Being english i dont believe we have the suing heavy society that america has so i can understand our friends across the pond being pissed.  
 
But for me, I really dont care. I havent yet and doubt i will ever have a reason to sue a large company such as Microsoft. 
 
Also all you that say you are going to stop supporting ms by playing on a PC, i bet 90% of your PC's run on Windows OS.

@TooWalrus said:

Whatev's

If you don't care, maybe don't post. Jackass.

What if they leave a sponge in me? A sponge! I'm not gonna not sue, it's a sponge!

My favorite part is, "to ensure that our customers have an easy way to file a dispute". When has that ever happened in the history of ever with Microsoft? I spent 3 hours on the phone just trying to get them to turn off auto-renew on my XBL Gold account.

Whether any of us try to sue Microsoft for any reason doesn't matter , what matters is the fact that they for us to agree to giving up our rights. This sucks because i'm very much a pro-Xbox/Microsoft kind of person and laughed when Sony pulled this a couple months back and that we on the Xbox wouldn't have to deal with mess like this...until now. This blows, good job Microsoft for letting a very loyal customer down.

The Terms of Service Have Changed

blah blah blah blah blah

Accept. Did I just sign up for a lifetime of slavery?

Well this is shitty. I don't think I'd ever use it but I hate having the choice made for me.

Too bad I already cancelled Gold and haven't used live in months.
 
That's how I fucking opt out.

Well, since the fees for service did go up and I've only been using live recently for Netflix streaming, I can't say that I'm alright with the change in terms, but it will at least not directly effect me as of this moment.

The stereotype of Americans being obsessed with suing people gets proven to be true again. I don't know anyone who has ever sued anyone or ever even considered suing anyone, or been in any other kind of lawsuit against a company. Taking away their right to do this is like taking away their right to pilot a Gundam. This has probably been brought in because Americans do crazy shit like sue car companies for not explicitly stating that "cruise control" does not actually drive the car for you or suing McDonalds for hot drinks being hot.

The real issue is it shouldn't be legal for them to put this provision in the TOS to begin with. But as my esteemed colleague above said consumer rights in the U.S. are shit.

Nice to know if they hire some stoner to head up the privacy department and then you get your identity stolen because of it you have no legal rights to make them pay.

I completely do not agree that "they have a right to change the terms of service and not allow you not to agree to them".

You are not purchasing a new subscription in this terms-of-service agreement. Instead, Microsoft is telling you "The service for which you have already paid will now be governed by terms you did not agree to at the time of payment. Your only way out of this agreement is to lose both the money already paid and the service for which you paid."

Basically, this is a good reason not to do business with them.

@ValiantGoat said:

Some people get too worked up about this shit, granted it is a legitimate issue/concern.What people don't seem to get is that if your console explodes, burns your house down, and/or rapes your parent(s) you can still take legal action. Really these types of user agreements don't count for shit in court.

If you have a legitimate reason to take legal actions against these companys you are still in your right to do so. Largely these agreements are there to squash hokie class action suites that some shifty lawyer somewhere dreams up and somehow finds a bunch of people to hop on board.

If the legal system wasn't abused so badly with BS law suites we might never have gotten to this point. It sucks on principle, but in practise isn't the evil money making company conspiracy some people make it out to be.

Note: I really do enjoy these types of news posts, being informed is empowering. Some people just need to chill.

This. There's shady corporate stuff sometimes and then there's the unfortunate truth that some people abuse the legal system and ruin shit for the rest of us.

@Buzzkill: so do you not play pc games on your microsoft windows pc?

Normally, these type of boilerplate, take it or leave it TOSAs are found to be unenforceable because you really had no choice. They do the same thing with the legal venue saying it has to be in Washington state. However, if you notice after both these sections it says that if they are found to be not legal then just those parts of the TOSA is stricken out. So they know what's up to. The reason these are put in is to scare off people who don't know better and to add an extra hurdle in litigation... To again, scare people off.

@Turbo_Toaster: This is more of a red herring than anything else pushed by corporate lobbying groups to scale back large judgements against corps. How many of you remember the lady burned by coffee getting millions of dollars from McDonalds? Ridiculous right? Not if you knew the full story. The lady sustained 3rd degree burns and had to recieve skin transplants. McDonalds knew the coffee was way too hot (proven in court) and were found criminally negligent. But the story we all heard was the one pushed by corporate special interest for obvious reasons. Don't be so quick to give your rights away, always question what people say no matter who they are.

