[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Fighting back against Roku's forced arbitrat...
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Ask HN: Fighting back against Roku's forced arbitration?
I received an email a few days ago from Roku telling me that
they've updated their dispute resolution terms to require forced
arbitration:
https://docs.roku.com/published/disputeresolution/en/us The new
terms are obviously skewed entirely in Roku's favor. They say that
consumers can't sue Roku in court and can't participate in class-
action lawsuits. You can opt-out, a detail they conveniently
omitted in the notification email, but it has to be in writing
within 30 days. It irritates me that Roku and other corporations
are allowed to force millions of customers into spending an hour or
so to read these new terms and send a letter in the mail. Are
there things that I can do as a consumer to fight back against this
bad behavior by Roku? In the long term, I'll support candidates and
federal bills that make forced arbitration illegal, but in the
short term, what can I do to discourage this behavior by Roku and
other companies?
Author : mtlynch
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-02-25 19:30 UTC (3 hours ago)
| peteforde wrote:
| I very briefly considered developing "channels" (apps) for Roku,
| but backed off quickly:
|
| - the entire vibe of the Roku content ecosystem is a Venn diagram
| of "right-wing fever dream" meets shovelware
|
| - the developer experience (language, API, tooling) is like an
| alt-history where ASP, XML and DRM-for-everything won
|
| - there is a distinct two-tier class system where big players can
| write native executables in something C-like, but everyone else
| needs to use a slow, interpreted template script thing
|
| - it's basically impossible to create something that can be
| discovered without pouring a lot of money into platform ads
|
| I encourage anyone still reading to fight back by not buying
| Roku-enabled products.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| What's your recommended alternative?
| project2501a wrote:
| Why has there to be an alternative?
|
| Just don't. Roku is not exactly solving world hunger, it is
| not essential.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| So do you watch cable and broadcast tv exclusively?
|
| Or to rephrase my question - what should I use for
| streaming, for example, Netflix to my nice big tv?
| stonogo wrote:
| Just cast to it from your phone like most people?
| alemanek wrote:
| Not OP but Apple TV is pretty good these days. Solid little
| set top box.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Unfortunately, interpretations of the Federal Arbitration Act by
| the US Supreme Court in recent decades have made it very clear
| that what they're doing is legal nationwide under US law, with or
| without an opportunity to opt out. And it's gotten so widespread
| that I don't think there's a good fix short of changing the law -
| it's not like enough alternative vendors exist for many of the
| products and services that now require arbitration, so one can't
| just pick alternatives.
|
| Sometimes there is a way to fight back by having a single law
| firm file a lot of individual arbitrations based on similar facts
| and circumstances, yielding an approximation of a class action
| lawsuit that's more annoying and potentially more expensive for
| the company. But Roku seems to have crafted their terms to close
| that workaround.
|
| The only real way to get out from this right now, beyond
| leveraging any opt-out procedures you have the energy to follow
| to the letter, is to move to places outside the US where consumer
| protection laws make this illegal in the consumer context. For
| example, many European countries or certain Canadian provinces
| like Quebec. And even that wouldn't help usage that doesn't fall
| within the scope of the applicable consumer protection law, such
| as a product or service which you primarily use in a professional
| context.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Unfortunately, interpretations of the Federal Arbitration Act
| by the US Supreme Court in recent decades have made it very
| clear that what they're doing is legal nationwide under US law,
| with or without an opportunity to opt out.
|
| Do you have sources for that? The reason I ask is because I am
| aware that forced arbitration clauses have been upheld _at the
| point of purchase_ , but changing Ts and Cs after the fact,
| where many people may not even read them, seems like it should
| be a gross violation. What kind of contract law allows one
| party to change substantive terms in the contract at any time?
| I'd be very curious to know if that (specifically a change to
| forced arbitration _after_ initial sign up) has ever been
| tested in court.
|
| I was searching because I was curious, and I thought this
| Reddit comment has some good context:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/Etsy/comments/14eo9l0/changes_to_et...
|
| That is (and I'm taking that comment with appropriate grain of
| salt) it does sound like companies add the opt out provision
| specifically to help these clauses stand up in court, so you
| should just always opt out.
| dctoedt wrote:
| >> Unfortunately, interpretations of the Federal Arbitration
| Act by the US Supreme Court in recent decades have made it
| very clear that what they're doing is legal nationwide under
| US law, with or without an opportunity to opt out.
|
| > Do you have sources for that?
|
| The GP comment is pretty accurate. My course materials (being
| updated) have a fairly-comprehensive discussion of
| arbitration: https://toedtclassnotes.site44.com/Notes-on-
| Contract-Draftin...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| That source doesn't answer my question though, which is
| specifically about changing Ts&Cs to require arbitration
| _after_ the contract was originally agreed to by the
| consumer.
| dctoedt wrote:
| That's also OK, generally - see
| https://toedtclassnotes.site44.com/Notes-on-Contract-
| Draftin...
