New Disclaimer for the Internet 113
Techdirt has an amusing new disclaimer for the internet penned by lawyer David Canton is response to Rob Hyndman's recent discovery of an impressive disclaimer for a rock preserve. From the disclaimer: "Business is unpredictable and unsafe. The Internet is dangerous. Many blogs have been written about these dangers, and there's no way we can list them all here. Read the blogs. The Internet is covered in slippery slopes with loose, slippery and unpredictable footing. The RIAA can make matters worse. Patent trolls are everywhere. You may fall, be spammed or suffer a DOS attack. There are hidden viruses and worms. You could break your computer. There is wild code, which may be vicious, poisonous or carriers of dread malware. These include viruses and worms. E-mail can be poisonous as well. We don't do anything to protect you from any of this. We do not inspect, supervise or maintain the Internet, blogosphere, ISP's or other features, natural or otherwise."
tongue in cheek, but maybe not. (Score:2, Insightful)
What has been submitted as a pithy wry parody of a real life warning may in fact be dead on in its message. In fact, it may not be such a bad idea to make such a warning more de rigeur. Perhaps we put a sticker on any computer (especially XP) for general use, much like the cancer warning on a pack of cigarettes.
It won't stop people from being careless, naive, or wild with their computers attached to the ether, but even if only a few poor souls escape the hell that is IE pop-up oblivion it would be worth it. It could also save we who support a few miserable hours of either fixing a problem or explaining to devastated "clients" why there is no fix for their destroyed c: drive.
O, that it were not so. Sigh
FUCKING BLOGSPAM (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tongue in cheek, but maybe not. (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that the point of such pithy wry parody?
KFG
Read this post at your own risk... (Score:3, Insightful)
"By entering the Preserve, you are agreeing that we owe you no duty of care or any other duty...We do not and will not even try to keep the premises safe for any purpose. The premises are not safe for any purpose. This is no joke."
I am no expert in West Virginia law, but if you invite a member of the general public onto your land, charge them a $40 fee, and know that the premises are not safe for any purpose, and then they die, your gonna get hit with a HUGE lawsuit. This disclaimer means next to nothing since land owners owe duties of care to people they invite onto their land. At the very least, they owe a duty to warn of extremely dangerous conditions - which they do, in a general sort of way.
For example, on the main page, there is a very pretty picture of a bridge spanning a valley. As a user of the land, I have a reasonable expectation that the landowner has maintained the bridge, has checked it periodically, and would close off the bridge if it was too dangerous to use. Failure to do that is so negligent, that the disclaimer would be completely ineffective.
Not to miss the forest from the trees, the original blog adapting this to the internet is cute. And I agree with the basic principle that you surf the net at your own risk. But I think that ISPs owe a duty of care to their customers to protect them from websites that distribute viruses, trojans, etc, perhaps with a pop-up or system announce, if they know the website or software is an issue. Hard to do, but they could make more of an effort to protect the less savvy amoung us.
Re:How about (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't GTA give us a better warning? (Score:2, Insightful)
Their site can be found at http://www.citizensunitednegatingtechnology.org/ [citizensun...nology.org]