Are social media TOS invalid because lack of due process and mutuality creates an unenforceable illusory contract? Generally speaking, the TOS of social media platforms share certain common features. They do not give the user the right to any &quot;due process.&quot; If the platform wishes to cancel, block or suspend the user, they can do so with impunity. The platform can exercise its sole discretion and the user has no right to due process or a fair hearing. Even worse, these social media platforms routinely engage in the practice of so-called &quot;shadow banning.&quot; This practice effectively cuts off users from accessing the platform with an elaborate ruse and conspiracy designed to deceive the user into believing they still are using the platform normally. But, in fact, all their posts are disappeared into the either by the platform to intentionally trick the user into wasting their time creating more posts that go nowhere. My hypothesis is that these common practices (deceptive shadow banning ruse conspiracy, lack of due process, no right to any appeal or fair hearing and lack of mutuality -- the platform can do whatever they want with autonomous impunity and the user can't even register a complaint) combined with the plain language of the TOS of these social media platforms that grant complete autonomous impunity to the platform constitutes an ILLUSORY CONTRACT and, therefore, renders the TOS invalid in their entirety. Does my hypothesis have any merit? Edit I am using the following definition of illusory contract: A promise that is unenforceable due to indefiniteness or lack of mutuality, where only one side is bound to perform. The TOS I am referencing seem to meet all the requirements to me. They lack mutuality. Only one side is bound to perform.
No Contracts are not bound by due process. Due process is a rule of how a lawsuit has to be handled, not how a contract is to be handled. All the Due Process clauses in the US constitution simply don't apply. The only things that apply are the contract language, and the underlying/overwriting laws. If your contract stipulates that it is terminated by winning a coin flip against the other party, that's fine. If it stipulates, that you have to find 15 people supporting you in terminating the contract, that's fine. If it states that the other party can terminate for any and all reasons, including no reason, that's what the contract says, and fine. The contract would have to establish that you actually have a process, and how it is handled. My hypothesis is that these common practices combined with the plain language of the TOS of these social media platforms that grant complete autonomous impunity to the platform[...] This part is correct. They have the complete impunity because of how the contract is written. However, that does not make the contract illusory: you can decide not to agree to it and not go to the place, so it is mutual acceptance. Both sides are bound to perform something until the contract is terminated. An illusory contract would be that Alice gets 2000 USD for nothing (only one side performs). But both sides perform. The contract is to follow the TOS in exchange for site access. Both sides offer something: access in exchange for adherence to rules. The claim of non-mutuality is frivolous: If you claim &quot;I don't agree to the TOS and contract&quot;, you can't at the same time get the benefits of the contract either: you signed the contract to follow the TOS in exchange to access the site, and if you don't want to follow the TOS, you have to terminate the contract and can't access the site. You can't eat your cake and have it too. Also, there is a severability clause, which is valid: even if a clause would be illegal, it would be replaced by the closest legal clause, overwritten by the legal minimum, or removed, whichever is the least impact. The rest of the TOS is untouched and fully valid. Your conclusion is wrong and meritless.
First of all, a contract is valid without a signature and even without being in writing; all that is needed is consent by the parties. Therefore, the signature is merely evidence of that consent and is only relevant if a dispute arises over the general consent or the particular terms that were consented to. A digital signature would make it harder for Bob to argue that those were not the terms he signed but if I have Bob's signature on them then the onus of proving he didn't sign rests with Bob, I don't have to prove he did. All of the methods you suggest are valid as would an email saying "Got the contract. I agree. Bob."
Yes. This is legal. The only possible liability for a truthful and accurate disclosure of fact is a defamation action (in the absence of a privacy clause in the contract) and this is truthful so it would not violate anyone's legal rights. Credit reporting agencies routinely collect such information and court actions to collect unpaid debts are also a matter of public record. Credit reporting agencies in this business also have some additional obligations (such as the obligation to remove an entry after a period of time and an obligation to present rebuttal statements from the person affected). But, you should understand that merely publicly sharing truthful information about a factual matter is not really what a "blacklist" means. Normally, a blacklist includes an implied understanding that certain actions will be taken as a result of placement on the list rather than merely sharing information for what it is worth. An example of a law prohibiting a true blacklist from Colorado is the following: § 8-2-110. Unlawful to publish blacklist No corporation, company, or individual shall blacklist, or publish, or cause to be blacklisted or published any employee, mechanic, or laborer discharged by such corporation, company, or individual, with the intent and for the purpose of preventing such employee, mechanic, or laborer from engaging in or securing similar or other employment from any other corporation, company, or individual. Incidentally, I'm not convinced that the statute would be constitutional if enforced under modern First Amendment jurisprudence, although one U.S. District court case from 1971 did uphold its validity in the face of a somewhat different kind of challenge. Resident Participation, Inc. v. Love, 322 F. Supp. 1100 (D. Colo. 1971).
