44 points

Oh good. Tiktok destroyed its own contract validity with that one. This means it’s vulnerable.

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10 points
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i’ll need that NDA signed before i can comment on your video

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34 points

Are those user agreements even legally binding in most countries? They aren’t in my country since you aren’t signing them, pressing agree doesn’t count.

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4 points

A contract can even be entered by nodding - if your baker and you know that you come for one loaf of bread every day and both you and they nod when you enter the store, that can be a legal agreement. Pressing agree to agree to the additional clauses of the base contract offered by the company can be as binding as pressing the button to buy stuff from amazon, which is to say potentially very much binding, unless any laws are broken.

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2 points
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However, if Amazon included in their standard legalese a paragraph saying that they own my firstborn child that’d be considered null and void over here even if I click “agree”, pay the purchase price for my order and everything, for the simple reason that it’s not a thing you generally find in contracts about the sale of a bottle of fish sauce and a pair of hiking socks, and courts long since realised that noone actually reads fineprint. What they can and do put in the fineprint are things such as payment and shipment procedure details, that (in the case of buying on credit) the delivered items remain their property until paid, such stuff. Also on top of that the newborn child thing is against good mores which is another reason why it’s null and void.

And Germany is a funny case when it comes to contracts, anyway. Say there’s a shop advertising bubble gum for a euro a pack. That’s a binding contract: Unless there’s an obvious mistake (period in the wrong place or something like that), if I am an upstanding member of the general public and want to buy their bubble gum and they don’t want to sell it I could go to court and force them to. Then, upon entering I take a pack of gum off the shelf and put it on the counter. That now spawns a sales contract, which spawns two other contracts: One obligating me, the buyer, to transfer property of money to the seller, and another obligating the seller to transfer property of the bubble gum to me. However, as I put an Euro right next to the bubble gum and unlike e.g. houses bubble gum packets don’t come with registered ownership titles the two sub-contracts are fulfilled on the spot, which fulfils the sales contract, and nobody cares, except jurists and people making fun of jurists.

Non-verbal contracts very much are enforcable over here, the key factor is konkludentes Verhalten: Conduct implying intent. Long story short if you show up for work and the boss gives you tasks to do and you fulfil them you have an employment contract even though nobody signed anything.

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1 point

Depends on your local laws. Verbal contracts exist here but they are unenforcable without a 3th party witness and even then very limited and only used for the simplest and most immediate exchanges. Buying and selling is kind of a contract but only handled in courts if it’s between individuals, if a company is involved then it’s the consumer protection laws and agency that handles that. Most obligations and privileges from buying and selling are handled by local law instead of a contract. But contracts on the Internet are only legally binding if you digitally sign it here, an agree button or even a normal signature isn’t binding here for that. Our government IDs allow for online signatures with cryptographic keys unique to each person, that’s the only legally binding online signature here.

A TOS can only be used to enforce your behaviour on that platform, anything beyond that is not enforceable here.

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33 points

As far as I know it’s not legally binding pretty much anywhere. They’re not legal contracts because they don’t fulfill the requirements of one.

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-1 points

They are not a contract by themselves but they can absolutely be used to specify the details of the main contract the customer is about to enter, for example by buying something in an online shop, etc. and that contract is then in its entirety binding (assuming no laws are broken etc).

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100 points

Yes that will hold up in court, surely.

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31 points

Everyone knows EULAs are legally binding.

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-4 points

Maybe I’ve missed the /s, but yes, they’re binding, as long as they’re not in contradiction with the laws.

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19 points

They don’t meet the terms necessary for the definition of a legal agreement.

  • They do not contain a signature.
  • They don’t explicitly identify you as an individual (again they can’t because no signature)
  • They are not open to arbitration
  • They also don’t bind the company to any legal requirements. A contract is between two, or more people. EULAs just define what you’re not allowed to do. They put no restrictions on the company at all.

They exist to scare people and nothing more they’re worth not as much as the paper they never written on.

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24 points

Where I live, they’re almost always in contradiction with the laws.

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34 points
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How the fuck is this even legal? How can a company put itself above or beyond all legal scrutiny.

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20 points

It’s probably not legal, but do you have the financial means to take on a large company like Tiktok in a protracted legal battle?

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