Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2003 12:51:51 -0700 From: underway@comcast.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: a clever sheep <aard@perilith.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: this verisign wildcard silliness Message-ID: <xhoexheuy0.exh@mail.comcast.net> In-Reply-To: <20030918183032.GB1058@perilith.com> (a. clever sheep's message of "Thu, 18 Sep 2003 14:30:32 -0400") References: <20030918183032.GB1058@perilith.com>
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a clever sheep <aard@perilith.com> writes: > 14. AGREEMENT TO BE BOUND. > By using the service(s) provided by VeriSign under these Terms of Use, > you acknowledge that you have read and agree to be bound by all terms > and conditions here in and documents incorporated by reference. > > is this enforceable? is typoing a domain name now equivalent to signing > a contract? A lot of companies seem to think so. While looking for work recently, I was suprised at the large percentage of sites (job searching, job shops, employment agencies, and employers) which have huge "legal" pages, many of which "require" the user to agree to pay them and their lawyers (i.e., "indemnify" them) under certain circumstances. Normally if something you do that violates the agreement causes them money (usually involving a third party), but often it's for anything you do, whether or not it violates the agreement. Sometimes these nasty terms only apply to the use of special features like forums or other web forms. They want you to assume risks, instead of them, which is I suppose is SOP for companies dealing with each other, but it seems unreasonable for individuals to indemnify corporations. With a few exceptions, I left the sites pronto or limited myself to browsing and e-mail. The worst "legal" page I've seen is so-called "Pay Pal", which has a huge page with a long list of links to more parts of the "aggreement". I wonder how much my lawyer would charge to interpret it all for me. It does make legal insurance look like a good idea, if I could have any confindence that they'd "be there", if Pay Pal came after me. In the mean-time, I won't be using Pay Pal. I think some legislation on this topic is in order, so that people can use websites without worry of legal troubles or having to agree to incomprehensible contracts, but since we foolishly populate our legislatures with 90% lawyers, I'm not hopeful of such legislation.
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