Tinder's Terms of Service (TOS) is pretty clear: Therefore, you agree not to: • use the Service or any content contained in the Service for any commercial purposes without our written consent. • copy, modify, transmit, create any derivative works from, make use of, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, images, trademarks, trade names, service marks, or other intellectual property, content or proprietary information accessible through the Service without Tinder’s prior written consent. • use any robot, bot, spider, crawler, scraper, site search/retrieval application, proxy or other manual or automatic device, method or process to access, retrieve, index, “data mine,” or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Service or its contents. • modify, adapt, sublicense, translate, sell, reverse engineer, decipher, decompile or otherwise disassemble any portion of the Service, or cause others to do so. • use or develop any third-party applications that interact with the Service or other users’ Content or information without our written consent. The Company may investigate and take any available legal action in response to illegal and/ or unauthorized uses of the Service, including termination of your account. If you ignored that and did your machine learning research with images anyway, you're breaking the TOS, and to be honest, you may not be caught. But if you published your research, Tinder could demand you engage in arbitration or sue you on the premise that your research proves you violated their TOS. If your jurisdiction is outside of the US, other laws may come into play, but it's safe to assume you could still be in legal jeopardy from Tinder.
Under Australian Consumer Law (ACL) the test is not unconscionably; for standard form consumer contracts its unfairness: A court may declare a term ‘unfair’ if: it would cause a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations arising under the contract; it is not reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate interests of the party that would be advantaged by the term; and it would cause detriment to a party if it was relied on. However, an important caveat is that a term that is specifically allowed by Australian law is not unfair. To clarify slightly, the dispute resolution clause in Section 6 requires mediation before binding arbitration, both under the respective ICC rules and both with their seat in Amsterdam under Dutch law. A few things to say to start with: Choice of law clauses are supported by Australian law. However, the Australian Consumer Law cannot be excluded by contract so the proceedings would be under the ACL first and Dutch law where the ACL did not apply. Mediation and arbitration are both supported (and encouraged) by Australian law, including agreeing on the seat, so those terms are not prima facie unfair. Limitations of Liability clauses (such as that under Clause 5) are also supported by Australian law so that is not prima facie unfair. However, there are a number of issues with the Uber ToS that may meet the threshold of 'unfair' and/or may breach the 'misleading and deceptive conduct' provisions in the ACL. In no particular order: The costs under the ICC rules of USD 5,000 are considerably more than the costs of using and Australian service like the AUD 1,000 charged by the Resolution Institute. Similarly, the seat being in Amsterdam is likely to &quot;cause detriment&quot; to Australian consumers. I am not alone in this view but it has not yet been tested AFAIK. s60 of the ACL impose a warranty that services will be rendered with due skill and care: damage that arises from this failing to happen cannot be excluded or limited by contract. Similarly claims for misleading and deceptive conduct cannot be excluded following the decision in Brighton Australia Pty Ltd v Multiplex Constructions Pty Ltd [2018] VSC 246. The claim that Dutch law applies &quot;exclusively&quot; is patently wrong and therefore 'misleading and deceptive'. Even if Uber believes it (and I doubt their legal team does) misleading and deceptive conduct under ACL does not have a defence of genuine belief. the DISCLAIMER says &quot;UBER DISCLAIMS ALL REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, NOT EXPRESSLY SET OUT IN THESE TERMS&quot; - they can't do this. Even though they say at the end &quot;... TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW&quot; this is unlikely to be sufficient to claim that the initial statement was not misleading. It hasn't yet been tested but if I wanted to bring a claim against Uber I would just go down the the Local Court and file a Statement of Claim - I would feel pretty confident that the magistrate would rule against them and that Uber would be unlikely to appeal.
does that mean I'm agreeing to whatever the state of that website is on the day I'm signing, or any and all future updates to that website? That type of &quot;blank slate&quot; agreements is lawful and it means &quot;the conditions of which you are made aware&quot;, hence the terms as of the date you entered the agreement. To supersede that meaning, the agreement would need to be explicit about referring to &quot;any and all futures updates to that website&quot;. Your willful agreement of unknown future updates is described in Restatement (Second) of Contracts at § 154(b) as [the party being] aware, at the time the contract is made, that he has only limited knowledge with respect to the facts [...] but treats his limited knowledge as sufficient You might want to save a copy of the terms if you are concerned that the counterparty might unilaterally change the terms and allege that your acceptance was in reference to those.
Laws are different around the world and you didn't bother to state your location, but typically no- this is not how the system works. What would be the point? There's no defendant. You, the plaintiff would argue against thin air and then what? The court rules in your favour, declares this illegal, and nothing happens because there's no defendant. Is it so you can use this ruling if you find out later? Pretty sneaky. Let's look into how this would actually work. You bring up a case- Jackson vs a mannequin or something. You make your arguments. The defense makes literally no defense. The judge rules in your favour, with a result of nothing as there is no defendent. Next, you find the culprit and bring a case against them. You point out that this is illegal because we came to that decision last week. What's that defendant? An argument against it being illegal? Too bad, the decision has been made. When I posted this answer, it was before the &quot;Nyah, I was ranting about government spying but was deliberately vague- aren't I clever?&quot; comment and I assumed it was against, say, a neighbour but it doesn't really matter. You cannot have a system that makes a judgement without a defendant so it can be applied later.
In case a company is flooded by such &quot;asymmetric&quot; requests, how should a company react? Although article 12.5 refers to singular &quot;a data subject&quot;, it can be inferred that exposing the controller to significant expenses is not part of the legislative intent. Accordingly, the company may have requesters choose between paying a reasonable fee for the ensuing administrative costs or withdrawing the requirement that delivery be by postal mail. The bad faith scenario you outline seems to be a non-sequitur, since generally a pattern (or a high number) of requests for postal mail delivery should prompt the controller to suspect that some or many might not be legitimate. A requester with bad intentions would be unable to prove the identity of the various data subjects he impersonates or alleges to represent.