Terms Of Service Agreements

It is time for me to rant.  What’s the deal with Terms of Service agreements?  Does anyone read these things?  Can they?  I barely can.

Who has the balls to put in a contract that you waive all rights to a jury trial.  That won’t hold up in any court.  There are some rights you cannot sign away.

I have had enough with these contacts that state that one party may amend the contract any time it wants and the other party just has to suck it up.  So I have to agree to something that is in the future and hasn’t even been thought of yet?

Are they insane?

You are probably wondering who I am talking about.  I don’t blame you.  This is one of the worst I have seen.  Worse I think than credit card agreements.  And those are pretty bad.

I am referring to ClickBank.  They are an an affiliate service like Commission Junction and Shareasale.  There are others.  I always try to read these agreements.  Most of the time I make it through.  This one makes me want to puke.

I guess the lawyer who wrote this was sued a million times and decided to make the mother of all agreements.  Hey, Mr. Lawyer, why not just say:

this agreement will be whatever I feel it should be on any given day and you agree to abide by that.  I will change it whenever the fuck I want.

You would have saved ClickBank the fees you charged and saved us the utter aggravation of having to read that putrid vomitous mass. (vomitous isn’t even a word)

Let’s start with this one.

ClickBank, in its sole discretion, may suspend Your account(s) or hold any or all funds in Your ClickBank account if ClickBank suspects or has reason to believe and/or if a Person otherwise claims that You have been involved with any of the following:

1. Illegal activity, including but not limited to, [blah blah blah]
2. Violation or infringement of any Person’s rights, including without limitation, any IP Rights;
3. and it goes on and on

So any asshole can call them up claiming that you are involved in something illegal and ClickBank can withhold your money. Just great.  What country are they living in?  We do live in a country that has a presumption of innocence.

I now bring you yet another gem.

Without limiting the foregoing, ClickBank shall have the right to immediately terminate Your access and use of the ClickBank Services, or any portion thereof, in the event of any conduct which ClickBank, in its sole discretion, considers to be unacceptable.

I am speechless.

Then there is the infamous paragraph 12.  I’m not reprinting any portion here.  I will tell you that it is 220 SOLID WORDS OF UPPERCASE THAT WOULD DRIVE AN INSANE PERSON TO FURTHER INSANITY.

When I looked at paragraph 13, I almost threw up.  Here is subsection a for your viewing pleasure.

YOU HEREBY IRREVOCABLY WAIVE ANY AND ALL RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY IN ANY ACTION, SUIT, PROCEEDING, CLAIM OR COUNTERCLAIM ARISING UNDER OR IN RELATION TO THIS AGREEMENT.

WTF is that?  Are they serious.  Some lawyer actually wrote that? Waive all rights to a jury trial? Really?  Surely, they cannot be serious?  I am no lawyer.  But I am thinking that this isn’t enforceable anyway.  There are some rights that you cannot sign away.

YOU ASSUME ALL RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR DECISION TO USE THE CLICKBANK SERVICES

You know what Mr. ClickBank, you are right, I would assume all risk.  Assuming of course that I accepted your ridiculous terms.  But I can remedy all that right very easily right now but NOT ACCEPTING THESE TERMS.

Here is my plan going forward.  ClickBank is on probation for a year.  JavaScript and Cookies related to them will be disabled on any computer I have access to.  If I am ever FORCED to enable these things, it will be on an extremely temporary basis.  Provided of course that there is absolutely no other alternative.

And lawyers wonder why people don’t like them.