New Steam Agreement gets rid of forced arbitration and waivers for class action lawsuits
Noticed this update got pushed just now.
Edit: Seems they’re doing this to prevent costs from arbitration. Read comment below.
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Noticed this update got pushed just now.
Edit: Seems they’re doing this to prevent costs from arbitration. Read comment below.
Seems like a good thing?
I was wondering if it was related to anything passed recently, because another service had to change privacy rules to opt in over a rule change in Cali. I just assume if it sounds like a good thing for consumers, it probably wasn't their choice, lol, but I guess in this case it's just a cost cutting measure.
I at least appreciate them being pretty clear about what's different now.
I think there's a bit of a sea change in business generally where arbitration ended up being worse for corporations if too many customers/employees used that option because it meant paying a bunch of money for each case instead of dealing with one class action suit.
While the arbitration courts themselves are generally biased to corporate interests, it's not enough of a thumb on the scale to make up for the huge downside.
I've seen some arbitration agreements stating that you can't collaborate with other customers who are affected by the same issue, requiring each customer to have a different attorney.
Some companies really want to make it impossible for you to win any significant damages against them.
At that point, they are just telling on themselves.
Oh no, I did it anyways and collaborated with other customers online. Oh well guess we gotta arbitrate that now.
From what I've read, it can go either way (note: not a lawyer).
Arbitration is easier for people to seek compensation, but it usually prevents any significant damages and doesn't set a legal precedent that others can use to easily get compensation.
Court cases are harder to start and generally require a lawyer, but if you win you can get significant damages and it can set a legal precedent.
So it's usually best for the consumer to have a choice on how to pursue issues. I have seen a lot of companies lately update their terms for arbitration only though, so this is at contrast with how most companies I've seen are handling things.
Having been sued by copyright vultures, I definitely get the difficulty with court. The minimum just to have a lawyer retainer was 2500. The vultures told us to essentially give them 2400 and the problem would go away (a strongly worded email managed to get them off my back, but mostly because they clearly used bots).
I can see it weed out small cases less than that. I guess it'd help if I knew what people were sueing over.
Should've gone with a much lower number. The difference of 100 dollars means nothing to my burning spite.
That was technically my thinking too, haha. If you're ever targeted by this (and it can be as simple as having a Google image placeholder in an unindexed page) you just need to be stubborn and spiteful. It's not worth their time with so many other patsies, haha.
Arbitration court with one person is a win for the company. Arbitration court with a thousand people is a massive loss for the company. That's why these arbitration clauses aren't always bad. If anything, for small cases they're good for the people because the bulk of the legal charges are paid by the companies that write these clauses.
A bunch of large companies went through a phase where they all went for arbitration clauses, and a bunch of them moved back quickly after they found out how much more expensive paying for ten thousand arbitration cases was compared to just one single class action lawsuit. Maintaining ten thousand legally binding, individually composed outcomes can haunt them for decades if they're unlucky.
Steam has learned the same lesson here.