Update: http://consumerist.com/2013/12/19/watch-al-franken-shred-a-pro-arbitration-professor-for-trying-to-gloss-over-the-problem/
Today I got the following email.
We’ve updated the Microsoft Services Agreement, which governs many of our online services – including your Microsoft account and many of our online products and services for consumers, such as Hotmail, SkyDrive, Bing, MSN, Office.com, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Movie Maker, Windows Mail Desktop, and Windows Writer. Please read over the new Microsoft Services Agreement here to familiarize yourself with the changes we’ve made.
The updated agreement will take effect on October 19, 2012. If you continue to use our services after October 19th, you agree to the terms of the new agreement or, of course you can cancel your service at any time.
We have modified the agreement to make it easier to read and understand, including using a question and answer format that we believe makes the terms much clearer. We also clarified how Microsoft uses your content to better protect consumers and improve our products, including aligning our usage to the way we’re designing our cloud services to be highly integrated across many Microsoft products. We realize you may have personal conversations and store personal files using our products, and we want you to know that we prioritize your privacy.
Finally, we have added a binding arbitration clause and class action waiver that affects how disputes with Microsoft will be resolved in the United States.
Thank you for using Microsoft products and services!
This is exactly like that crap Steam has pulled. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2848908
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115056313943520401920/posts/fZfDdMgAVnK
I think this recent wave of class action terror is a strong sign that we should be demanding our right to it.
Rather than fighting the corporations on this individually perhaps we should demand legislation that makes it simply illegal to sign away your rights to legal recourse at all.
I mean really. What if I put a clause in a pre-nup saying my spouse lost her right to sue me for slapping her? Clearly that would be laughed out of court. How is denying access to a specific legal recourse as a condition of using the service any different? They are literally trying to be above the law.
Update: Now eBay is doing it as well.
