Hacker News Reader

Perhaps it's time for a new SOPA blackout style campaign based on changing terms of service. If a large number of popular sites modified their terms of service so that it became illegal to view those sites for anyone in public office, maybe the absurdity of the whole thing would become evident to the people behind this.

View on HN

That's actually an interesting idea:

Would a ToS hold up in court that specifically denied access to the company's service by government employees?

If a company had that in their ToS, and they discovered that a government employee had used their service, could they sue for damages?

Are businesses in the US obligated to provide service to government employees?

I don't think that government employees hold any special privilege in terms of private contracts, but I don't know. At the very least, it would be interesting to find out.

I know that recently there have been some gun shops that have been refusing to serve government employees, so there is at least a small amount of precedent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com