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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.
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
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
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?
The release date of Skyrim?
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");
Wait.. is that date in American or European format?
Neither. It's in ISO format but the year is truncated.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
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.
...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).
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.
The Like button has created a quandary for millions. It may be possible for you to "unlike" something, but that has not nearly the force of a "dislike" button. In order to get your voice heard at all, one has to "Like" the product to become associated with it. Then you can rant and rave about how bad it is. This makes about as much sense as clicking "Start" to shutdown your computer.
The "Like" button also doesn't provide the expression one needs when confronted with a post such as 'My mom just died." What do you do? Like it? Not Like it? Dislike might be a better choice in this instance as well.
Of course, Facebook wouldn't allow a Dislike button. That would be too negative.
So, just don't use Facebook, or acknowledge the existence thereof.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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?
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?
10,372 people liked this.
Nah. By downloading their web page to my computer they are accepting my EULA agreement.
Nonsense. It doesn't add a single synaptic transaction of difficulty or a single cent of expense to challenging them.
'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.
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...
There's no offer, there's no consideration, and there's no acceptance - there isn't even an offer *of* anything.
I know you didn't read TFA, but you could have at least read the summary:
...if they download coupons, or 'join' it in social media communities.
Coupons constitute something of value (consideration). Arguably, so do membership and participation in the social media communities. General Mills is offering those to users; the users accept when they click OK to join or download.
Just because they're of little value doesn't mean they're not consideration. Courts generally will not look to determine whether the consideration is adequate; it's up to the contracting parties to make that decision.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
But how do you know which parts are relevant to you?
I mean, you might think a little thing like the Constitution is perfectly clear when it lays out the rules for regulating interstate commerce. I bet you didn't know that growing wheat on your own small farm and eating it yourself is interstate commerce.
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.
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've forgotten already...what am I supposed to be remembering?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
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.
Have you read the tax law? Our Tax code should be a few hundred pages at most! The majority of the 74,000 pages we have today are not because the US is so complicated. It's so that certain people get the loopholes that they want and lobby to get. Lobby has become a legal synonym to Bribery today.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I mean, you might think a little thing like the Constitution is perfectly clear when it lays out the rules for regulating interstate commerce.
Anyone who has read the Constitution would know that it is certainly not perfectly clear in laying out the rules for regulation of interstate commerce. Why would anyone think that it is?
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
Because of the definitions of inter, state, and commerce.
Or since I apparently can't edit and my memory is faulty, the definitions of the words that make up "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"