Then again, a Cloudflare employee just gave written consent in this post for us to perform benchmarks, so maybe we're all off the hook! :)
Then again, a Cloudflare employee just gave written consent in this post for us to perform benchmarks, so maybe we're all off the hook! :)
1.8 in https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/
Here's some background from 2008 on benchmarking clauses and their precariousness: https://corporate.findlaw.com/business-operations/n-y-case-c...
Why do firms continue to make unenforceable claims? (My least favourite are restriction of trade clauses in employment contracts that are simply illegal, unless paid for, where I come from. But they appear all the time in contracts)
It's legal 'chicken'.
The EU e.g. has 93/13/EEC aka "Unfair contract terms directive" which bans a lot of shenanigans in ToS (e.g. mandatory location for law disputes). Or just writing in your ToS that "you agree that contract parties are not bound by the EU GDPR" for another example, like some companies do write, doesn't mean this is a enforceable clause. Another example, Germany recently made a law that mandates automatic subscription renewals - such as mobile phone contracts, gym memberships or online services - can be cancelled every month (there already was a law before that limited the initial subscription contract to a duration of max 2 years).
If there are some laws specifically that disallow general "benchmarking" I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least in the EU such a clause would be unenforcable. That sounds like a clear unfair one-sided advantage (the customer cannot check the services actually provided match what was promised). Publication of such results is another matter.
Also, I am curious about what you said about Illinois? Sounds bonkers. I mean I could imagine criminal prosecution for a set of defined, deemed specially bad violations that constitute crimes, like "hacking" and "sabotage", but not for things like e.g. "failure to pay membership dues in time" and other civil matters. Then again, I remember that case of some guy in Florida who couldn't keep his lawn nice and green, and didn't have the money to replace the lawn again and again, so the HOA took him to court, he was ordered to replace the lawn (which he still couldn't afford) and ended up in prison for a couple of days for "contempt of the court" until some friends and neighbors replaced the lawn.
Sorry, what? Where? How's that even possible?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=0...
What legal reasoning exists to give companies this kind of unchecked power?
>According to the court, DeJohn's claim that he did not read those terms was >irrelevant because, absent fraud (which was not alleged), "failure to read a >contract is not a get out of jail free card."
https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/insights/publications/click-wr...
At the very least, it is an indication of where they stand. They are free to take any customers they want, and if they say they don't want customers with a certain use case, that's good enough for me.
Or maybe its entrapment!
Same as when accepting a job, never trust someone who says a section of their contract/terms won't be enforced.
I might need to start looking for another provider...