Funny thing is, EULA agreements like this have already been shot down in so many cases, it's dumb at this point to try and pull this off. They're just trying to test if anyone will actually pull the trigger on a class action.
They're just trying to test if anyone will actually pull the trigger on a class action.
What would be the benefit to such a move?
Thirty-seven cents for every Discord user.
Groundwork for "the next step", which is expecting zero privacy, and all your messages are sold. Mark me.
But even so they costs the companies involved millions, they wouldn't want to be dragged through one
Yeah, not sure why folks care
I can sue discord and there's nothing their EULA can do to stop me.
God bless our right to litigate*
*terms and conditions apply: enough money to win in a battle of attrition
*For US users
EU users are already protected so this doesn't apply to them.
Its amazing that a company in the US can simply demand that if you use their services you have to agree not to sue them. Its one of the only reasons anyone could or would sue them!
Don't forget the use of mandatory employment arbitration which effectively reduces workers rights by not allowing them a right to legal action.
Just tacking on to your comment for any US workers:
Just because you can't sue for your rights doesn't mean nobody can. The government is often perfectly happy to sue on your behalf to recover lost wages or to punish workplace health and safety violations.
wow! and they think people don't want to work!
bUt wE aLsO wAiVE tHe rIgHT to SuE yOu! says the company who doesn't stand to gain anything from suing its users
Common W for the EU
...in the USA. Doesn't affect us over the pond, but very important for USA users to take note.
…in the USA. Doesn’t affect us over the pond, but very important for USA users to take note.
Really appreciate you guys over there keeping up the pressure on corporations to act ethically/ accordingly.
Here's hoping some of that splash back happens over here.
High five for unalienable rights
Came to say this. Here in the AU you cannot exclude certain things, this being one of them. They can write it all they like into the TOS, but cannot be enforced. There are many examples, but basically no TOS/Warranty/T&C can exclude or explicitly deny any rights you have or laws that protect you.
Similar to warranty here. Many companies like to put "limited liability" and 30 day warranty. But in AU, the warranty has to fall within our laws. (for example Samsung saying warranty on a $5000 TV is 2 years. Well in AU if the tv is that expensive, you have the right to claim warranty on manufacturing failure for at least 5 years.) Many items we buy here, have an "Australia only warranty amendment page" stuffed in the box!
Shows how much been biased countrywise the posts are. And internet in general.
Companies can do that in US? Sounds like a loophole...
There are many, we're just oblivious because it doesn't affect us in our day to day lives. I'm sure there are loopholes in the EU as well.
I'm sure there are loopholes in the EU as well.
Sure, yeah.
Welcome to the corpocracy and the land of the fee.
Go ahead, give Discord your address
It already has anyway.
Ive requested my discord data once and everytime you do anything in discord it explicitly saves and stores the location of where you were when you interacted with discord.
Ive requested my discord data once and everytime you do anything in discord it explicitly saves and stores
Curious as to if you saw your phone number in that data?
I no longer have the data on my machine so i cant verify anymore unless i request my data again. However, i remember a discord server im in, enabled that accounts in the server needed to be phone number verified if they wanted to chat. This was done to combat spammers and trolls. i told them to bugger off because im not giving discord my phone number. So its possible my phone number was not in there, but knowing discord it could have been
OK, but my raid leader is going to have to shout a lot louder than that if I'm going to hear him from the Netherlands.
Nah, just get a pair of cups and a really long string.
Who keeps the string under tension on the ocean, huh? /s
That's why each team has a support.
OK, but my raid leader is going to have to shout a lot louder than that if I’m going to hear him from the Netherlands.
Yeah, market share is a bitch.
And the reason why the DMA exists. I'm honestly surprised discord doesn't meet the criteria for forced interop under it yet.
