And "Can not sue" clauses generally don't exist in a vast majority of jurisdictions around the world. Because firstly, they are stupid. Secondly, they are unfair. And thirdly, they are not (generally) legally enforceable anyway.
They are perfectly legal and enforceable in the United States, so long as the clause applies to both parties and specifies a neutral 3rd-party arbiter (at which point they are "fair").
How are they going to make them cheaper? If there was a way of doing so, wouldn't somebody be doing it already?
No, because the last guy that thought of some efficiency or tech improvements didn't bother to implement them - after all, surely somebody else did it already...
As I did say in my previous post, but you omitted when quoting it, this might stand up if all parties agreed to the arbitration.
I didn't directly quote it but I did acknowledge your "might" speculation right there in my third sentence. My point is there's no "might" about it - as long as the arbitration clause applies to both parties and the arbiter is a neutral one, it's a perfectly legal and enforceable clause... In the US, obviously. TFA was in a US paper discussing corporations operating in the US and referenced a number of relevant US court decisions, so I did not assume we were discussing elsewhere.
Indeed. Good luck arguing in court that someone gave up their right to sue. The legal profession tends to be awfully sceptical of such measures, and none more so than judges.
Umm, no. IANAL but even basic research pulls up the Federal Arbitration Act, which was passed in 1925 and allows for contractually-obligated compulsory and binding arbitration, and this has been held up in court time and again. The only way out of this is to prove the company is using a biased arbiter (they basically all use approved, neutral 3rd party arbitration services now so good luck) or (as you yourself speculated) if the clause isn't applied equally (ie. if the company still reserves the right to sue YOU - but unless they're stupid, they don't make this mistake either). TFA even points out that mandatory arbitration clauses have surged in popularity since the Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that it was okay to use them to suppress class action suits.
The thing that might (I sure hope) make the "contracts" discussed in TFA unenforceable isn't the fact that they make people give up their rights to sue, but the fact that some "legal terms" page on the company website that the consumer probably isn't even aware of (much less has read) does not a binding contract make.
When Apple has released stuff as open source software, it has either been because they were forced to by the license, or because it was for software that primarily runs on OS X.
Clang puts the lie to this.
The lack of data both [Apple and Amazon] deliver is frustrating for marketers because these notoriously opaque giants sit atop incredible troves of information about what consumers actually buy and like, as well as who they are and where they live. One person familiar with the situation said Apple's refusal to share data makes it the best-looking girl at the party, forced to wear a bag over her head.
The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine
