Unangbangkay

Cohost of @unangbangkay on Twitter

Josh Tolentino | weeaboomer, Gamist
| work: RPG Site, Game Rant, Gamecritics | ex: Siliconera, Destructoid

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jkap
@jkap

bro why the fuck is mcdonald’s trying to lock me into a Binding Arbitration Agreement


cathoderaydude
@cathoderaydude

the thing about corporate behavior like this that i always think about is that every single one of them wanted to do this 200 years ago, they just thought it would look bad

and then about 20 years ago they all looked at each other and said "dare you to do it anyway" and when nobody noticed or cared, their corporate eyes became as large as dinner plates as the wool fell away

the only thing that ever kept them in check was the belief that we gave a shit. why they ever thought that is anyone's guess, but the lesson has been learned and now they all just do whatever their dark hearts desire. the floodgates are not only open, they have fallen off their hinges. the post-eula era is forever


Unangbangkay
@Unangbangkay

Possibly because judges have ruled Terms of Service language unenforceable, so they're being "up front" about the fact that by attempting to order a burger through their app you forfeit any right to hold them to account for anything that they do to you forever and ever Amen.

The hopeful side of me feels this might be on the road to eventually killing these binding-arbitration-by-default clauses for good, by exposing how facially absurd this "term of service" is.

Imagine if I ran a brick-and-mortar restaurant and forced the same TOS on anyone who walked in the door (just walked in, because iirc these TOS terms are simply for access). If I actually did something to them a judge in their right mind would throw my TOS defense out the window because of that absurdity.

Then again, I'm also not hopeful because the bedrock of American legal principle appears to be based on some notion of "fair warning" mixed with "ah but you participate in society". Also I have not done a single search to see if this has held up in any instance and I am just spitballing, lol, lmao.


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in reply to @jkap's post:

as someone who reads ToSes on sites when I'm bored I can say that most of them have binding arbitration provisions in them and have for many years. They're getting more and more common, but I suspect that McDonalds already had an Arbitration provision in their ToS. They're just being more upfront about it now than they used to be.

I think I remember reading something about either a ruling or a regulation somewhere (possibly California but I'm not sure) that suggested that the standard language was unenforceable because people don't actually read the ToS and so don't know they're agreeing to it. As a result, companies are trying to disclose this up front more clearly so that it will hold up in court. I can't find a source for that though (I did try though) so don't quote me on that.

in reply to @cathoderaydude's post: