Can an 8-year-old waive their rights to sue a company by clicking a box?
That’s the stance of Roblox, an online gaming platform that bills itself as a digital playground.
The argument comes as the $41-billion company is embroiled in a lawsuit with the family of a Northern Kentucky child whose death by suicide, her mother says, is related to use of the platform.
It depends on the judge. Click-wrapped ToS, EULAs and privacy policies are a known dark pattern:
They’re longer than Shakespearean plays.
They’re difficult to read even at a college level.
They’re often presented in a tiny window with difficult controls.
They’re presented suddenly and mid process, often as part of an already lengthy string of processes. Often the user is eager to just move on.Some judges have recognized this and do not see click-wrapped contracts as binding, especially when the person clicking them can be a child, or a cat, or a computer glitch.
But then a lot of judges were appointed through a willful organized effort to put pro-business judges on the bench, and will rule in the favor of companies over individuals regardless of the circumstances.
fuck roblox
As a panel of expert witnesses, bring in more 8-year-olds to demonstrate how to play Roblox. Add a mandatory checkbox that includes an attestation stating that the company is criminally liable and a requirement that these children must kick the entire C-suite to death.
Let’s see how binding check boxes still are, and to what degree minors are expected to process and follow their commitments.
I don’t believe arbitration agreements should be legal at all, but with how conservative US courts are right now, I doubt we’ll see it overturned.
A minor literally can’t do this in the USA. You scumbags are Fucked.
no. next question?
This argument would be laughed out of the building. An 8 year old cannot enter into a contract.
So that deal I made with the devil to swap my soul for a monster truck when I was a kid isn’t legally enforceable?!
No no. Delivery is just late. I talked to Saber-hagan yesterday about it. They assure me it’s totally bitchin’!
By being born you accept being bound by the following terms and conditions…
There’s only one condition, providing you were actually lucky enough to have been born alive.
Unfortunately that condition is that you must eventually die.
We can’t prove that currently, not everyone that has been born has also died yet.
Just argue that RoBlox is a platform that makes kids trans and Gay and Roblox would be down in a week.
Archive link https://archive.ph/lbe7N
I’m confused, even if the girl could waive her rights and that is legally a valid argument - she is not the one who’s excersizing her right to sue the company right? Does that right extend beyond death or would such a contract also extend to others who have not signed anything?
Also what the fuck, their stance is they can’t be sued, instead of they’re not guilty. I mean i’m not guilty and the parents can’t sue me, but if they wanted to my defense would surely be that i had nothing to do with it - not that they can’t sue me.
Actually they can sue you. Anyone can sue anyone else over anything. It’s whether the lawsuit or not has any merits and will be carried on is what decides that. If you have a lot of money and want to fuck over a poor person sue them for nothing. The poors still have to spend all their money defending themselves against nothing or else they’re in contempt of court and you get the satisfaction of destroying them financially forever. No crime, but the poors still get punished.
The fast talking lawyers were hoping no one would notice what you just pointed out.
“Waiving of rights” should be automatically null and void if it happens only as part of some TOS (or GTC or similar situations).
There needs to be strict scrutiny applied by courts to TOS. And other similar legal terms (ask a lawyer what they are, not me) which all say basically only the obvious things that shouldn’t need to be stated at all can be put in them.
If you need more than the basic protection the law already provides for you, then you don’t use a TOS, you need a real contract signed by both parties, with both parties having a lawyer on hand to ensure the terms are understood and really agreeable.
There should be standard TOS clauses that are approved based on their legality and enforceability that click or use based “contracts” should be limited to. Or at the very least, they should need to be legally ratified rather than only looked at closely if legally challenged.
Like that whole “you waived our liability for real world shit by using Disney+” should have resulted in the disbarment of any lawyers that wrote, approved, and tried to argue it in court when it came up and punitive damages to Disney for even trying.
any mention of “waiving your rights” should always automatically be null, no matter who it concerns. by definition it places the corporation above the law. Might as well let corporations authorize people to kill, steal and do other crimes if that is allowed.
we need global capital punishment for corporations
You can’t sign any rights away in the EU.
