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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 human centipede episode. Enough said.
The problem is they are very long, and often express very little. They are mostly defining the terms used, and written in a way to avoid loopholes...
Which I understand why, because people will find ways around contracts, however, this makes the document increasingly difficult to follow and for many to really understand for a simple topic.
Most software Terms of services.
1. Don't give a copy to someone else
2. Don't sue us if something goes wrong
Of course these simple terms one can be tricky. By Copy, That means I can manipulate a readme file so it is no longer a copy.
Can I sue if you Something goes right. Or that copy from my friend with that newer license.txt file didn't state anything about not suing you.
There are too many people trying to trick the system, vs just enduring it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The problem is, that the T&C are *deliberately* written to hide as many pitfalls as physically possible, so that an any conceivable case, *you* are the one who is duped, and they always have a "get out of jail free" card for when they fuck up, so that they only have to point at the T&C, and go "But you knew and agreed to this impossible-to-interpret-that-way-until-you-are-told-and-then-convincingly-'obvious' term right there on page 24 referring to page 2 and 9 indirectly as stated on page 13, all in 6pt font!".
It's the brainchild of a sociopathic (actually aka psychopathic) mind that has only a single goal and no qualms of walking over dead bodies, if it gets away with it and there is a buck to be made.
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?
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.
Haha... Dear company, thank you for assuming the responsibility of raising my offspring, please make child support checks payable to John Smith and send them to 123 Easy St, Anytown, Anystate 12345 USA.
admittedly with a prize significantly lower than 10k, but still a valuable prize. But I did not put the text into some "terms & conditions" jungle, but in the monthly reports that I am asked to write by the supervisor of my supervisor, which is "assumed" to be read by everyone reporting to that supervisor. Guess what, so far no winner found my competition text. But I won a lot of time learning how stupid it would be of me to put significant effort into these reports. They just need to fill a page.
It's called the advertising budget. The moment they paid out that money they got coverage in the news all over the world.
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