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this doesn't make it sound any better unfortunately. perhaps i might be unpopular in saying this, but he should just click the fuck through. either you want to spend your time getting stuff done, or spend your time prevaricating about the bush.



Well, there's more to the story about the T&Cs, which I didn't get into because I was trying to write about panics... So I did try to create an Apple ID, which required I agree to "Apple Terms of Service", which links to http://www.apple.com/legal/. Ok, WHERE are the "Apple Terms of Service" on that page? Perhaps I'm being an idiot, but I don't see anything with that title. I browsed around for a while before giving up for now -- I've already lost time due to the panics, I'll get back to creating an account some other day.


Under the heading "Internet Services"


Ok, but which one? All of them? ... The tickbox says I'm agreeing to the "Apple Terms of Service" ... which means?


In any case, the spirit of my original comment was just to say that it's a notable omission from the article. I think that ansimionescu was right to point out the (perhaps subtle) difference between the author's actual explanation and my misquotation.


i might be being a bit grumpy, i guess it's estimable to take that kind of approach to agreeing to t&c's, but honestly on a case by case basis, you can quickly work out which sets of agreements you should spend time worrying about.

i think in his shoes i'd rather spend time debugging than peering over a somewhat self imposed roadblock.


This is exactly how freedoms are signed away.


I think the problem is in a different place.

Ask yourself this: If I post a piece of software on the internet, and on page 57 of the 132 page license agreement there is a provision that says you have to pay me $150,000 every time there is a lunar eclipse, what do you think as a policy matter that a court should do when there is a lunar eclipse and I file a lawsuit for non-payment in breach of contract against a million people who have used my app? Order them all to pay me $150,000 each? If so I think I have a new business model.

Attaching license terms to the use of software is problematic. When the terms are minor and unobjectionable then they're meaningless, because pretty much nobody is going to go through the trouble of litigation over the matter of someone lying about their age on a dating website, and what would be the remedy in that case anyway? Any terms significant enough to be worth enforcing in court are almost certain to be shocking or unreasonable, like requirements to pay money under unexpected circumstances or attempts to limit the rights the user has under copyright law.

More than that, we all know that 99% of users never read the damn things, and they never will. How can it be reasonable to enforce terms against someone who everybody admits never understood the terms?


To be clear, many/most software contracts limit the right of the user to do things like reverse engineer it, and some contracts also include rather controversial arbitration clauses.


Did you see this fun South Park episode?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Centipad




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