
Uber Can’t Force Arbitration Over Pricing Antitrust Claim - lnguyen
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-29/uber-customer-avoids-arbitration-on-antitrust-claim-in-new-york
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ipsi
Second paragraph:

> U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said Friday that Uber’s online
> user agreement didn’t provide Spencer Meyer with sufficient notice of its
> arbitration policy for it to be binding.

Assumed this meant that if they'd told him a bit further in advance (e.g. 30
days, etc), it'd be fine, but no. Further down the page:

>In the New York case, Rakoff said that Meyer registered with Uber in October
2014 using a Samsung smartphone. The registration form included the words "By
creating an Uber account, you agree to the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy,"
according to the judge.

> The form didn’t require users to click on the "Terms of Service & Privacy
> Policy" to register. Users who clicked on the link were taken to “nine pages
> of highly legalistic language that no ordinary consumer could be expected to
> understand,” Rakoff said. The arbitration clause, which includes a waiver of
> the right to sue in court, was at the bottom of Page 7, he said.

> Rakoff ruled the registration process didn’t provide sufficient notice to
> Meyer that he was waiving his right to have his claim heard by a jury in
> court.

Which seems a lot more interesting.

~~~
nerdponx
Doesn't this imply that most EULAs and TOS agreements are largely
unenforceable? They're all done this way.

~~~
Silhouette
I can't speak for anyone else, but I know when we've talked to real lawyers
about T&Cs for online B2C services (based in England) their view was similar
to the judge's comments in this case. In short, if your terms are fair and
reasonable then it's a binding agreement and it is likely to be upheld by a
court in the event of a dispute. However, if you have an unusual or
potentially surprising term then it is more likely to stand up if it's
prominently disclosed near the start of the terms, and less likely to stand up
if it's buried deep inside. For example, in the terms for a service that was
doing something new with a certain technology, we included a short but
realistic note about certain known limitations of that technology prominently
and early. As an aside, the same legal advice recommended writing in plain
English rather than legalese as much as possible.

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carbocation
When I enter into a business contract, I have a lawyer review the documents
before I sign them. When I download an app or signup for a web service, I
don't–but the legal documents that I'm signing are no less complex in those
cases. It's unreasonable to expect a serious understanding of these contracts
on the part of the user, and it's unreasonable to expect them to hire a lawyer
to be sure they're OK with what they're agreeing to. The costs, multiplied
across all customers, would be prohibitive. For mass market services like
this, there should be a better way.

~~~
logn
I'd like to see a standardization of EULAs along the lines of Creative Commons
licensing. They have a human readable version of their licensing, logos/icons
for each, and you create one by answering a few basic questions.

~~~
fragsworth
I imagine this would end up in a situation where most companies ask for
everything, just like the privacy / permissions requests we see when
installing mobile apps.

It seems like it would be a lot better than what we currently have, though. At
least there would be a market for companies that aren't shitty about it.

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serge2k
> The arbitration clause, which includes a waiver of the right to sue in
> court, was at the bottom of Page 7, he said.

Can we just go ahead and start restricting the use of these clauses? They have
a place in a reasonable contract between businesses, but using them to prevent
customers suing or participating in class actions is completely ridiculous and
should be illegal.

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steveeq1
Ok, non-lawyer here. I keep on hearing about arbitration clauses being a bad
thing. Isn't arbitration kind of like a privatized court system that's also
legally binding? Isn't this much faster than using the traditional court
system? I would imagine this would be a GOOD thing. What is the disadvantage
of arbitration from a consumer's point of view?

~~~
techsupporter
> What is the disadvantage of arbitration from a consumer's point of view?

Chiefly, that the arbitrator is almost universally chosen by the company or
for the benefit of the company and the customer (I object, strenuously, to
being called a "consumer") almost never wins.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-
arbit...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-arbitration-
a-privatization-of-the-justice-system.html)

~~~
steveeq1
I don't get it, isn't the arbitrator supposed to be an unbiased third party?
Whether or not he's chosen by the company should be irrelevant.

~~~
zyxley
> Whether or not he's chosen by the company should be irrelevant.

This only holds if the people at that company are morally-perfect robots who
never make choices subtly biased in their own favor.

~~~
serge2k
In a perfect world it wouldn't matter, because the arbiter would be neutral.

~~~
zyxley
"A perfect world" is irrelevant.

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jdavis703
While I'm against binding arbitration agreements for person to business
agreements, this seems like the exact kind of frivolous lawsuit arbitration is
designed to protect companies against. It's 2016 and people are still upset at
surge pricing?

~~~
yladiz
People have many reasons to be upset at surge pricing. For example, how
transparently do they use surge pricing? How can we be certain it's due to
demand and not arbitrarily adding it? Why is it fair that if I'm out at New
Years at 12-1am, or Halloween at the same time, that I should pay 6-7-10x the
normal price, which could turn a $10-$20 ride into a multiple hundred dollar
ride? Is it fair because an algorithm put it in place, and just because it may
be "fair", does that make it right, e.g. the terrorist attacks in Australia
when demand when through the roof and surge pricing went up to 9x? Are we sure
that every part of that surge price is going to the driver, which it's
supposed to?

Of course there are valid reasons for surge pricing, one of which is to keep
supply with demand and ensure that the driver feels justly compensated for
going somewhere they might not want to, but to say people aren't justified in
their being upset at it because "it's 2016" is disrespecting the reality of
the arguments against it.

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home_boi
I don't know about this one. No one reads the terms of services for simple web
services or apps. But I feel that drivers should have read the TOS because
Uber is paying them and it is common sense to read any and all papers when
doing business.