@clumsyninja1: That's not the point, your rights are being forced away from you is the issue, although this is typical microsoft, arcade games were already legally just "rent-able" and microsoft could take them back whenever

@Rave: It remains to be seen how broad the AT&T Mobility case will be interpreted. A central issue in that case was state versus federal law, in that Congress passed the FAA to promote the use of arbitration while California state law views class action waivers as unconscionable and thus unenforceable. Because federal law trumps state law via the Supremacy clause in the Constitution, the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) held that in this case class action waivers or not unconscionable. This doesn't mean however, that they will always be held up. For example in a recent NY state case where women were discriminated in the work place, you have two competing federal laws (FAA & anti-discrimination laws) and arbitration was not held up in light of the AT&T case. From Scotus blog:

"Class action waivers in arbitration agreements will continue to be tested under state unconscionability standards, and it is unlikely that state and lower federal courts will totally disregarding the broad holding of AT&T Mobility. However, many lower courts will evaluate arbitration agreements very carefully, and missteps in the creation of arbitration agreements or in their implementation may well create situations in which the lower courts will find the AT&T Mobility holding either not controlling, inapposite or waived."

But haven't courts, or at least lawyers, said putting things like this in the EULA doesn't mean anything because the law has already acknowledged that expecting people to read them is unreasonable?

Oh, course there was not an option. I mean duhhhh...what company puts out a Terms of Service and says,"Yeah whatever sign it or not we don't care."

They do not that. That is not how it ever works. Anyone who thought about it would have said THAT MAKES

NO SENSE and not printed a news story.

.

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that the threat of class action lawsuits is good for the consumer. If there were no class action lawsuits, how much incentive would there have been for Microsoft to address the RRoD problem? They could have stonewalled consumers and divided them up into thousands of different arbitration cases, then worn down each customer until all the complaints were dropped. It would have been a mess of long discovery periods, changes of venue, legal fees, and unfair demands on the consumer filing the complaint. Plus filing the arbitration means you give up your right to a judge and jury. Class action lawsuits allow all consumers affected by a problem to pool their resources together in order to force action that would never occur with everyone filing individual arbitration. The scary thing is that the US Supreme Court seems to think this is OK, since they ruled that AT&T can block class action lawsuits and force binding arbitration.

I agree that there's no way the courts are done with this issue. On its face, the AT&T decision seems like it would allow any company to make giving up one's rights to pursue litigation as a form or redress (either as a sole party or as part of a class action) a condition of purchasing any product or service from that company.

So in theory, doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, insurance companies, automobile manufacturers, food and agriculture companies, airlines, toy manufacturers, restaurants, banks, day care centers, etc. could all use this same tactic to massively reduce their potential risk/liability for doing harm to their customers or failing to provide the products/services that they advertise . Basically the consequences of failing to take adequate care to provide safe products and services, ensure the security of customers' personal information, or even to provide the product/service as it was advertised would be greatly reduced.

@CarlosBoozer said:

@Rave: It remains to be seen how broad the AT&T Mobility case will be interpreted. A central issue in that case was state versus federal law, in that Congress passed the FAA to promote the use of arbitration while California state law views class action waivers as unconscionable and thus unenforceable. Because federal law trumps state law via the Supremacy clause in the Constitution, the Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) held that in this case class action waivers or not unconscionable. This doesn't mean however, that they will always be held up. For example in a recent NY state case where women were discriminated in the work place, you have two competing federal laws (FAA & anti-discrimination laws) and arbitration was not held up in light of the AT&T case. From Scotus blog:

"Class action waivers in arbitration agreements will continue to be tested under state unconscionability standards, and it is unlikely that state and lower federal courts will totally disregarding the broad holding of AT&T Mobility. However, many lower courts will evaluate arbitration agreements very carefully, and missteps in the creation of arbitration agreements or in their implementation may well create situations in which the lower courts will find the AT&T Mobility holding either not controlling, inapposite or waived."

Class action suits against companies the size of Microsoft enrich no one except the attorneys. I just got a check for an eBay class suit I didn't even know was going on, and accompanying it was a letter breaking down the judgment. $25 million for the lawyers, and 10 CENTS for each member of the class. Yeah. Legal action to stop invasions of privacy or trampling of consumer rights can be handled through criminal litigation, not class action.

@rudyarr: I don't play any games for windows or live bullshit that's for sure lol. Microsoft doesn't get a dime.

To bad enough people could not boycott the service like was done to Netflix who had their stock drop from 300 to now 70 a share due to the crap they gave customers. Hitting the wallet is the only way to make them change their ways, I really have a hard time turning on my xbox these days.

@thetenthdoctor: I could not agree more. Kotaku and all other Gawker sites can go die.

So what situation would require me to sue Microsoft over my Xbox?

Give up your right to participate in a class action law suit you must. Otherwise play online you will not.

Much pain and suffering will you face.

so that mean as long as I don't connect my 360 to live, I can give a fuck to those ToS?

@CarlosBoozer: Ahhh what a litigious world we live in.

@Shakezula84: Well that depends on a lot of things, could be anything from starting a fire in your home, to electrocution, to them not providing the service they are obligated to provide (like if live went down for 6 months), it doesn't really matter though, what matters is that should the need arise, you are, and should continue to be fully within your rights to do it.

@TheMartino said:

A service you pay for telling you in what ways you can use its service?! Inconceivable!

Would you like a peanut?

Bummer. I already got my confirmation receipt from the USPS when I sent my letter to opt out of the binding arbitration portion of Sony's last change in their Terms of Service. Guess that's not happening here.

