installs itself...
The european union has made laws that are against this.
Like for example agreement to EULA does not waive the right for class action lawsuits or lawsuits.
Take for example the EA games EULA from the US and compare it to the european one there will be several big differences in there.
Same goes for Steam has a entire different set of EULA compared to the US.
Wasn't there a whole raft of decisions about the validity of 'click-wrap' licenses and EULA's? My memory's pretty rotten, but it seems to me that there were quite a few companies that were obliged to rethink their EULA's not that long ago for many of the same reasons that are present here.
brainless slugs don't read the EULA... then again who does?
http://www.citizen.org/forced-arbitration-rogues-gallery
When will the lying stop? That is, when will licenses, which are lies, cease to exist?
10,372 people liked this.
what's the point of following the law when the legal system is a sham? how is "binding arbitration" legal? how can you force employees into arbitration? fuck it. we know it's an oligarchy so lets just kill the fascists who took over and implement a constitutional democracy. time to reboot a broken system
'nuf said.
That's the only way to get companies to stop doing shit like this. Hit them where it hurts...the bottom line.
In Europe (this applies only to the 28 EU members and also EEA/EFTA members [including Switzerland]) member states this is against EU laws on consumer protection. I don't know if this is the case in the U.S since I don't understand the U.S legal system as it today.
I have never clicked like. You can ask me anything (AMA)
Thanks General Mills, that makes it pretty simple. I know what cereal I won't be buying.
So if I ever thought (or said) that I like you then I can't sue you (take legal action)? Tell that to anyone that's been divorced...
it is called an arbitrage clause. You do not have to use coupons.
there was some way to only read the parts that were relevant to you. You'd need a Table to put all the Contents on though, and we all know no table can survive are tax code.
Com'on. Laws are complicated because the real *bleepin'* world is complicated. Ideas and principles don't hold up to reality. Sooner or later you have to either sit down and do the hard work of making thinks work or let it go to hell and stick your fingers in your ears.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Oh wait, "click" -- I thought it said "chicks".
Pursuant to your request that I enter into arbitration in place of a civil suit, I kindly refer you to the response proposed in Arkell v Pressdram
Have gnu, will travel.
Excuse me while I try to get them to follow me on Twitter because I just wrote on a piece of paper: "If GM follows me on Twitter then they owe me $5 million dollars and cannot contest this in a court of law." Thus, by following me on Twitter, they will have entered into the super-secret contract. Don't worry, though, I plan on splitting the money with the rest of my followers.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Wow! What a completely complex, extremely costly to implement, impractical and hard to enforce law, you've dreamed up there.
All Froot Loops flavors are NOT the same!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you like something, why would you want to sue them?
Technically, clicking "unlike" removes you from the EULA.. You are now longer a end user.......
Simple? Yes.
News? Only when they use this in a court case.
I think we might want to re-evaluate the ability to sign away our right to sue. That should probably be one of those rights that you explicitly can't sign away. The ruling should go something along the lines of, an agreement cannot made that infringes the rights of a person to make claim of corporate wrongdoing. It's always felt like a cop-out, an outright "We're breaking the law but you agreed not to call us on it" - let's call the system on it.
But just because I said "I like them" does mean I can't sue for damages if instead of a cherrio, I swallow a razor blade that broke off some machine. My love can only go so far....
The EFF has actually published a document comparing the different ways users can agree to TOS online. A "clickwrap" requires the user to engage in a "I have read and agree" type checkbox, and is generally accepted in courts as binding. A "browsewrap" is more along the lines of "by continuing to use this site, you agree". These have been held under tighter scrutiny by courts.
The Clicks That Bind: Ways Users "Agree" to Online Terms of Service