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UK Investigates Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo Over Game Subscription Plans (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Variety:
The United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching a consumer law investigation into video game companies Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo over some of their business practices, it announced on Friday.
The CMA is concerned about whether or not some of the companies' practices are legal, including their use of auto-renewals for subscription services like Xbox Live, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online. It's also looking into their cancellation and refund policies and their terms and conditions. It said it's written to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft requesting information on their online gaming contracts and it's calling on people who use these services to tell the CMA about their experiences.
The CMA is concerned about whether or not some of the companies' practices are legal, including their use of auto-renewals for subscription services like Xbox Live, PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo Switch Online. It's also looking into their cancellation and refund policies and their terms and conditions. It said it's written to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft requesting information on their online gaming contracts and it's calling on people who use these services to tell the CMA about their experiences.
BrExit gonna cost so gotta pay for it somehow. Get the rich Americans to pay for it.
I'm sure that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo would never do anything sleazy or sneaky or underhanded or downright illegal. I mean, not after being caught so many times before...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It blows my mind at how many subscriptions we 'need' nowadays for some semblance of a social life! In the UK you don't get any sport for example unless you pay, and then each sport may be carved up between multiple providers, meaning a subscription for each. I realise these are all classed as luxury items but try telling that to teens with mates to hang out with.
You only need one subscription: Internet subscription.
Am to I understand that teens are subscribing to shit now?
Where are their fathers to teach them how to pirate?
Why are teens so effeminate these days?
You tell those teens to stop being cucks, and download some free shit RIGHT NOW. Fag.
Wow. You red-scare boomers are FUCKING STUPID.
If you go around equating consumer protection to socialism, you're actually promoting socialism.
So thanks for that.
Those terms are not legally enforceable, though they use extralegal means to enforce them: you have to pursue the court case to get them to NOT use it, the program does what it's programmed to do, and the corporations just say "Well, it's for the *convenience*, and nobody is holding a gun to their head!!!". Auto renewals are not contractually legal since you do not actually agree to the renewal, making it REALLY hard to enforce the "agreed" contract. The companies get away with it because unless you're REALLY wealthy or connected, you're not going to be able to afford the legal costs.
There's no need to "not agree to the terms of service", for a start, as said, a renewal is not you agreeing, it is them agreeing for you, so you're not in the contract. Secondly it is a contract of adhesion and though they DO put "this does not affect your statutory rights", they never actually bother to say what those rights are: and agreement is not allowed to be agreed away.
But since they have such cocksucking idiots as yourself fighting for them in FUD and lies, I don't see them changing ways until the governments tell them to fuck off.