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Comment by crispyambulance | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't seem like a terrible deal (http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy).

What part of the privacy policy do you specifically have an issue with?

Mostly this part:

> Sonos may modify or update this Statement when necessary to reflect customer feedback and changes in our Products and Service; so, please review it periodically. When we update this Statement, we will revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of the Statement. If there are material changes to the Statement or in how Sonos uses your personal data, we will notify you either by posting a notice of such changes before they take effect or by sending you a notification. We encourage you to periodically review this Statement to learn more about how Sonos is using and protecting your information. Your continued use of the Service or Products after any modification to this Statement will constitute your acceptance of such modification and updates.

I wouldn't have to just agree to the policy as you linked it today. One agrees to all future versions of the policy.

I'm starting to think that any sort of B2C legal agreements, but particularly standard form contracts and similar documents like terms of service, EULAs and privacy policies, should be explicitly banned from including terms that essentially say the deal can be revised unilaterally and the customer is responsible for keeping an eye out for this. It's simply not a reasonable or practical arrangement for any normal person to do that, and it's the worst form of legalese CYA wording.

Perhaps, as with various other unreasonable or one-sided provisions, there should be a presumption under consumer protection laws that any such terms are invalid, that any substantial change in an agreement must have the customer's explicit, active consent, and that if the customer does not consent and this results in something they purchased no longer providing the expected benefit then the usual protections about broken purchases should apply. You'd have to be a bit careful, because sometimes these self-updating terms are used to deal with minor changes in the legal landscape that are formalities with no real impact on anyone, but that seems like the sort of thing a court could sensibly decide in the event of a dispute.

I don't think they are valid in most jurisdictions, explicit consent is required.

I suspect a lawyer might say you're right, though since most people aren't lawyers, the damage may be significant even from letting them include the terms in the first place.

More importantly, I don't think consent is sufficient in this sort of situation. It has to be a real choice, so even if you choose not to consent to the change, you're not then losing out on something you already paid for or otherwise giving up your normal legal consumer rights as a consequence.

In a situation where the continued effective functioning of a purchased item is dependent on some other facility, and that facility and the related functionality can be turned off if you don't accept the manufacturer/vendor moving the goalposts retrospectively, I don't see much ethical or practical difference between using this dependency as a lever to force a customer to accept revisions in some other aspect of the deal and just doing the other thing without their consent anyway.

  > Your continued use of the Service or Products after any 
  > modification to this Statement will constitute your 
  > acceptance of such modification and updates.

Is that even legal? I thought a contract required equal bargaining power, and explicit acceptance. If you have already purchased a good, and suddenly the terms change, I would think you would, at that point, have decidedly unequal bargaining power -- the company already has your money, and you either have to stop using the product, or agree to the terms. That doesn't seem "equal" at all.

The part where playing audio, including that from 3rd party sources, doesn't need Sonos to get any device usage data. However they still want it 'to improve their service', and you can't turn that off. Not accepting terms means that you'll never get firmware updates.

OK, but "usage data" just doesn't seem like a big deal.

Netflix and all other content providers collect "usage data" too, as does the devices these may run on such as "Roku" and other players.

Streaming Content Provider vs. Physical Device specifically made to play music you physically own or streamed from devices you physically own.

You can play stuff you physically own from a Roku too. Are you saying that Sonos could arbitrarily upload your media files to their servers? Doubtful. At worst, they could do a sound-print analysis locally on the device to identify it and send the metadata to Sonos.

I am trying to think of concrete examples of scenarios where actual harm would REALISTICALLY be done to individual consumers because of Sonos privacy policy.

1. Government 'dissident' listens to 'subversive' podcasts via Sonos.

2. Government compels Sonos to provide data on customers' listening histories.

3. Chilling effect, political implications, oppression.

If an out-of-control oppressive government is the real concern here, is a flimsy EULA _really_ going to provide any protection whatsoever? Can you really even have 100% trust that the EULA will be obeyed by the company if they can get away with violating it?

I'm not pleased at this Sonos development either, but that's way too tinfoil hat for me.

If you're a "government dissident" and you're inviting internet connected always-on microphones into your home - you're doing it wrong...

"Alexa? Send details of my subversive plan to the government!"

"OK Google, upload the audio of the last 30mins discussion with my co-conspirators directly to PRISM!"

"Hey Siri? Which law enforcement agency needs to know about this surprise protest we just planned?"

What does this have to do with Sonos?

Why would you assume ralphm is happy with those other services doing it? Maybe they don't use any of those things.

Read the privacy policy, you can opt out of usage data. This article is clickbait crap and completely inaccurate. They clearly tell users how to opt out of usage data collection; I'm not seeing the problem here.

As for the data collection you can't opt out of, it's super basic data like your ip and account registration info. How do you expect to use a cloud service if it doesn't know your ip?

The principle is at stake here. What the change is doesn't matter. The fact that the deal can be changed at all after a purchase has already been made is fundamentally unfair.

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