| cout wrote:
| I feel like every agreement I read these days has a "these
| terms are subject to change at any time without notice" or
| similar. I don't know of that is legal but it always bothers
| me (even more than forced arbitration). It was even in the
| form where I go to get blood taken! At least in that case I'm
| covered by HIPAA but other services are less strictly
| regulated. What's a consumer to do?
| earthwalker99 wrote:
| > _I don 't think there's a good fix short of changing the law_
|
| ...which would necessitate a revolution, which is why a
| revolution is necessary.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Or just consistently voting blue on a broad scale,
| considering Democrats (writ large, not necessarily any
| specific given politician) have proven to be far less
| friendly to these big-business abuses than Republicans.
|
| I don't think it's overly partisan to make that claim.
| paulgb wrote:
| During the Equifax debacle, I was so pissed that they tried to
| foist an arbitration agreement on their own victims that I
| offered to mass-mail opt-outs for people for free[1]. I ended up
| printing and mailing over 1,000 opt-outs, and they eventually
| backed down on the arbitration stuff (I don't take credit for
| that, there were a lot of others calling on them to).
|
| If you're pissed enough, consider doing that :) The whole thing
| cost me probably about $50 in certified mail postage and domain
| registration but it was fun to stick it to them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207151
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Source code available, or really just an HTML form and manual
| work to achieve? Is it a simple enough to change from the
| Equifax details to roku and get that going?
| paulgb wrote:
| It really was just an HTML form plus a template that I could
| drop the results into that printed a bunch of opt-outs onto
| one page. I don't have the source any more but I think it
| took all of an hour to get it going. Mailing wasn't too time-
| consuming either because I sent them in batches.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| You're describing mass arbitration, which found precedent in a
| dispute with Uber [1]. Companies are responding by lumping
| together coordinated claims [2], at which point we're back to a
| simpler, cheaper class-action alternative. It's unclear if
| those clauses will hold.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/uber-loses-
| appeal-b...
|
| [2] https://arbitrate.com/the-business-response-to-the-rise-
| in-m...
| ta1243 wrote:
| I've never heard of roku. I'd suggest voting with your dollar. It
| looks like this is some form of set-top-box system, I suggest
| using free software if you want freedom -- is XBMC still a thing?
| jetbalsa wrote:
| Its mostly Jellyfin is king of open source media library stuff,
| XBMC morphed into Kodi over time and is still used as a OS /
| Media Library as well
| BadHumans wrote:
| You've never heard of Roku? That's pretty impressive honestly.
| I assumed they were a household name.
| thsksbd wrote:
| I only heard of roku because my money obsessed friend kept
| talking about it and its stock price. For years I didn't even
| know what he was talking about until I asked him one day.
|
| Seemed like a stupid product to lose money and I told him. I
| have never heard of Roku outside of conversations with him.
| Talanes wrote:
| Do an image search for "Roku screensaver" and see if that
| looks familiar to you. It's not really the sort of product
| that gets brought up directly by name a lot, but I've seen
| that screensaver in plenty of homes and a surprising number
| of businesses.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| It's an alternative to Apple TV and Android TV, and in some
| cases superior to Android TV in terms of quality. I'll never go
| back from Apple TV though, the quality and reliability is too
| high for me to bother with Roku or Android.
|
| Quite well known here in the US.
|
| Honestly, I'm surprised Amazon didn't just buy out Roku, the
| Fire stick is not really that special.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| Worth noting that freedom is costly. The big streaming services
| will not give you a 4k picture on an open source Linux system.
| Media providers require a closed source Widevine DRM system
| which is present in all of the commercial media boxes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Have you participated in a lawsuit or arbitration proceeding? I
| have, from both corporate and individual sides, and the one thing
| I can say is I'm glad I've never been named in a lawsuit. _knocks
| on wood_
|
| If you have cash, public suits are great. You have a chance at
| setting a precedent, get to make a PR splash and generally troll
| and embarass your opponent. If you don't have six+ figures of
| liquidity lying around, however, and your opponent does--and they
| know it--you're toast. They'll file for extraneous motions,
| launch counter-discovery: anything to rack up the legal bills. In
| most cases, it doesn't even advance that far. The motions and
| countersuits were disclosed, plaintiff's law firm asked their
| client for a six-figure retainer, the client couldn't afford it
| and the issue went away. (With the client a few thousand, or tens
| of thousand, out of pocket or in debt, depending on whether they
| advanced from dicussing with counsel to hiring a litigator.)
|
| Forced arbitration in cases of possible crimes, _e.g._ sexual
| harassment at the workplace or poisonous products, are a sham.
| They should be outlawed. But in cases of commercial contract
| disputes, they 're--in my experience--a levelling element for the
| little guy. The only people who seem to publicly launch missives
| against them are class-action attorneys, which makes sense.
| (Maybe the middle ground is allowing a class exception to
| mandatory arbitration.)
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(page generated 2024-02-25 23:01 UTC)