<a href="http://hothardware.com/News/Appeals-Court-Reverses-Decision-Allows-ClassAction-Lawsuit-Against-Dell/" rel="nofollow">http://hothardware.com/News/Appeals-Court-Reverses-Decision-...</a><p>tl;dr<p>The issue in question was whether or not Dell's Terms and Conditions of Sale could legally force the company's customers to settle disputes through arbitration rather than in a court of law. This is the second time in recent history that the ninth circuit has found such arbitration clauses unenforceable due to the unconscionable burden they place upon the purchaser.<p>...<p>The court based its ruling in Omstead v. Dell directly upon an earlier case, Oestreicher v. Alienware, in which Alienware (a Dell subsidiary) attempted to force Mr. Oestreicher into arbitration. In that decision, the court wrote that the Alienware contract was unconscionable because it was a "contract of adhesion." A contract of adhesion is <i>a standardized contract, which, imposed and drafted by the party of superior bargaining strength, relegates to the subscribing party [the customer] only the opportunity to adhere to the contract or reject it.</i>
I wonder if this is part of David Marcus' plan to "radically change" paypal and "earn your trust again"...<p><a href="http://ndy.gd/JJgB" rel="nofollow">http://ndy.gd/JJgB</a><p>edit: added trust quote.
> Unless you opt out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against PayPal on an individual basis<p>So, you can opt out. But they will retain a herd immunity of sorts -- as long as a critical mass of users doesn't opt out, a class action can never gain steam. Clever.<p>Incidentally, has anyone managed to opt out? I can't figure out how to (the new TOS doesn't even show up for me, so it may be that non-US users are not affected)
I'm from Europe and I don't really getting it.<p>If you start a class action lawsuit, the best thing PayPal can do is to sue you for contractual non-performance. At least in Europe, even if the contract say that you won't file a lawsuit, the court will throw that part of contract out, usually for constitution terms.<p>So is this legal in the US? How many of your constitutional rights can you give up in a contract in the US?
As a non-lawyer, I'd be interested to know if existing Paypal customers in the US can request a declaratory judgement on the enforceability of the arbitration clauses. I feel there would be a beneficial chilling effect on service providers if customers could bring class-action suits for declaratory remedies about adhesive and unconscionable/inequitable terms of service—that is, without having to first breach the terms of the contract (which could only happen on an individual basis and in which case the playing field would be massively un-level).
Sue in small claims court? I thought part of the point of class actions were to make things cheaper for defendants by only having to defend one case instead of thousands.
I would like to find the first form on their page, find out where it posts to and post my opt out there. If the web server responds with a 200 OK then I know they got it so I have opted out and received a confirmation that they got my message.<p>Also I don't need to do this, because I'm in Norway and I have no reason to join an American class action suit and in Norway you can't sign away your rights in this manner.
FnordFnordFnordCo LLC Policy update. This update to the User Agreement effective ca. many years ago. contains changes that affect how claims you (PayPal) and FnordFnordFnord have against each other are resolved. You (PayPal) will be used only as a last resort. Pretty much if there is any alternative better than a carrier pigeon, it will be used.
Absurd. Think of what a class action lawsuit is, in its bare form - it is a form of free speech - a peaceable assembly.<p>I dislike runaway litigation as much as anyone, blah blah blah, but you can't keep me from peaceably assembling for whatever reasons I see fit.
I've started seeing these on my Visa card as well, about 1 month ago. I wonder which one tipped the other off about it, or which case made this so sensitive to these large companies.
That's okay, seriously. I have no intention of ever using paypal ever again. Case closed. I wonder how many new customers this is going to loose them? Only time will tell.
Contracts only mean what the courts say they mean. And if your only agreement is a "yes" typed into a text field or a checkbox clicked, probably mean even less than that.