It’s great because I know my rights here and I can just accept any terms knowing they can’t fuck me over no matter what I accept.
Do you have any concrete examples of this being enforced in practice?
All I see:
- our data still gets collected
- our phones, TVs, wiretap “assistants” still spy on us and upload all of our information to personal datasets that companies can access
- “deleting your data” as per GDPR is just a database flag/row that says the data says it is deleted
- EU just authorized any and all companies to spy on your communications 24/7, 365 days a year
- freedom of speech/expression doesn’t exist here any more than in America, maybe less
Our right to privacy (freedom right pillar) is literally daily being violeted 1000 times over and the most I have ever seen happen is a slap on the wrist 0.01% of yearly revenue fine that didn’t change anything. Companies can fuck you over all they like unless you have a 10million € army of lawyers…
Also how is it going in Germany with the Palestine protester that had been locked in solitary confinement (known torture) for 23 hours per day for the past almost year after a show trial kangaroo court where they wouldn’t allow even any independent record of the trial inside (violation of both dignity and justice pillars)
There is precious little enforcement of many rights, so we absolutely cannot take them for granted and have to fight for them on every front.
Sorry, not true (I wish it were). Even in the EU there are few rights that cannot be taken away or waived.
Not a lawyer, but if i hire someone to kill someone and put that in writing, I can’t sue that person for not doing his job because the contract has no legal value. Not sure on the details, but if i understand correctly a contract between two people cannot cover things that are outside the law. Meaning the law of contracts (like TOS) is inferior to the law of killing people. Seems like this is not true for America, but here i’ve heard of consumers winning lawsuits based on this principle.
We do need global punishment for corporations, but it would not be the only solution: corporation have to abide to local laws.
if they cant be punished globally, they cant be made to obey local laws. Kind of like if you could do crimes in one country and just leave after heat gets too bad. For us, interpol will go after you.
For individuals it is a lot easier to go to another country to evade punishment. If a company does that they also can’t produce or sell there themselves and will have to find another company to act as an intermediary. Also, in this case it is about a dragging someone to court. It is hard to take a us software company to court, but it does happen. For example, a Dutch organisation took Meta to court for not allowing users to receive a feed with only the accounts they follow. They won that case. A celeb had his identity used by fraudsters who used Google Ads to trick people into buying certain crypto, he won the case. Yes companies get away with a lot, but they are ‘made to obey local laws’ from time to time.
they dont get fines that matter though, otherwise they wouldnt act like they are just cost of doing business. fine for breaking law for big corporation should be big they are actually scared of getting fined.
And company being able to to evade punishment via intermediary is not right either. breaking the law should mean they get left behind by competitors
100% agree
If it can be waived, then it’s a temporary privilege, not a right
I’m no expert, but my Business Law professors were absolutely adamant about the fact that a minor can never execute a legal agreement and there are no exceptions.
Even if the parent leaves a contract out with a stamped envelope and tells their kid to sign it and mail it off, the contract is null and void. If my professors were correct and things haven’t changed, I can’t imagine a child can waive their (or their parents) rights by clicking a checkbox either.
Marriage is a contract.
I think it should be limited to 18+ but it isn’t currently in most places.
Not an exception. Minors cannot get married if they’re under 18 in any state unless they get their parent’s (or a court’s) written approval. A minor cannot enter into a marriage contract by themselves.
Some teens get emancipated when they are 17 or maybe even younger, if their parents suck and they can show a court they are able to care for themselves, depending on state I presume.
I imagine that is an exception to minors signing contracts, maybe they are no longer considered minors after they do that though.
Regardless of the age of someone entering into a contract (by clicking a checkbox)
Aren’t there certain rights you can’t waive, regardless of age?
minors can enter into contracts?
I think it depends on the country, since all rights themself are granted by the law of a country. That’s why there is a global definition of what human right, but not every human gets to exercise that right.
There are in the US. However what those rights are is something courts agree we all have, but generally hate to state.
