For example, say the next iOS TOS agreement says that any users who accept are subject to have their bank accounts drained and we all go on using our iPhones as usual and they took the money. Would that be legal?
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Nope! There actually laws to protect us from that kind of stuff. I’m not a lawyer and it depends on where you live, but in general those terms of service are really meant to spell out *to lawyers* how reasonable deals are structured.
Meaning they *are not meant* to be fully intelligible to laypeople, so it’s not like you reasonably expected to understand all 300 pages of Microsoft Excel agreement.
Additionally, adding terms *because you know no one reads them* that *no reasonable person who agree to if they had read it*, isn’t allowed either. Of course you *could* and then you’d quickly lose the ensuing lawsuit.
No, you cannot use terms of service or waivers to allow you to commit crimes. For this exact reason.
No.
At least in the European union, Tos are not allowed to contain surprising or “hidden” clauses. So everything which a normal consumer would not expect in such terms would normally not be valid. If you wanna put such special clauses you would have need to highlight it, so that the customer really acknowledge what happens.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/index_en.htm
No. A legal contract must have mutual value. Each side gets something, and a reasonable person would agree that they were of roughly equal value.
On top of that, the enforceability of those TOS agreements are questionable. The user has no alternative or opportunity to negotiate. It’s fair as a way to tell the user “here are the limits on the service we are providing you” but much more questionable for any terms that aren’t directly related to the service.
There’s a legal concept called unconscionablity. Contracts must be written such that both sides get something of roughly equal value. Terms which grossly favor one side are considered unconscionable – i.e. enforcing the terms of the contract would shock the conscience of a normal person. For instance, you can’t have a contract which says “I loan you $1000, but you pay me back at an interest rate of 25% for every second that passes.” Any contract that is deemed unconscionable cannot be enforced.
[https://www.npr.org/2019/03/08/701417140/when-not-reading-the-fine-print-can-cost-your-soul](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/08/701417140/when-not-reading-the-fine-print-can-cost-your-soul)
Nobody reads the fine print. But maybe they should.
Georgia high school teacher Donelan Andrews won a $10,000 reward after she closely read the terms and conditions that came with a travel insurance policy she purchased for a trip to England. Squaremouth, a Florida insurance company, had inserted language promising a reward to the first person who emailed the company.
“We understand most customers don’t actually read contracts or documentation when buying something, but we know the importance of doing so,” the company [said](https://www.squaremouth.com/campaign/pays-to-read/). “We created the top-secret Pays to Read campaign in an effort to highlight the importance of reading policy documentation from start to finish.”
Can be for your benefit sometimes to read it.
No. The key legal concept here is called the “covenant of good faith”, which means all parties entering into a contract have a legal duty to implement an agreement as intended. This limits a contract/terms of service to the realm of whatever it is allegedly dealing with.
Attempting to insert a blatant rip-off, or really anything that isn’t obviously relevant to your phone into the terms of service on your phone, would be viewed by the courts as being in bad faith, and invalidate the contract.
Based on the show SouthPark those things are legally binding so make sure you read it all or else you’ll be in some weird experiment attached to an Asian man asking you to choose between Vanilla Paste or Cuttlefish and Asparagus
Any attempt to enforce such a provision would be considered unconscionable by the courts and thus unenforceable. Long ago McAfee had a clause in their license saying you must get their preapproval before publishing benchmarks. The government said nope, you can’t enforce that.
We need lawyers working for the common people to read through these agreements. They all seem to be on the businesses side
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