Edit: just went through the requirements and it seems they are short on Revenue/Valuation. They exceed the other requirements by a mile though so they may be declared a gatekeeper in the future anyway
Session
Be your own leader, recruit people into a separate channel
Also be sure that you send it from the email associated with your account. As per the update on the situation discord gave, in which it announced an extended deadline of 90 days up from 30 days from April 15th or account creation, the contents of the email don't seem to matter much.
I included my account userid and username just to be safe.
Ah, thanks!
A bounceback? What does that mean? Anyways I sent three emails to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com but got no replies at all.
In email terms, a bounceback is a category of error that in this case meant that the email address didn't exist. Although, that's because I emailed opt-out instead of arbitration-opt-out. My mistake. After fixing it, it went through without a reply as has been the general experience.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm not using the application until I get a response. For all I know, they may respond on the very last day or not respond whatsoever.
I used this from the article, hopefully I filled in the blanks correctly.
Re: Opt-out of arbitration clause in agreement dated 04/15/24
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing to opt out of the arbitration clause in my agreement with Discord dated 04/15/24 for the Communication client Discord.
If you have any questions, you may reach me at the address above.
Yours sincerely,
[My username, legal name, and ID.]
What did you send them, is there a template?
I just sent them a simple email with the subject being "arbitration opt-out" and a body of "I opt out of mandatory arbitration."
Everyone calm down. They're just going to use it for training AI and if you love tech you love AI. So this is a non-issue.
The trained AI will make their public offering so much more desirable
unmarked sarcasm whooshes even the mighty users of Lemmy, apparently
tbf it was sarcasm so dry it might even trick a British person! xD
It was so on the nose and wet that my dog could relate.
lol no shit right
it splashed when it hit
learn to fuckin read, guys
You clearly have not dealt with stupid people in your lifetime then
Honestly, I think I have a serious problem with giving people the benefit of the doubt too much.
Thats a mood tbh
unmarked sarcasm whooshes even the mighty users of Lemmy, apparently
The key presses '/' and 's' (in that order) would solve that problem.
Nah, that's akin to explaining the joke. Well crafted sarcasm needs no callout.
unmarked sarcasm whooshes even the mighty users of Lemmy, apparently
The key presses ‘/’ and ‘s’ (in that order) would solve that problem.
Nah, that’s akin to explaining the joke. Well crafted sarcasm needs no callout.
Nah, its just signaling that in fact it is a joke in the first place. And the callout doesn't happen until the very end, after everything else has already been read, and processed.
Sarcasm can be overly crafted to be indistinguishable from non-sarcasm.
I just deleted my account & it solved all my discord problems.
It’s cute you think deleting your account means they’ve removed your user and information from their servers.
Id assume one could have them do that if they lived in EU
Im considering the info i gave them as lost to discord.
But now I'm not giving them more.
What does that have to do with forced arbitration agreements?
Because deleting your account doesn’t solve all your problems. It’s a solid bet still have all your information and data, which can be monetized, stolen or otherwise abused. And mentioned in article iirc, there is a current class action from parents about lack of protection for minors.
I don't know what all the problems you have are.
Discord has had a perpetual license grant for as long as I remember, so deleting your account would have no expectation of the data you've submitted being removed. It's the same idea as Reddit and most social media, when you submit content, but remains yours, but you grant them a license to it forever. With some you grant copyright as well, but that doesn't appear to be the case with Discord.
If your issue was them profiting from your content, that has been a problem probably since day 1, and this TOS update doesn't change that. If your problem is with arbitration (e.g. you'd want to be a part of a class action lawsuit), then deleting your account signals to them that this change isn't okay.
So we are caring about privacy but that polygon site is a massive scrapper
Any particular reason for this whataboutism that makes it stand out from the average website?
It's a massive scrapper?
Like it engages in scrappy flights? I guess that's one way to frame fighting with discord but I'd personally see them as fairly comparable weight classes.
Or did you mean scraper like vacuuming up data* off of everyone who visits?
Vacuuming up days?
