(Untitled)

[murdering]

EDIT: The number of these 'gifts' is a bit too large to be a random occurance. Planned attack, anyone?

EDIT 2: Community's back to moderated posting and membership. Don't we all love maturity in opposition?

__________________

Oh, look, free corporate gift spam.

How clever. e_e

*points to userinfo of community*

Comments

[doohickey]

Ummm... guys?

IX. MODIFICATIONS TO SERVICE

[magic_potion]

FAQ #262 Paid and Permanent Accounts: You will never see ads on LiveJournal, even when viewing a Plus account's journal, as long as you're logged in.

http://www.livejournal.com/paidaccounts/ At least in the finnish version "no ads" is listed as a feature of a paid account. They sell a "no ads" feature.

[kyrio]

Do you know what a TOS is? When you signed up you agreed to it, regardless of what their advertizing told you. Maybe next time you will read what you are agreeing to before you buy something.

[saralogan]

When I got my first LJ, there were a lot fewer things in the TOS than there are now. When did LJ notify users of the changes? Oh, wait -- they didn't. They're lucky no one's tried reporting them for that since refusing to inform users of changes to the TOS before the changes take effect is illegal.

[doohickey]

Did you read the TOS at ALL? First section:

I. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

LiveJournal, Inc., dba LiveJournal.com, ("LiveJournal") provides the following service to you, subject to these Terms of Service ("TOS"), which may be updated periodically without prior notice. You can review the current version of the TOS at: http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos.bml. Failure to comply with these TOS may result in account revocation.

Last section:

XXIII. REVISIONS

LiveJournal may at any time revise these Terms of Service by updating this posting. By using this Site, you agree to be bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit this page to determine the then-current Terms of Service to which you are bound.

[saralogan]

My bad, I must have skipped over that because I was too busy reading the law about how it's illegal for websites to change their TOS without informing the users first. :-\

[doohickey]

Check the last section. It's your duty to remain on top of things. They're informing you by updating that site, which clearly says that they can use advertising to fund their business.

[saralogan]

My "duty" or not, they're still breaking the law. Updating the TOS is simply changing it -- they are required to actually inform their customers, via email, telephone, what have you. They are required to make the effort before the changes are put into effect.

[doohickey]

Cite source, please.

[saralogan]

Douglas v. U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

[serenanna]

http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/Litigation/06-75424.pdf

California court of law, and LJ's servers are in California. It may not work retroactively, but until new law is passed, they must contact all their users of changes to the TOS from now on or face possible litigation.

[doohickey]

Key words: "From now on." The opinion was published in July, and the TOS was last changed in April of 2006.

I concede about the notification (although I've disabled all communication from LJ other than my own comment notifications, so I wouldn't know if anyone contacts anyone or not), but it would be interesting to know when that particular advertising clause was added. If it was in the original TOS that people agreed to, then people can shove it. If not, then they should have a way to either not have ads or get their money back for any unused time on LJ if they choose to leave.

Personally, I just ignore the things.

/goes back to drinking her Coke

[serenanna]

>.> I believe that's part of why the court decided in favor of the user in that particular case. The court said that without notification that the other party would have to check the document every day to see what changed and then have to find what changed on their memory of the original. With how long most TOS's are, remembering them word for word would be nigh impossible for the average person.

I don't think anyone knows if that clause has been there from the begging or not.

And really, how many people do you know really read all of it and comprehend it? Most TOS's point is to give the company all the advantages while not scaring off people that do take the time to read it.

[doohickey]

It's a company. They don't care about the individual.

And yes, if you agree to the TOS (unchanged), you are bound to it. It sucks if you haven't read it/can't understand it, but that's the way life works. The company uses that to their advantage, like companies do.

[astraea_trepe]

They can put anything they want in their TOS, but that doesn't make it legal. Just like any contract. Just because someone writes it and you sign it doesn't mean you're held to that clause if it's illegal.

Consumers also have a right to complain about poor service or if they feel that the service they've paid for has been misrepresented.

[doohickey]

The clause was only deemed illegal a month ago. The last change to the TOS was in April of 2006. I doubt they're going to enforce it, but LJ will probably notify people from now on. If they don't, then it's a legal problem.

And nobody ever said you're not allowed to complain. But we're allowed to tell you to shove it as well. It's that whole "freedom of speech" thing that's on the main page of the community. (Even though freedom of speech doesn't necessarily apply to private companies.)

Complain away. But don't expect everyone to agree with you.