Slashdot Mirror
Woman Wins $10,000 For Reading Fine Print of Terms and Conditions of Travel Insurance Policy (npr.org)
Georgia high school teacher Donelan Andrews won a $10,000 reward after she closely read the terms and conditions that came with a travel insurance policy she purchased for a trip to England. Squaremouth, a Florida insurance company, had inserted language promising a reward to the first person who emailed the company. NPR reports: "We understand most customers don't actually read contracts or documentation when buying something, but we know the importance of doing so," the company said. "We created the top-secret Pays to Read campaign in an effort to highlight the importance of reading policy documentation from start to finish." Not every company is so generous. To demonstrate the importance of reading the fine print, many companies don't give; they take. The mischievous clauses tend to pop up from time to time, usually in cheeky England. The report continues to highlight a number of different cases where companies have intentionally inserted unusual clauses into their terms of service, knowing people wouldn't read them. Here's one such case: A few years earlier, several Londoners agreed (presumably inadvertently) to give away their oldest child in exchange for Wi-Fi access. Before they could get on the Internet, users had to check a box agreeing to "assign their first born child to us for the duration of eternity." According to the Guardian, six people signed up, but the company providing the Wi-Fi said the clause likely wouldn't be enforceable in a court of law. "It is contrary to public policy to sell children in return for free services," the company explained.
The most common clause that I've come across is one for photographs. F*ckbook is one that "owns" any photos uploaded to the site. It's actually written quite clearly in the UA. Once I found that out, I started looking more closely at places that asked me to upload photos.
I was trying to get some large prints made up of some photos that I had taken. Most places will only do up to a certain size in shop; for larger prints, I was asked to upload a copy of the file to their corporate website, the image would be made to the size requested and then sent to the local store for pickup. After reading through the agreement prior to uploading the picture, I found these places all claim to own the picture once uploaded. These were places like Walmart, Costco, Black's Photography... they all had the same clause.
I know what some of you are thinking... who the fuck cares... for me it was the principle of it. This is my picture, and if by some slim chance I take an absolutely perfect picture that someone wants to purchase, I would risk getting sued because anyplace that I've uploaded it to could claim copyright on it.
I still skim over UA's or EUA's every now and again. However, I more times than not, I read them... we can always use reading material on the shitter...
that reward went unclaimed? How long was it our there before someone noticed?