Like it sucks time from your life, siphoning precious time out from your life without even realizing it? I guess that's one way to frame browsing Polygon but I'd personally view it as a pretty tame example compared to sites like YouTube or Lemmy.
Or did you mean data like the site is harvesting information off your service when you click the link?
Typo; vacuuming up data.
Ducking autocorrect
I was just poking a bit of fun, because there's a good chance it was an autocorrect typo for the original commenter too :p
I don't see how this matters to the common user. Why am I going to disagree with Discord enough to sue them. What services do they provide other than a way to communicate for gamers?
Are companies involved? Yes. But I'm not a company and I don't really care if they have a hard time dealing with it. They replaced Teamspeak and I will use it as a platform to communicate. If that changes I might change my stance, but I don't see any other need for it.
The long story short is that you are being made to (by default) give up rights that you should have, particularly around class action lawsuits. It's strictly bad for you and strictly good for the company. They probably shouldn't be allowed to do this. Since they are, the only thing we can do to protest it is to opt-out.
Maybe you'll never sue discord. But maybe someday there will be a lawsuit brought against discord by someone else. A few ideas for topics might include a security vulnerability that leaks personal information, the use of discord content for AI training data (e.g. copyright issues), or the safety of minors online. If you don't opt-out, you can't be a part of such lawsuits if they ever become relevant. This overall weakens these lawsuits and empowers companies like discord to do more shady things with less fear of repercussions.
And, since the vast majority of people will never opt-out (since you're opted in by default) these kinds of lawsuits are weakened from the start. That's why every company in the US is doing this forced arbitration thing. At this point, they would be crazy not to since it's such a good thing for them and the average person doesn't care enough about it.
And it just makes no sense.
The courts are supposed to be a higher authority than personal agreements, so how can a personal agreement override the courts?
Courts are not a higher authority than contract law, they just interpret it.
I hear you. I'm not discounting that these could happen. But how likely is it for my usage? Or most people's usage? My kid is on discord and it's monitored and we use it for gaming. That is what I am led to believe most use it for.
I guess my point is I don't see a scenario for suing Discord itself. They are just the vessel I use to communicate with. I use it constantly. I just don't care. There has never been a time I give out enough information to worry about it.
If there are other scenarios, sure. But it sounds like more of a liability clause for companies that join Discord than individuals.
This is basically the same as saying "I'm not concerned about government back doors or encryption being banned since I'm not doing anything wrong, so it doesn't affect me".
No it's not. The government is a completely different entity than a company. It's structure is different and it's motivation is different. How it implements everything is completely different. If a company says "you can only take us to arbitration" and all I am using it for is to communicate anonymously to other gamers it is not the same as someone knowing everything and going through all my shit.
It's like a company saying you can't sue if you use a can opener with a pop top cap. It doesn't apply to me. I also don't see how it applies to their user base.
But I know no one has given me any scenario that actual users have encountered when Discord was being sued and it turned the tide. I'll just you guys disagree with me.
A scenario is pretty simple: They don't hire enough security personnel to safeguard your data. They get hacked. There is very little damages you could get in arbitration for losing that data, so nothing happens. You cannot form a class to actually make something happen.
What data? The fake email I made up with a made up name to play a game they don't know much about? I don't understand how this applies.
You said your kid uses discord? So you're completely fine with all of their messages being fair share for anyone to view, and you having no say in the matter?
Where is that happening? The claim is that you have to go to arbitration rather than court. Nothing says that their information is anywhere other than discord.
And if your question is that my kid is giving out information, he's not. I look at all his messages and he is fully aware from coaching with my friends and family to not give any sensitive information out to anyone under any circumstances.
He uses to game. Just as I do.
"I don't see how this right is, personally, of use to me in this moment, so why should I care about it?"
The same failed logic that brought us stuff such as "I have nothing to hide, why should I care about privacy?" and "If you've done nothing wrong, You have nothing to fear"
You shouldn't give up your rights in exchange for nothing. In some places that's not even legal.
