FINALLY: Web contracts are not changeable without prior notice
It is best said here “How hard is it to send out an e-mail letting people know about [any changes]?”. For long, many web based companies let you sign for terms and conditions that could be changed at any day without prior notice. Why the hell is that? Most companies send you lot of promotional emails, some go beyond and ask you to vote for them as best company. However they are not welling to let you know the terms of the contract have changed!
This is no more the case as the US Court of Appeals have ruled out new obligation on web companies to notify customers of any change in the contract. Our hats off for Joe Douglas, who had made all this happen. The story began when Dougals signed for voice services with America Online. Later on Talk America acquired America Online and did some changes to the terms including some price increase without notifying the Douglas of the changes. Douglas ofcourse did not notice the changes immediately as his credit card was billed directly. 4 years later only he came to know of this change and filed a lawsuit against the firm. Luckily he has won the case and we should all be thankful to him.
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Glad to see your comments again :)
It is really sad how some companies write ridiculous terms and conditions. They perform some kind of arm twisting. I heard some bad things about Wow how they terminate accounts claiming you use illegal software without any solid proof. And funny thing is, they announce the number on their site: We Blocked 200 users!
Great, let’s see their competitor try to beat that. They won’t ofcourse. Be it whatever they say, they can’t just say You Can’t Sue us in the terms. For example if they terminate your account for discrimination reasons let’s say, ofcourse you can sue them for doing that. This story is a perfect example. It says we can change policy and you should be updated your self. Still, the user won the lawsuit and did the rest of the world a great favor.
Well what we notice these days is that we are signing papers with very small faint terms and conditions and most of them have the rule “Service provider has the right to terminate the contract whenever” in whole i dont think its legal to do that but one of the biggest company do that e.g developers of world of warcraft video game has the following condition “The service can be terminated without any responsibility from the service provider and the user can not sue them nor complain” :-(
Its only bussiness nothing personal