Windows 8: More EULA, Fewer Rights. 470
sl4shd0rk writes "Microsoft has adopted a brand new licensing scheme for Windows 8 which effectively removes your right to file a class-action lawsuit against them should you feel the need. '...Many of our new user agreements will require that, if we can't informally resolve the dispute, the customer bring the claim in small claims court or arbitration, but not as part of a class action lawsuit.' Class-action lawsuits are intended to help individuals stand up to corporate law-breaking but this new EULA model simply nullifies that course of action for the consumer."
Class Action Lawsuits suck anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
There needs to be a better mechanism for keeping corporations in line, anyway.
I'm not endorsing MS's attempts to weasel out of liability here (although I guess once Sony took a bite of that particular poison apple, it's only a matter of time before the other tech giants decide that class action immunity is too awesome to pass up).
But class action lawsuits never deliver anything of real value to the people who actually suffered from whatever prompted the class action suit. They often hurt the target company, a lot, but that's vengeance & retribution rather than justice - the only people who actually benefit from the "restitution" and "settlement" are the lawyers.
Really, it would probably be better all round to just have regulators & ombudsmen with real teeth rather than relying on lawyer feeding frenzy class actions to provide a punishment system for corporations. The big problem with that is regulatory capture. I don't have a solution, but I wish I did. The present state of affairs isn't really satisfactory to anyone IMO.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, the legal wisdom of Antonin Scalia. The man isn't fit to judge traffic court.
Has anyone read the whole thing yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Self interest (Score:4, Insightful)
Or course not, but they at least kept up the pretense. They no longer even bother with that.
Re:Waiting for Win9... (Score:2, Insightful)
You have the right to not buy their crap. Money talks the loudest. So don't do business with companies you don't like.
Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
You like the GP are a moron.
Not everyone impacted can take the day off to go to small claims court. This means the company can abuse untold numbers of customers and never pay a dime. A class action is to punish the company while not over burdoning the members of the class as their each individual claim is very small.
Value added is perception of legitimacy (Score:5, Insightful)
If one man has a grievance and sues a company he's portrayed in the press as crackpot. A class action takes the same grievance and because numerous people are involved there's the appearance of wrongdoing, no matter if it's real or not. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs try the case in the court of public opinion until a settlement is forced because the defendant feels their reputation is becoming tarnished. A settlement will mean pennies on the dollar for the numerous plaintiffs, and that's after the attorneys take out their costs.
Microsoft thinks they are clever enough to circumvent this cycle. Does anyone think they class action lawsuit industry will let Microsoft's new license stand? Not without a fight.
Class Action Lawsuits are important (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, class action lawsuits don't help the victims. Neither does putting murderers in jail. But the goal is to give people and businesses a reason to think twice before committing a despicable act. Thanks to SCOTUS's decision that companies can stick a "you can't sue us!" clause in any and all contracts, there is now no mechanism by which companies can be made to pay for abusing their customers. Day-dreaming about alternate mechanisms is pointless. This is the one that we have (or had, at any rate), and for all its flaws, it did work. Companies that abused people were made to pay. But no longer.
Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
They're a much bigger drop than small claims actions though. Since most people don't bother with the small claims stuff.
Sure the money ends up going to the lawyers, and there's no real benefit to those harmed. There is some cost to the company involved though, which they'll avoid almost entirely without class actions and just keep it for themselves.
Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Self interest (Score:4, Insightful)
There absolutely was. When George Washington was President, we could be absolutely sure that at least the Executive branch hadn't sold out. Unfortunately, the quality of Presidents have been going steadily downhill since his terms.
Re:Need software only availiable on Windows? (Score:4, Insightful)
Neat trick. Who are you going to have hear the case.... maybe the Supreme Court? Or some court superior to it? Oh, wait, that's right, there isn't one. And then there's sovereign immunity [wikipedia.org], in which you have to ask "Mother, may I?" to any part of the federal government and they have to consent to being sued. I'm sure they'll step right up to that one.
It's a charming fantasy, but really, that's all it is.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Billing issues or service issues?
So you mean the minor details of not being cheated out of money or the service you are paying for?
What other interaction does one have with these companies than getting service and being billed?
Re:good (Score:4, Insightful)
The money grab is the point, it hurts the company at fault it was never meant to compensate customers. Their claims are trivial or they would have their own lawsuits.
The internet does no such things when companies use legal moves to remove such complaints.
Re:not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
There was a recent Supreme court case that made this legal.
Good. Class action lawsuits are nothing but a wealth stockpiling program for the 1%'ers that went to law school instead of Harvard Business. It doesn't help the consumer "class" that gets nothing but a coupon, while the lawyers make millions.
You're better off in small claims court. That's what I do whenever I get one of these "you may be part of this class" letters. I immediately send a letter requesting to be left out of the class, and file in small claims if I think it's worth it. It's way better than getting one of those "settlement" packages with dollar-off coupons or a check for $2.34. Especially when I know the lawyers got $234 million for their "work".
Re:not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait, he was one of the (ahem, so called) justices that ruled that corporations are people.
While this is accurate to say, it's like saying that he's one of the justices that is a human being. All justices, judges, and magistrates accept that corporations are legal persons. This is neither surprising, nor debatable, and is a fundamental part of Common Law tradition. Why are corporations people? Because otherwise, they couldn't own property, and could not be sued.
