How did we ever get to the point where corporations get to unilaterally remake a contract?

[meganl@mas.to]

How did we ever get to the point where corporations get to unilaterally remake a contract?

I'm so tired of "we've updated our terms of service" and it is almost always for the worse.

Do you get to unilaterally remake the terms of your loan?

Do you get to unilaterally redo your mortgage?

Do you get to unilaterally tell your boss your "terms of service" have changed?

#EatTheRich #Law

[squishberry@mastodon.world]

@meganL
Because we have almost no consumer protections in this country

#uspol

[kimlockhartga@beige.party]

@meganL I've gotten three of these in three days, too.

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@meganL

indeed... unless you've fully completed sith lord training, you don't get to unilaterally change terms.

[zenheathen@beige.party]

@squishberry @meganL Or this one

[nonya_bidniss@infosec.exchange]

@kimlockhartga @meganL Same here. The consumer's option in the U.S. is to stop being a customer. Which is not really an option if it's something you consider necessary and all the companies with that thing are doing this so there's no competition.

[meganl@mas.to]

@Nonya_Bidniss @kimlockhartga Sometimes they don't even offer you the option to exit because you disagree. That is, if you go to the site to delete your account (if it's even possible to gracefully exit), you entering the site again is taken as "consent".

[kimlockhartga@beige.party]

@meganL @Nonya_Bidniss We have no rights as a consumer. I'm about to ditch AT&T, too. They think I need landline, internet, or TV at my mom's house? They about to lose that bet by raising prices for no reason.

[meganl@mas.to]

@kimlockhartga I'm glad it's at least slightly better in California, but it's been decades of being sold out by legislators and judiciary that should have been guarding the public's interest. Not just enforcing antittrust laws and privacy laws already on the books, but keeping abreast of tech instead of always being late to the fray.

[ericbono@beige.party]

@meganL It's breach of contract but, when you wipe out all regulation agencies, there's no one to enforce fair laws anymore. Same as a "leader" acting unilaterally to dismantle all of society.

[civilityfan@sfba.social]

@meganL I was very disappointed to learn that the television I purchased from Costco (an LG) isn’t really all mine, since LG feels it owns the “glass” and it mines my data by watching what I watch, even when it’s from connected devices, like a Blu-ray player from a different manufacturer. I’ve communicated this to the Costco buyers, through the technical editor of the Costco Connection magazine and was surprised by that persons quick and helpful response to my complaint. Forcing a customer to accept new terms of service after a purchase and making an opt out nearly impossible should be illegal and I will surely never buy another LG device.

[foolishowl@social.coop]

@meganL IANAL, but in my opinion, contract law is completely bullshit. The pretense is that contracts are negotiated, but that's almost never possible. Contracts are coerced, which should invalidate them if law actually meant anything. I particularly resent the fact that contracts often specifically say that you waive your rights by agreeing to them. That shouldn't be possible, especially not when it's practically impossible to negotiate terms.

There's a writer who's gone on about how he routinely rejects contracts that include binding arbitration clauses. He sneers at his audience, as if we're all too lazy to hire lawyers and fight contracts, when that's an option only for the rich, and maybe if you're lucky and in a union that actually fights it out over contract terms.

[pkw@snac.d34d.net]

This separates people.
Like I have past the point where I will feel any moral obligation
to anything like a contract. I 100% do feel an obligation to
a person that has a face and a name but any contract has nothing
to do with it.

Like even liberals are into "rule of law" and I
can totally imagine a society where I DID feel moral obligations
to rules and law ... but this society is not that.

CC: @meganL@mas.to @foolishowl@social.coop

[amateurexpert@flipping.rocks]

@meganL definitely using that the next time I quit with flare.

"My terms of service have changed! The updates to section 1e, salary, and 4c, hours of availability have been put into simplified language here (link). Here's a link to my old terms of service. If you continue requesting tasks of me, you consent to my new salary of: "

[bh@suarez.social]

@meganL we let them. ToS are designed to protect the service provider and the service providers are the ones that set the terms we agree to. If we violate them they can terminate our service.

When a service provider makes grandiose changes to their ToS that don’t favor me, I quit or cancel their service.

You could tell your boss or loan servicer that you no longer agree to their terms but that would be risky since you need both a job and a mortgage.

It sucks

[meganl@mas.to]

@bh "When a service provider makes grandiose changes to their ToS that don’t favor me, I quit or cancel their service." Not sure where you're located, but in practice this is not always possible.

At least once service I was on, for me to get on there again and cancel would have been me "consenting" to their policy. So there was no real way to deny. I never went back, but I was not able to safely get my data out or delete the account.

[darkphoenix@universeodon.com]

@meganL sounds like the "variable interest loan", where if rates go up, so does your mortgage. In the beginning, they promised that if rates went down, but for some reason, that never happens. The worst part, because of citizens United, they were able to avoid lowering the rates because that would negatively impact their right to profit, regardless of the ethics.