Maybe it won't be. I don't see the situation coming up often. In fact I think this might make them more prone to being sued.
Funny thing is, EULA agreements like this have already been shot down in so many cases, it's dumb at this point to try and pull this off. They're just trying to test if anyone will actually pull the trigger on a class action.
What would be the benefit to such a move?
Thirty-seven cents for every Discord user.
Groundwork for "the next step", which is expecting zero privacy, and all your messages are sold. Mark me.
But even so they costs the companies involved millions, they wouldn't want to be dragged through one
Yeah, not sure why folks care
I can sue discord and there's nothing their EULA can do to stop me.
God bless our right to litigate*
*terms and conditions apply: enough money to win in a battle of attrition
*For US users
EU users are already protected so this doesn't apply to them.
Its amazing that a company in the US can simply demand that if you use their services you have to agree not to sue them. Its one of the only reasons anyone could or would sue them!
Don't forget the use of mandatory employment arbitration which effectively reduces workers rights by not allowing them a right to legal action.
Just tacking on to your comment for any US workers:
Just because you can't sue for your rights doesn't mean nobody can. The government is often perfectly happy to sue on your behalf to recover lost wages or to punish workplace health and safety violations.
wow! and they think people don't want to work!
bUt wE aLsO wAiVE tHe rIgHT to SuE yOu! says the company who doesn't stand to gain anything from suing its users
Common W for the EU
...in the USA. Doesn't affect us over the pond, but very important for USA users to take note.
Really appreciate you guys over there keeping up the pressure on corporations to act ethically/ accordingly.
Here's hoping some of that splash back happens over here.
High five for unalienable rights
Came to say this. Here in the AU you cannot exclude certain things, this being one of them. They can write it all they like into the TOS, but cannot be enforced. There are many examples, but basically no TOS/Warranty/T&C can exclude or explicitly deny any rights you have or laws that protect you.
Similar to warranty here. Many companies like to put "limited liability" and 30 day warranty. But in AU, the warranty has to fall within our laws. (for example Samsung saying warranty on a $5000 TV is 2 years. Well in AU if the tv is that expensive, you have the right to claim warranty on manufacturing failure for at least 5 years.) Many items we buy here, have an "Australia only warranty amendment page" stuffed in the box!
Shows how much been biased countrywise the posts are. And internet in general.
Companies can do that in US? Sounds like a loophole...
There are many, we're just oblivious because it doesn't affect us in our day to day lives. I'm sure there are loopholes in the EU as well.
Sure, yeah.
Welcome to the corpocracy and the land of the fee.
Go ahead, give Discord your address
It already has anyway. Ive requested my discord data once and everytime you do anything in discord it explicitly saves and stores the location of where you were when you interacted with discord.
Curious as to if you saw your phone number in that data?
I ask, because of this.
I no longer have the data on my machine so i cant verify anymore unless i request my data again. However, i remember a discord server im in, enabled that accounts in the server needed to be phone number verified if they wanted to chat. This was done to combat spammers and trolls. i told them to bugger off because im not giving discord my phone number. So its possible my phone number was not in there, but knowing discord it could have been
Just opt out of discord. It’s a lot easier.
OK, but my raid leader is going to have to shout a lot louder than that if I'm going to hear him from the Netherlands.
Nah, just get a pair of cups and a really long string.
Who keeps the string under tension on the ocean, huh? /s
That's why each team has a support.
Yeah, market share is a bitch.
And the reason why the DMA exists. I'm honestly surprised discord doesn't meet the criteria for forced interop under it yet.
Edit: just went through the requirements and it seems they are short on Revenue/Valuation. They exceed the other requirements by a mile though so they may be declared a gatekeeper in the future anyway
Session
Be your own leader, recruit people into a separate channel
I attempted to email opt-out@discord.com per the ToS and got a bounceback.
