Endless Paradigm

It appears a few days ago the PSN ToS was changed.  Apparently an email was sent around.
In particular is this clause of the email:

Quote:In particular, please review Section 15 of the TOS, which now includes a class action waiver and requires that most disputes be resolved through arbitration.

And from section 15 of the ToS (in nice red writing):

Quote:Class Action Waiver. ANY DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEEDINGS, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR COURT, WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR AS A NAMED OR UNNAMED MEMBER IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL LEGALACTION, UNLESS BOTH YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE SPECIFICALLY AGREE TO DO SO IN WRITING FOLLOWING INITIATION OF THE ARBITRATION. THIS PROVISION DOES NOT PRECLUDE YOUR PARTICIPATION AS A MEMBER IN A CLASS ACTION FILED ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 20, 2011.

Though Sony does let you keep the right, if you want to:

Quote:RIGHT TO OPT OUT OF BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER WITHIN 30 DAYS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THE BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER IN THIS SECTION 15, YOU MUST NOTIFY SNEI IN WRITING WITHIN 30 DAYS OF THE DATE THAT YOU ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT. YOUR WRITTEN NOTIFICATION MUST BE MAILED TO 6080 CENTER DRIVE, 10TH FLOOR, LOS ANGELES, CA 90045, ATTN: LEGAL DEPARTMENT/ARBITRATION AND MUST INCLUDE: (1) YOUR NAME, (2) YOUR ADDRESS, (3) YOUR PSN ACCOUNT NUMBER, IF YOU HAVE ONE, AND (4) A CLEAR STATEMENT THAT YOU DO NOT WISH TO RESOLVE DISPUTES WITH ANY SONY ENTITY THROUGH ARBITRATION.

Sony mad at the lawsuits they got earlier?

Oh god ,  i m really stupid , i don't understand nothing from those writings.

Hey, I don't either. Who reads the legal stuff?

difficult words.... i can't understand :(

... I think they purposely use hard words to dodge the chance that the hack happens again, they will less likely get sued (considering a lot less people will be able to understand these words).

well that's illegal. you can't just say "if you want to do this you can't do a class action lawsuit".

it doesn't matter in the end, the court will overrule it if a class action ever did go through. that's like psn having a clause that says "you agree to not sue us for any reason". you could still sue and win.

also for those who don't understand, a class action lawsuit is a lawsuit where a large corporation is sued on behalf of a bunch of people, for example, suing BP for the gulf oil spill on behalf of the entire gulf coast. In a class action, the resulting sum is usually MASSIVE (think way more money than you and i put together will ever see) and gets paid out to every person who is part of it. there was a class action a few years ago where a company was sued for polluting the water table, and they had to pay like 750million or something like that. in the end, the people closest to the pollution got more money out of the suit than those farther out. some people ended up with a few hundred thousand, others got like twelve dollars.

in this case, psn is trying to avoid a class action lawsuit where they could be sued on behalf of all the psn users who had to deal with its downtime. you all should be very angry with the fact that they are trying to sneak this in on you, as that effectively means that you can't have someone fighting the battle on your behalf, and if you want to get restitution, you would have to actually sue them yourself.

In layman's terms, the contract says "if you have a problem with sony, you can't sue us, unless you meet with someone from sony and both you and the sony representative agree that a lawsuit is the best option"

you can opt out of it, but theyre making you mail them because nobody will do so. that means that if you do not opt out of this clause, and they get taken to court on all the user's behalf, you will get nothing, because you agreed to not be part of any class actions against them. im not sure but i think if you do the opt-out, youll be exempt.

but that's just a bullchocolate way to try excuse what theyre doing, which is ILLEGAL