This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I don't see how an email that has no proof of delivery (could have ended in spam for example) would be legally binding.
Accepting a ToS update simply by virtue of no action is also questionable unless provisions permitting that were in the ToS you've accepted and even then it would not work in the European Union, because that's listed in the forbidden clauses registry.
I thought the same thing when my Disney+ rate went up a couple months ago and I couldn't find the email warning about it in my inbox or spam folders.
Why do we let these companies get away with everything? If the rates are going up, show me in the app/ui. Make it opt in. Disable my ability to watch anything until I approve the increase in spend. It should be illegal to just change the terms of a contract and say "I sent you an email."
Accepting a ToS update simply by virtue of no action is also questionable
Even it being "questionable" is a fucking outrage -- it should be so blatantly, obviously, disallowed that a lawyer should lose their license just for proposing it!
The entire concept is a goddamn farce.
It's not, and TOS are not legally binding either
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"But they clicked the imaginary button, your Honor. How can they still have rights ?"
If anyone wants my genetic information just come to my door and I'll supply it to you directly π
ππ¦
I feel like the TOS you are subject to is the one you signed when you first used the service. Unless you have been constantly using their service, I can't see how a new TOS would affect you. I could be WAAY off here because IANAL, but a company can't just retroactively change the TOS for customers without some kind of action taken by the customers under the new TOS.
I once successfully defended myself from a lawsuit by invoking a previous TOS. The court allowed me to choose any version of the TOS that benefited me the most. It was akin the doctrine in contract law that ambiguity is always found to be detrimental to the drafter of the contract.
π¦ yeah! That's awesome! Kudos to you for prevailing.
Contracts are way less enforceable in courts then the writers would hope. Basically the enforceable parts are payment and performance and anything directly related to that. Once you start adding clauses that are outside of that realm they become more and more of a waste of ink.
Even that's rather iffy too. If it's been made so long that a reasonable person cannot be expected to read or understand it, it likely won't hold up.
Of the courts decide to say, fuck it then it won't hold up.
If this goes to a class action suit, I expect the judge to not let this change of TOS affect who is covered under the class action suit.
This is just a way to make the customer THINK they can't sue.
Isn't this illegal?
Of course, and in some places a TOS isn't even legally binding.
No, but that doesn't mean it's legally enforceable.
You can't sign away negligence in a contract.
I had them destroy my sample and delete my data the week they went public, so I'm glad we've finally reached the "I told you so" phase of this.
How can you be sure they did what you requested? How can you verify?
If I was that guy I would dig for the leak and search through it. If I would find even a shred of my data, that's a lawsuit.
The real question is why would you put your genome into the hands of a company without a compelling reason beyond "This sounds cool"
A lot of people didn't, but their relatives did and now theyre implicated.
It being cool is a compelling reason.
Nobody's genome was lost. What happened was, users with weak passwords had their accounts compromised, something like less than 2,000 of them, and from those accounts, bad actors were able to access and download family tree data for something like 6.5 million accounts.
I don't really see how the data lost is actionable in any way except for the spoofed "Hey gramma! It's me! I'm in jail and I need bail money!" phone calls.
From what I understand - the first action the bad actors are taking are releasing the family trees to "out" anyone with Jewish relatives.
So, just hate crimes to start.
One of the typical arguments is selling ancestry history to insurance companies, effectively handing them health data which could lead to up-pricing or rejections for customers with bad health history.
So, our main interactions happened in the past, your fault and abuse of me happened in the past, and now, in the present, you can slip a little "go out of your way or the legal terms governing our interactions in the past will be altered" clause in an email, and it's all legal?
(Hold on, let me try applying a rule of thumb that helps me answer legal questions like this: Would this help the rich and powerful maintain riches and power?... Yes. I think the answer to my question above is yes.)
I'd argue the the interactions and faults of the past should be governed by the agreement we had in the past.
Did they lose anyone's genome? That's not what's been reported. They certainly lost customer information and this is definitely a super shitty move to trick you into waiving some rights, but I've seen no reporting that says they lost full DNA information.
They have disabled the download data button and refuse to provide customers with a copy of their own data. I have been trying to get a copy of my data for over a month and they just tell me they'll consider re-enabling the button in the future.