The article says arbitration-opt-out@discord.com
Also be sure that you send it from the email associated with your account. As per the update on the situation discord gave, in which it announced an extended deadline of 90 days up from 30 days from April 15th or account creation, the contents of the email don't seem to matter much.
I included my account userid and username just to be safe.
Ah, thanks!
A bounceback? What does that mean? Anyways I sent three emails to arbitration-opt-out@discord.com but got no replies at all.
In email terms, a bounceback is a category of error that in this case meant that the email address didn't exist. Although, that's because I emailed opt-out instead of arbitration-opt-out. My mistake. After fixing it, it went through without a reply as has been the general experience.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm not using the application until I get a response. For all I know, they may respond on the very last day or not respond whatsoever.
I used this from the article, hopefully I filled in the blanks correctly.
Re: Opt-out of arbitration clause in agreement dated 04/15/24
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing to opt out of the arbitration clause in my agreement with Discord dated 04/15/24 for the Communication client Discord.
If you have any questions, you may reach me at the address above.
Yours sincerely,
[My username, legal name, and ID.]
What did you send them, is there a template?
I just sent them a simple email with the subject being "arbitration opt-out" and a body of "I opt out of mandatory arbitration."
Everyone calm down. They're just going to use it for training AI and if you love tech you love AI. So this is a non-issue.
The trained AI will make their public offering so much more desirable
unmarked sarcasm whooshes even the mighty users of Lemmy, apparently
tbf it was sarcasm so dry it might even trick a British person! xD
It was so on the nose and wet that my dog could relate.
lol no shit right
it splashed when it hit
learn to fuckin read, guys
You clearly have not dealt with stupid people in your lifetime then
Honestly, I think I have a serious problem with giving people the benefit of the doubt too much.
Thats a mood tbh
The key presses '/' and 's' (in that order) would solve that problem.
Nah, that's akin to explaining the joke. Well crafted sarcasm needs no callout.
Nah, its just signaling that in fact it is a joke in the first place. And the callout doesn't happen until the very end, after everything else has already been read, and processed.
Sarcasm can be overly crafted to be indistinguishable from non-sarcasm.
~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~
Nah, it's much more fun to tease the people who don't get it. 😉
Even more fun to chastise someone. 😇
~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~
learning to fucking read would solve it better
Name checks out.
~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~
I just deleted my account & it solved all my discord problems.
It’s cute you think deleting your account means they’ve removed your user and information from their servers.
Id assume one could have them do that if they lived in EU
Im considering the info i gave them as lost to discord. But now I'm not giving them more.
What does that have to do with forced arbitration agreements?
Because deleting your account doesn’t solve all your problems. It’s a solid bet still have all your information and data, which can be monetized, stolen or otherwise abused. And mentioned in article iirc, there is a current class action from parents about lack of protection for minors.
I don't know what all the problems you have are.
Discord has had a perpetual license grant for as long as I remember, so deleting your account would have no expectation of the data you've submitted being removed. It's the same idea as Reddit and most social media, when you submit content, but remains yours, but you grant them a license to it forever. With some you grant copyright as well, but that doesn't appear to be the case with Discord.
If your issue was them profiting from your content, that has been a problem probably since day 1, and this TOS update doesn't change that. If your problem is with arbitration (e.g. you'd want to be a part of a class action lawsuit), then deleting your account signals to them that this change isn't okay.
So we are caring about privacy but that polygon site is a massive scrapper
Any particular reason for this whataboutism that makes it stand out from the average website?
It's a massive scrapper?
Like it engages in scrappy flights? I guess that's one way to frame fighting with discord but I'd personally see them as fairly comparable weight classes.
Or did you mean scraper like vacuuming up data* off of everyone who visits?
Vacuuming up days?
Like it sucks time from your life, siphoning precious time out from your life without even realizing it? I guess that's one way to frame browsing Polygon but I'd personally view it as a pretty tame example compared to sites like YouTube or Lemmy.
