TOS Agreements Require Giving Up First Born -- and Users Gladly Consent

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: A recent study concludes what everybody already knows: nobody reads the lengthy terms of service and privacy policies that bombard Internet users every day. Nobody understands them. They're too long, and they often don't make sense. A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn't bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called "NameDrop" that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway. "This brings us to the biggest lie on the Internet, which anecdotally, is known as 'I agree to these terms and conditions,'" the study found. The paper is called "The biggest lie on the Internet: Ignoring the privacy policies and terms of service policies of social networking services".This reminds me of a similar thing F-Secure security firm did in 2014. It asked London residents to give them their first child in exchange of free Wi-Fi access. The company, for the record, didn't collect any children.

Comments

Well it sounded like a joke EULA

[Kjella]

Sure, my first born... *laugh* then click "suuuuuuuure I accept", if they made some plausible sounding but ominous legalese they might have had some people refuse.

Re:Everyone knows this, why it continues is beyond

[BarbaraHudson]

Be careful - that is a pre-birth surrogacy agreement. Surrogacy agreements are valid in some states, all of Canada except Quebec, all of Australia, New Zealand, and of course Russia.

Re:Law and Equity

[dgatwood]

The law would invalidate it because it isn't the sort of thing that a reasonable person would expect to find in a contract of this type, and because the contract term would probably be per se illegal anyway.

Re:Law and Equity

[rahvin112]

You are significantly mistaken. The courts don't throw out "unreasonable" contracts people willingly agree to. You are perfectly able to sign rights away and most of the US courts will uphold that quite willingly and enforce it. In all but California you can sign away your right to be employed in the only field you are qualified to work in (non-compete clauses), only in Cali are these clauses illegal specifically because they were made illegal by the California legislature.

Now this first born clause would be thrown out for a very simple reason. It's not legal to sell babies, any clause that purports to do so is void as a matter of law. In general any clause that purports to sell people is not legal because you can't own a person in the US. This is the reason slavery contracts aren't legal even if both parties are willing.

As a general rule, the only contract clauses that will be tossed after willingly agreeing to them are clauses that are illegal as a matter of law or if you were under duress or mentally incompetent when the contract was signed. I'd happily sign a contract with a first born clause because there is no way such a clause would be upheld, the other stuff not so much.

The courts don't care if you read the contract or not, you signed it, you will be held to it. And clicking X is signing it in the US.

Re:Law and Equity

[dgatwood]

You are significantly mistaken. The courts don't throw out "unreasonable" contracts people willingly agree to.

The legal term for this is "unconscionable", not "unreasonable", and yes, the courts do throw them out routinely—particularly in contracts of adhesion. Stanford Law Review vol. 63:869-906 gives a good summary of how the courts have fixed various unconscionable contracts and other unfair contracts.