Let's have a hypothetical. Let's say that corporations are not people in our new world. Alice, Bob, and Charlie are working together in a Corporation, ACME. Now, ACME is not a person, so someone has to own all the assets that would otherwise belong communally to ACME, and the three decide that Alice should be the person of record for ownership of materials. Now, someone has to run the company and be on the line for any legal messes, and the three decide that Bob shall do the actual operations of the company, and direct Charlie in his work, while Alice just sits at home, and collects a paycheck just for not walking away with the money and property. Now, Bob tells Charlie to dump some toxic waste in Derick's yard. Derick is upset, and goes to sue ACME in court, however, since ACME is not a person, he cannot sue ACME. So, he has to sue the people responsible for the toxic waste dumping. Well, obviously, he'd like to go after Alice, with the deep pockets, but she had no hand in causing the harm. Bob would also be a nice choice, because as the director, he has a reasonable salary, and it was his policies that directed Charlie to dump the toxic waste. Except that Bob only ever told Charlie in verbal communication that was never recorded to dump the toxic waste in Derick's yard. Leaving the only person that Derick can sue as Charlie, who is really just a lowly employee with no salary, and no real power. Derick sues and throws Charlie into bankruptcy with the tort finding, while Alice continues to maintain all the company assets that have not been touched, and Bob continues to direct the company however he sees fit with no accountability for his actions.
Re:not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
>>>scotus coup on Gore in 2000
According to USA Today, NY Times, and other papers that performed independent ballot counts (using multiple methods), it would not have mattered if the SCOTUS had allowed Florida to continue counting. Bush beat Gore by ~1000 votes, mainly because of the western republican counties. Therefore Bush would have had FL's electoral votes and won.
>>>Scalia is an asshole
That may be but he has consistently applied the laws as written. (Unlike that other justice: Sotomayor who ignores that law & makes random decisions based on her beliefs.) If you don't like the laws don't blame the judges who merely enforce them. Blame the Congress for producing bad law.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
If you start letting judges making up laws, what sort of law shall we have? Easy: You get Kangaroo Courts where the laws are made up to fit the ends of the Court.
I think you got it backwards, it's the people who write the contracts who'll be making law because they decide what kangaroo court to hear it in. The real law and the real court system will still exist, you've just lost your right to get your contract dispute heard there. This is the rule of law signing off and handing over the reins to the corporations, all that's lacking for a Star Wars moment is thunderous applause.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>What's that a definition of?
Constitutionalist. Almost everyone is familiar with Thomas Jefferson's "Separation of church and state," which is used by the Supreme Court to forbid praying in schools, but few know this quote: "On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Jefferson was our second most intelligent president (estimated IQ of 160). We should listen to him.
I also like this one. People are aware of the checks-and-balances between the 3 branches, but forget that that People's State legislatures are ALSO a check against central government: "...when all government... in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1821
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to punish the company doing harm. If the lawyers could not make money doing it they would not. If I take a day off for small claims court I will probably lose more money than the court awards me. I would rather know the company had to pay out for its transgressions then let them get away with it, even if I do not get the money.
Utter Garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll say the truth again: worst Supreme Court since the Dred Scott decision.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
If a law says, "Promotion of fire fighters shall be determined based on the outcome of written examinations," and the judge named Sotomayor then turns-round and cancels the promotion of those men who legally-passed the exam, the judge is NOT enforcing the law. Or interpreting the law as written. They are arbitrarily acting with no reason or rationality, except their own desires to make law from the bench.
Scalia may very well be an asshole, but at least he reads and judges based upon what law the Congress passed. Sotomayor does not. She admitted it during her testimony.
Re:Elsewhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumer protection in general is far, far better in Europe than the US.
As with many other areas, we've decided not to support restrictions on people who are trying to fuck us because, damn it, one day we might get to be the ones doing the fucking.
Or, if you prefer, in the US maintaining the purity of abstract ideology wins over demonstrable real-world benefits just about 100% of the time.
See also: health care, mandatory vacation, sick days, and maternity leave, labeling laws, etc., etc.
Re:Options (Score:4, Insightful)
"You do if you are a gamer. "
That's a "want", not a "need", unless you are a developer or otherwise make money from game.
Games are fun, fun is fine, but a toy is a toy and never forget that.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
According to Wikipedia's page on the Florida Election Recount [wikipedia.org], in a state wide recount, Gore would have won. Additionally, the New York Times determined that poor ballot design cost Gore a little over 8000 votes, which is a big difference when Bush's victory margin was 537. In percentage terms Bush's victory margin was 0.009% of the Florida vote.
Now Gore had not (yet) asked for a state wide recount, although the Florida director of his campaign has said that they were about to request one when the Supreme Court ruling came down staying the recounts.
There facts seem clear that Gore should have won Florida and the presidency.
Re:not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this is utter nonsense, quite frankly, and persists for no good reason (and keeping lawyers employed is not a good reason.) If there's ever been an entity where it is not merely acceptable but utterly essential to mark as being subhuman, it is the corporation.
It should be for corporations the inverse as it is for actual humans in this country: while people are free to do as they wish unless explicitly prohibited, corporations should not be able to do anything unless explicitly permitted. Otherwise they abuse the rights we as citizens have and eventually leverage that confusion (and other associated nonsense) to even greater heights of power above actual people.
Fill in somewhat? (Score:5, Insightful)
many aspects of the modern world that simply couldn't be done without the kind of resources that a Ford or a General Electric can bring to the table. The government could fill in somewhat
Hi. I'm a child of the 20th Century. You might remember us. We fixed a Depression, killed Adolf Hitler, held Stalin in check, invented the atom bomb, rebuilt Europe and Japan, built a national infrastructure of highways and electricity, got Jim Crow off the books at least, added a Moon rock to our mood ring collection and then watched Al Gore invent the internet -- all without a single corporation as the driving force.
Mozart wrote his operas, Shakespeare wrote his plays, Nobunaga conquered Japan, Genghis Kahn ruled an empire, Rome took Europe, the Mings handled China, and Ogg invented fire all without a single patent or copyright protection to their name.