Here's another question: if a company chooses, couldn't they theoretically force people to re-send their opt-out request every time they have a change in their service? I wonder because both Sony and Microsoft are probably going to have more minor tweak changes down the road as they add services from Comcast, HBO, etc. Am I going to have to spend $8 each time to mail a letter with a delivery confirmation and a signature so I have proof that I opted out in case I ever brought litigation? I don't know, but if so, bummer.

People that care about citizens' rights should check out the HBO documentary "Hot Coffee." It starts with a re-telling of the story of the woman who got burned w/ McDonald's coffee and sued. Just watch it - it'll make you think twice about giving up your legal rights.

That being said, I'm going back to playing Rage on 360. Looks like they win this round.

So long as I can play games, I'm fine.

Although companies in the industry are becoming really zealous in how their policies work and business mumbo jumbo.

Now, these lawsuit clauses are (far as i'm told) are not enforceable or legal in Canada, but it seems to me that a clause in the TOS for one service can't really apply to the entire company. For example, sigining it before using Live shouldn't have any bearing on lawsuits relating to hardware issues such as the "three red lights".

This is more a concern because only lawsuits forced Microsoft to man up and support their hardware for more than a year, instead of expecting their customers to simply buy more of it when it inevitably stops working.

Personally, I don't really care about lawsuits used simply to get money, as they simply cause long TOS documents such as this, but I do agree when they arise due to a company offering poor after-market support, when the hardware issues stem from design or manufacturing defects, and the end user did not have anything to do with it's cause. I think when you buy a console, and put down your $300, you should have an expectation of around ten years of use before it breaks. I don't mean it should be covered by warranty that long, but the average system should last that long - as MS has so often pointed out they want the 360 to last ten years before releasing a new platform.

I applaud gaming sites for bringing these stories to light. And to get people talking about online services - if it becomes apparent the consumer base doesn't like a service, it will be changed, if enough users are expressing discontent.

Xbox Live has gotten away with all the in-dashboard advertising, because the majority of their subscribers didn't appear to care. (Personally, it only bothers me when it advertises products not available on the Marketplace.) A corporation, like a child, will continually grab as much as they can, to see how far they can go without getting their hand smacked, either by government regulation, or the general opinion of their consumers.

As long as nobody ever wins the console war, consumers and competition can force console makers to change their services to meet consumer demands. But you need to air those demands in public.

“Changes to the Terms of Use are designed to ensure that our customers have an easy way to file a dispute without the ability to make use of formal legal action.”

There, I fixed it for them.

@scottygrayskull said:

But haven't courts, or at least lawyers, said putting things like this in the EULA doesn't mean anything because the law has already acknowledged that expecting people to read them is unreasonable?

I remember reading something similar, and not finding a citation for this specific example, but that's just common sense.

The thing about courts is they are free to make different judgements at different times. So bringing up a single precedent is almost meaningless because it can go both ways. Here's a 2004 example with Blizzard suing a mod developer.

http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/software-services-applications-software-makers/13445002-1.html

But the judge went well beyond this, ruling that if one agrees to a EULA, then the EULA can legally remove rights.

Naturally this comment is too broad, as it can't remove *all* (Natural) kinds of rights. The podcast discussion where they were telling Vinny what a EULA can't do is more realistic. However that is the purpose that contracts serve, to make an agreement between two parties without the state intervening. Capitalism could not exist without that freedom. When you wish to dispute a contract you entered in to, that's what civil law judgements are for, and that process has a price tag.

Comments like "how can companies take away our rights as consumers" are /facedesk. You could not be a consumer without contract law letting you freely enter into a private contract with a business. Neither of you need the government's permission to do it. There isn't a functioning democracy in the world that can have it both ways so we have a middle ground. And as much as you think you "need" XBOX Live or your iPhone, you really don't. Don't click Agree and then try to convince yourself you didn't have a choice. You are fully within your rights to click Agree and THEN sue them, but if you lose, it's your shirt. And even if you have a chance to win, you'll probably take their generous offer of settlement, because it will buy a lot more toys to fill your mansion with than sticking to your morals.

Me, I'm kinda pissed right now that Epic and Apple give customers the runaround. Each says to contact the other in case In-App purchases fail, because they aren't responsible to prove it didn't work. Of course that's bullshit, they both have a record I paid money for something twice, and Epic has a record that it was delivered to my device once. This is the kind of issue that a class action suit can reasonably address, but it's also an issue that could be resolvable with a stern phone call or letter to Tim Sweeney. Exceptions are made to blanket policies every single day. It's what the customer service industry is.

Wonder if this applies to EU customers as well..

This is gonna screw over people who aren't properly infromed about UELAs  so fucking bad. Shame microsoft, SHAME!

File me under the bunch who don't care.

I solved this problem by not playing my 360. I put this plan into effect years ago.

The close minded control of the console genre is what drove me to PC gaming in the first place. I'd begun getting back into console gaming though after going on a Gears kick. This pretty much just makes me look at my PC and go.. "What the hell was I thinking chico?"