Owocki Dot Com - Latest Comments

Re: Hey Google, Gmail is Awfully Slow!

Mike — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:07:58 -0000

Unfortunately I made the mistake of setting up 8 companies on google apps for business. The support is terrible and speed and connectivity issues on all services (docs, gmail, etc) are constant. I do not recommend google apps for anything other than personal use.

Re: Hey Google, Gmail is Awfully Slow!

Kris — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:47:26 -0000

slow, unresponsive and frustrating. I would wait a little loger and then consider to switch.

Re: 10 Internet Giants, 10 Years ago

Kite Flyer — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:36:01 -0000

This is good! Iove twitter and youtube myself! :D
http://beam.to/makeinternetmon...

Re: 6 Tools to Quantify your Life

Blossom — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:36:17 -0000

have you tried wakoopa. it tracks your usage of software...

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Christopher Karl Johansen — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:38:04 -0000

New idea: turn the principle (proven in law) of the "shrinkwrap/click-thru" agreement on its head. Include boilerplate at the bottom of the edit; something like "By enabling the 'accept button' you accept these modified terms. If you do not accept these modified terms, do not enable the accept button."

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Patrick Scott — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:57:35 -0000

I'll take disqus over facebook connect or an individual site registration any day!

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Nobody Special — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:04:34 -0000

IANAL, but wouldn't both parties have to agree to the *original* terms before they are valid? I would think that this would at the very least remove the 'implied consent' argument from the validity of the initially proffered contract, which has been relied upon heavily to force users (who generally have had no recourse to alter the terms of the contract) to accept it as stated.

Even if the user-modified terms can't be enforced, I think it would make it much tougher to enforce the initial terms, which would still be a win in the consumer column.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Rainyday Superstar — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:20:13 -0000

Very interested in whether or not this will hold up in court. It's a great idea....I'm loving it already

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Codewarrior77006 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:57:23 -0000

What might satisfy the 'consideration' aspect of your TOS modification program is if it also sent the modified version to an email address on the host site that was know to be read by a 'real person' such as a 'contact us' or 'support' address. If the TOS modification email was preceded with a header such as:

**** TERMS OF SERVICE COUNTER OFFER ****

**** IMPORTANT LEGAL DOCUMENT ENCLOSED ****

or some such language. That plus a clause in the modified contract like:

"...your lack of response within (a reasonable time period) constitutes your acceptance of these modifications..."

then, it might work.

At least you've given them the opportunity to write back and say no. I'm not a lawyer but I know that somebody telling me my inaction affirms my agreement causes me to act.

Of course, it will probably take a judge and a series of appellate decisions to make the final determination of this process's validity.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

I hate CN Real — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:04:41 -0000

"I agree that I like ham sandwiches." lol

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

DrPlokta — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 01:49:49 -0000

Use of this applet obviously doesn't indicate that the company has accepted your modified terms -- but does it suffice to indicate that you have not accepted the original terms, despite clicking on the "Accept" button?

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Justicia — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 23:48:03 -0000

No offence, but I'm wondering how a 2nd year law student can't immediatly spot the problems in this.

A last-shot (or battle of forms) scenario such as the one above simply won't work for computers, as it wouldn't work for saleclerks, because they are not authorised (or capable, in the case of computers) of accepting or renegotiating the amended contract.

In the same way that you can't rewrite an insurance policy or mobile phone contract in a store and expect to have it enforced because the salesperson didn't understand what you'd done, you can't say that a server, which does nothing more than process acceptances of the original EULA, can consider the changed terms. As consideration is the touchstone to contract validity, it would collapse before we even got to any of the other, superfluous points.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Chris Epler — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 22:30:08 -0000

Usually one of my cats or one of my 2 yr olds agrees to the terms when I'm not looking.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Zach Stein — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 20:21:57 -0000

In general from my understanding of contract revisions, both parties must agree to the the terms that are stricken or changed before the stricken terms are valid.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Justicia — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 20:09:35 -0000

This is completely meaningless I'm afraid.

Reddit : http://www.reddit.com/r/law/co...

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Kevin — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 18:42:33 -0000

Lair,

I've just created a github repo for this project. If you truly are interested in contributing, drop me a line (ksowocki at gmail) and we'll work out what the project will look like.

https://github.com/ksowocki/TO...

Kevin

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Bobsaget — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:53:49 -0000

If you want to hide the end grain of a board, a miter joint is the joint to make. Miter joints are used for picture frames, door and window trim, and around openings. Miter joints are weak joints - probably weaker than butt joints. Miter joints are a form of butt joints, with the angle at the corner halved between the two pieces being joint.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Kevin Owocki — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:12:17 -0000

Thanks for passing the post along. I'd love to hear what your professor thinks when she takes a look.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Kevin Owocki — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 17:11:37 -0000

Thanks for stopping by Alex.

Re: Hey Google, Gmail is Awfully Slow!

Hplsicpt — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:41:53 -0000

I've been using Gmail for years and it has never been slow. I have tried other service providers such as Yahoo!, AOL and Hotmail, but Gmail beats them hands down

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

hugh crawford — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:40:26 -0000

"does sending a POST message to a web server have any legal meaning? "the two obvious answers are either
Yes , thus the amended agreement is binding.
or
No , the original agreement is not binding in the first place.

I suspect that someone somewhere thinks a posted agreement is binding , and that any programmer who's code doesn't check to see that the agreement posted matches the agreement served will get fired real soon now.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Fischer A — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:21:27 -0000

Veeeery interesting. I am second year law student and this definitely poses at least a couple interesting legal questions. IANAL (yet) and this isn't legal advice but it seems that this would have different legal effects depending on whether you were contracting for services or goods.

Simply sending back "your terms" to their server where it would get added to a log somewhere would probably not be enough to establish a contract on those terms. A reasonable person looking at the objective evidence (a rough approximation of the legal standard) would probably not conclude that the company had agreed to your terms. However, depending on what kind of notice the company had and what the two parties' subsequent action was the sending of these terms might have a real effect.

I think a lot would depend on the facts of transaction and the specific operation of the javascript.

I emailed the post to one of my professors that teaches advanced sales (which covers these exact kind of contracting questions) to see what she thinks. It is at the very least an interesting starting point for discussion.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Kevin Owocki — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 15:08:53 -0000

EDIT: Formatting

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Asdfasdf — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 14:36:23 -0000

Funnier would be an applet that recognizes when a TOS dialog box from any provider is being displayed to the user and replaces it with the text "I like bunnies", so the user is not even clicking through an ostensibly legal license.

Re: TOSAmend: The easy way to modify web service Terms of Service agreements

Alexsander Troutnoodler — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 13:57:37 -0000

Neat idea! I'll have to give it a try, see what happens. Oh, and say "Hi!" to Slashdot. Be glad you got found on a weekend, or your site would be crashed by a million techies. >X.X<