Or did you mean data like the site is harvesting information off your service when you click the link?
Typo; vacuuming up data.
Ducking autocorrect
I was just poking a bit of fun, because there's a good chance it was an autocorrect typo for the original commenter too :p
I don't see how this matters to the common user. Why am I going to disagree with Discord enough to sue them. What services do they provide other than a way to communicate for gamers?
Are companies involved? Yes. But I'm not a company and I don't really care if they have a hard time dealing with it. They replaced Teamspeak and I will use it as a platform to communicate. If that changes I might change my stance, but I don't see any other need for it.
The long story short is that you are being made to (by default) give up rights that you should have, particularly around class action lawsuits. It's strictly bad for you and strictly good for the company. They probably shouldn't be allowed to do this. Since they are, the only thing we can do to protest it is to opt-out.
Maybe you'll never sue discord. But maybe someday there will be a lawsuit brought against discord by someone else. A few ideas for topics might include a security vulnerability that leaks personal information, the use of discord content for AI training data (e.g. copyright issues), or the safety of minors online. If you don't opt-out, you can't be a part of such lawsuits if they ever become relevant. This overall weakens these lawsuits and empowers companies like discord to do more shady things with less fear of repercussions.
And, since the vast majority of people will never opt-out (since you're opted in by default) these kinds of lawsuits are weakened from the start. That's why every company in the US is doing this forced arbitration thing. At this point, they would be crazy not to since it's such a good thing for them and the average person doesn't care enough about it.
And it just makes no sense.
The courts are supposed to be a higher authority than personal agreements, so how can a personal agreement override the courts?
Courts are not a higher authority than contract law, they just interpret it.
I hear you. I'm not discounting that these could happen. But how likely is it for my usage? Or most people's usage? My kid is on discord and it's monitored and we use it for gaming. That is what I am led to believe most use it for.
I guess my point is I don't see a scenario for suing Discord itself. They are just the vessel I use to communicate with. I use it constantly. I just don't care. There has never been a time I give out enough information to worry about it.
If there are other scenarios, sure. But it sounds like more of a liability clause for companies that join Discord than individuals.
This is basically the same as saying "I'm not concerned about government back doors or encryption being banned since I'm not doing anything wrong, so it doesn't affect me".
No it's not. The government is a completely different entity than a company. It's structure is different and it's motivation is different. How it implements everything is completely different. If a company says "you can only take us to arbitration" and all I am using it for is to communicate anonymously to other gamers it is not the same as someone knowing everything and going through all my shit.
It's like a company saying you can't sue if you use a can opener with a pop top cap. It doesn't apply to me. I also don't see how it applies to their user base.
But I know no one has given me any scenario that actual users have encountered when Discord was being sued and it turned the tide. I'll just you guys disagree with me.
A scenario is pretty simple: They don't hire enough security personnel to safeguard your data. They get hacked. There is very little damages you could get in arbitration for losing that data, so nothing happens. You cannot form a class to actually make something happen.
What data? The fake email I made up with a made up name to play a game they don't know much about? I don't understand how this applies.
You said your kid uses discord? So you're completely fine with all of their messages being fair share for anyone to view, and you having no say in the matter?
Where is that happening? The claim is that you have to go to arbitration rather than court. Nothing says that their information is anywhere other than discord.
And if your question is that my kid is giving out information, he's not. I look at all his messages and he is fully aware from coaching with my friends and family to not give any sensitive information out to anyone under any circumstances.
He uses to game. Just as I do.
"I don't see how this right is, personally, of use to me in this moment, so why should I care about it?"
The same failed logic that brought us stuff such as "I have nothing to hide, why should I care about privacy?" and "If you've done nothing wrong, You have nothing to fear"
You shouldn't give up your rights in exchange for nothing. In some places that's not even legal.
Maybe it won't be. I don't see the situation coming up often. In fact I think this might make them more prone to being sued.