> Also not a surprise when a judge orders you to restore access because your agreement is invalid.
That's not what happened here, there has been no ruling on any agreement, and the injunction order that was given only applies to HiQ, only temporarily, and nobody else. It is not a statement on the validity of EULAs or of LinkedIn's EULA, and it is not a statement on whether LinkedIn is being anti-competetive. It is an injunction and nothing else.
I think you've mischaracterized the state of things. In the underlying case, LinkedIn asserted that HiQ violated the CFAA and HiQ said LinkedIn tortiously interfered with its business. The trial court said LinkedIn couldn't assert the CFAA. LinkedIn appealed, asking the appellate court to overturn the trial court and also to hold that the tortious interference claim is preempted by the CFAA. The appellate court said no, we agree with the trial court and there's no preemption, so now HiQ can go back to the trial court and proceed to trial with its tortious interference claim.
There has been no 'new' interpretation, nor is it likely that there will be. This is merely one of a number of arguments put forward by LinkedIn's counsel during a civil case. All kinds of crazy poop gets put forward in those.
Fair point. That does assume same legal jurisdiction though.
Practically I'm not in the same jurisdiction as any of these websites anyway. None of this is legally enforceable unless a party is sufficiently aggrieved to spend a ton on specialist lawyers. Whether or not I clicked on some internet button privacy policy seems a little pointless in that context
> we are not willing to participate in any dispute resolution procedure before a consumer arbitration board since it binds too many resources, but we are happily willing to refund your payment in case you are not satisfied with our services.
If someone's mail is compromised, or they lose their primary email address, a refund would hardly make up for it. This basically reads as "you'll have to force us to participate by taking legal action"..
Right, but like I said earlier (and I think the source of general confusion) is that the article doesn't seem to indicate that's what the attorney's asserted. Like, if they'd said
>"Yes your honor, this did not apply at the time of pledge, but we updated the TOS, and he specifically agreed to updated TOS as part of his playing the beta test and here is the timestamp when he did so through his account."
well, that'd still be plenty good reason to discuss how the modern practices of EULAs and TOS clearly circumvent the spirit of contract law, but it wouldn't be a new practice at all either. And it seems like it'd be a pretty straightforward, slam dunk thing to say too.
The article though doesn't make it sound like that was the argument or came up. Which might be because we're getting it 2nd or 3rd hand, so we shouldn't necessarily jump to conclusions. But if the judge arbitrarily decided it applied retroactively rather then "it applies because he agreed it would at a later date" that'd absolutely be pretty scary.
They don't need a case for a C&D. All a C&D does is put the receiving party on notice. They aren't enforceable. What makes them meaningful is that they suggest LinkedIn might sue in the future (or take other adverse action).
> We encourage you to contact us if you have an issue. If a dispute does arise out of these terms of use or related to your use of the service, and it cannot be resolved by way of a discussion between us, the matter of the dispute shall be resolved by way of binding arbitration in British Columbia in accordance with the Arbitration Act (BC). The costs of such arbitration shall be borne by the losing party.
What? Just go read the PayPal one. It says very clearly you can only bring arbitration cases on an "individual basis". Which was directly in response to this issue.
"Unless both you and PayPal agree otherwise, the arbitrator(s) may not consolidate or join more than one person’s or party’s claims and may not otherwise preside over any form of a consolidated, representative or class proceeding."
Edit: maybe PayPal was the wrong example here - I definitely saw clauses change after the Uber court case, but it seems the PayPal one had been there longer?
The reasoning is indeed "The contract stated Mr. Moore could overdraw as the bank allowed; Mr. Moore requested to overdraw and the bank allowed it; therefore Mr. Moore was authorized to borrow funds and there was no deception on the part of Mr. Moore".
Apparently the account was set to have a "relationship officer" status, which comes with a default-allow policy, but then had no relationship officer assigned to deny transactions.
"We're hereby making a legally binding commitment that those clauses are void, whether anyone reaches out to us or we manage to reach out to them or not."
Unless and until that's what they say, looks like they’re not doing that.
It would be nice if they had their lawyer write a little more on the implications of this. It seems unwise to give corporate arbitrators more authority than the legal system, but I'm not a lawyer.
Hiding behind "you agreed to a 50 page TOS that would take an entire legal team to assess, and you can piss up a rope if you don't agree" isn't a good look, it also changes absolutely nothing about the fairness of the arrangement.
That's not what happened here, there has been no ruling on any agreement, and the injunction order that was given only applies to HiQ, only temporarily, and nobody else. It is not a statement on the validity of EULAs or of LinkedIn's EULA, and it is not a statement on whether LinkedIn is being anti-competetive. It is an injunction and nothing else.
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