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.
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.