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Comment by fencepost | Hacker News Reader

Well, if I can't "mischaracterize PayPal as a payment method" then how can I "treat PayPal's payment mark at least at par with other payment methods offered"? Their use of "other payment methods" would imply to me that they consider PayPal also to be a "payment method" though I suppose they might want to call it Bob instead.

I can just see it now: "PayPal is not a legitimate payment method! If you doubt this, see their Terms & Conditions where they explicitly state that you may not 'mischaracterize PayPal as a payment method.'"

Someone did a really crappy job of phrasing.

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>> Someone did a really crappy job of phrasing.

Legal work is an area of life where one should not apply Hanlon's razor by default. Not one comma or period in that work went unscrutinized by highly compensated executive talent at PayPal and any ambiguity you find is deliberate. Assume malice.

This can't be understated.

My wife is a mid-tier firm attorney in (a field). Any contract generally has a low-level associate take a pass at the material, which she then scrutinizes, polishes, etc. and then shares with her supervising attorney, who also scrutinizes and polishes. This is then shared with the client, who has their own staff to scrutinize, who are relevant executives, content experts, and often in-house attorneys of their own.

Several iterations of this cycle are the bare minimum. Because this process involves low-tier associates being taught by upper level attorneys, the "basic" stuff that top experts take for granted gets scrutinized and explained, as well, so even the parts you think of as "stock components" are being carefully looked over and considered at length.

There isn't a single word in those contracts that hasn't been reviewed by at least a half-dozen experts.

It's still an ambiguous construction in the middle of a standard form contract, which is bad news for whoever drafted the contract in many legal systems. And from my experience of lawyers, highly paid or otherwise, incompetence is just as plausible an explanation for their bad work as anyone else's.

I'll note that what we're all reading is not changes to the User Agreement - it's a summary of coming changes. I went looking, and as far as I can tell the actual revised agreement is not currently available on PayPal's website - only the agreement currently in effect and this summary of coming changes.

In fact, we do not get to see the actual changes to the legalese until they go into effect, or that's how I'd read the current agreement (emphasis added by me): "We may amend this user agreement at any time by posting a revised version on our website. The revised version will be effective at the time we post it. If we change the user agreement in a way that reduces your rights or increases your responsibilities, we will provide you with 30 days’ prior notice by posting notice on the Policy Updates page of our website."

So apparently we get to see vague and/or possibly misleading summaries and make our decisions based on those, but we do not get to see the actual text prior to deciding. I originally had hopes that we'd get to see it around the end of February (~30 days before it goes into effect), but the statement I italicized above indicates that we don't.

I think they mean mischaracterising PayPal in its capacity as a payment method, rather than mischaracterising PayPal to be a payment method.

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