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General Mills Retracts "No Right to Sue" EULA Clause

Posted by timothy on from the such-ungrateful-customers dept.

Just a few days after General Mills changed its policies to declare that people who so much as "liked" their page on Facebook thereby waived their right to sue the company in favor of arbitration, the company has reversed itself: "The announcement resulted in huge backlash on social media, as well as from consumer groups. Legal experts expressed doubts it could ever be enforced. Hamline Law Professor David Schultz appeared on WCCO Sunday Morning. “When I first saw this earlier this week I said this is questionable at best from a legal point of view,” he said. “From a marketing point of view, it’s a dumb idea, too, but legally it didn’t rest on very sound grounds so it’s not a surprise that they are reversing it. The lawyers at General Mills should have known better.”

4 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Lawyers by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is the kind of thing that happens when lawyers aren't kept on a short enough leash. They can't stop regurgitating into the legal documents they produce and you end up with this kind of complete and total stupidity. If the company really wants to save face they should fire the entire lot of them. Unless the executives are that afraid of the litigious cretins.

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    Better known as 318230.
  2. Joke about lawyers by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "... when lawyers aren't kept on a short enough leash"

    Here is a typical joke about lawyers in the United States: There was a terrible tragedy. A van carrying 5 lawyers went over a cliff. What was the tragedy? There was room for 1 more lawyer.

    The common underlying feeling is that the legal profession in the U.S. is often out of control.

    This is interesting: What country in the world has most lawyers per capita? Answer: The United States. There is one lawyer for every 265 Americans.

    1. Re:Joke about lawyers by geminidomino · · Score: 5, Funny

      No kidding. These guys make breakfast cereal for chrissakes. If they want to openly express contempt for their customers like that, without any backlash, they need to get into game development.

  3. Re:"Like" General Mills? by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Often, you have to 'like' their pages on Facebook in order to participate in contests and the like. People love the possibility of getting free stuff, so they happily click 'like' to enter the contest, and then forget about it moments later.

    Somebody obviously saw this as a sneaky way of possibly getting their customers to actively sign away their right to sue.

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    Eat the rich.