Ask HN: Should users be allowed to disagree with the ToS? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should users be allowed to disagree with the ToS?

7 pointszaroth6 comments

In every program I've used, clicking Disagree meant that the program would refuse to install, or refuse to allow me to proceed.

Or, I just assumed that's what not accepting the ToS would result in, so I felt like Accepting the ToS wasn't really making a choice beyond double-clicking the app was 'making a choice'.

But what if clicking 'decline' meant that you could actually state a rational reason, and expect some sort of human response?

And in the time it took to get that response, you could use the software?

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You're saying this from a user's perspective, not from the company's perspective, right? From the company's perspective, a) their lawyers will advise them that "We sometimes let users use the product without signing a contract. How do you feel about that?" invites incredible levels of legal risk, b) the person who monitors the Rejected the TOS inbox is buying themselves hundreds of hours of work answering very frustrating emails from the worst customers ever, and c) this choice will not appreciably increase any metric the company cares about.

You can get a custom TOS written by many software companies, by the way. It will just cost you a heck of a lot of money. The reason we use "contracts of adhesion" (the take-it-or-leave-it terms) is because lawyers and compliance are really freaking expensive, and we can amortize e.g. $10,000 of legal costs over e.g. 700k clients, but if you want things to be custom-negotiated then you can expect to pay $10,000 for that.

Customers frequently ask for this for Appointment Reminder, by the way. "I just have one paragraph I wanted added to the license." Sure, for enterprise pricing, we can do that. "How much is enterprise pricing?" 20X what you think it costs. "THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS." I tend to agree, but welcome to paying professional wages for professional services. If you'd like to not end up footing any legal bills, you're welcome to buy the $29 plan and click Yes when prompted.

What's crazy is that enterprise pricing often comes down to, "is that one paragraph really worth $10,000+ to your business, and potentially much more than that?" If yes, pay for the enterprise pricing already.

If not...stop worrying about stuff that doesn't make that big a difference to your business!

Which of course continues to elude many people who would rather waste time arguing that $29 is too expensive. And this despite the fact that, as a business expense, $29 is quickly eclipsed by "at least one person in the business has to care about it at some point in a given month."

> But what if clicking 'decline' meant that you could actually state a rational reason, and expect some sort of human response?

Sure, no problem. Just expect to pay twice or three times the original price of the program, to pay for the administrative staff required to negotiate with recalcitrant users.

> And in the time it took to get that response, you could use the software?

Never happen. In many cases a program is a collection of modules from different vendors, all with their own requirements, and none of whom would be likely to agree to negotiate with individual users about how they can use the program. And certainly not in advance of forging an agreement -- a contract -- between themselves and the user.

In mass marketing, what you suggest is simply impractical. It's not as though a program is protected by an ironclad international copyright except for John Doe of Main Street, U.S.A. who is using the program under protest while his lengthy and articulate objection winds through a corporate bureaucracy. This isn't realistic.

It's not about fairness, it's about practicality.

There really are two questions hiding here, and most comments are only answering one.

1. Could we allow users to modify the TOS for themselves and have a quick round of TOS negotiation?

Yes, for a large enough price. In most cases, the cost of having anyone even acknowledge a new customer means that customer is unprofitable. Quicken (Intuit) was the poster child for recognizing that a customer ever asking for customer support was unprofitable. Usually, a minor round of contract negotiation for a $50K product happens, and always happens for contracts greater than $250K.

2. Can we ask the user why they balked at the TOS? If there are enough common reasons for balking we might change the TOS.

Yes, absolutely. Lawyers I work with often complain about products, some aimed at lawyers, that don't understand the diligence implications of "we may change these terms without notice". Any lawyer placing client confidential information on any service with this clause is failing their legal duty to take reasonable measures to protect attorney-client privileged information. Having a feedback mechanism might distinguish the set of "didn't sign up because of your TOS" versus "didn't sign up because product failed".

Ah, and let me add some generic TOS advice I recently passed to Experiment.com when their TOS made me balk.

1. The check box should have a date. "I agree to your terms of service (last modified on 10/11/12)" 2. Break your TOS into sections by usage. For example, "when growing our site", "when you create an account", "when you post a comment", "when you make a purchase". 3. Usually, write your TOS yourself, in plain language. Then take it your IP attorney and have them mark up what's wrong. It saves you money and provides a more friendly and readable TOS. It avoids the lesser attorneys that write '"we","us", and "our" refer to MegaSoftware while the terms....'

The other posts by <patio11> and <lutsup> have the right of it. ToSes are written by lawyers to be read by judges who are lawyers in response to often spurious class action lawsuits filed by plaintiffs' lawyers.

You don't like ToSes? Demand some serious tort reform. If that happens, they'll get shorter. But they won't go away.

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