GamersOptOut will send printed EULA opt-outs to game companies on your behalf

As game companies start to add conditions to their EULAs that prohibit class action suits for their negligence in handling your personal data, a collective of gamers called Gamers Opt Out have created a service that makes it easy to mail printed opt-outs from these conditions.

Individual lawsuits against game companies that harm their users through poor security practices are limited to those victims with the money and time to pursue them. Prohibiting class-action suits effectively kills the business model that consumer protection laws rely on: plaintiff-side attorneys who can recoup the millions it costs to sue companies for their transgressions and act as a check against corporate misdeeds.

Gamers Opt Out is a collective of gamers who are sick of absurd EULAs from game companies. These EULAs have clauses preventing class-action lawsuits, though you can opt out of the clauses by sending a letter. We want to make it easier for everyone to opt out because Sony, EA, et al, believe most people won't bother to. Let's show them they're wrong.

We will make it easy for you to create the letter needed to send to these companies and can even send the letter on your behalf at no cost. All we ask is that if you like what we are doing, spread the word or donate to help with the cost of paper and postage.

(via Wonderland)

• [CGulow]

  Uh… I don’t think that a company can legally require you to “sign” away your right to claim damages due to their negligence when you are a customer. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if it was legal.

  • [oldtaku]

    Sony specifically noted they were making this change because the Supreme Court of the US recently allowed it for AT&T ( AT&T Mobility LLC v Concepcion 09-893).

    Technically, you’re not signing away your right to claim damages, what you’re doing is agreeing to no class action – you have to do it through binding arbitration (with arbitrators hired by Sony who always side with Sony) or through an individual lawsuit, which would utterly not be worth it. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14948701

    So apparently it’s just fine and dandy if you agree to have your rights neutered to uselessness, but not removed.

  • [Scott Jones]

    It wasn’t possible for them to do it in the past but there have been cases lately where the courts have upheld these kind of stipulations in EULAs. The Supreme Court of the US has declared the class action lawsuits are a privilege and not a right.

    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/scotus-rules-att-can-force-arbitration-block-class-action-suits.ars

• [royaltrux]

  I gave. Good post.

• [Abdul Alhazred]

  It would be nice to see an article trying to bring a global scope to this EULA nonsense. In countries with strong(er) consumer protection it would seem impossible you could ever waive your basic rights, especially in the “click to proceed” fashion of these things.
  I remember thinking that a scenario like this was the low end of the slippery slope argument when these got in vogue. I’ll have to shift my expectations lower.

  • [vette]

     I know Norway has a paragraph that states you can’t sign away the consumer rights given to you through the consumer law. It’s been used against Apple to force them to accept returns for items past Apple’s warranty (of one year) because Norwegian law claims cell phones should have a two to five year warranty.

    Now the problem is when you bring the internet into this. For a game bought in Norway it’s obvious that Norwegian law applies. But what about something bought online, from an American site?

    • [ocker3]

      In Australia, it’s pretty much standard for a phone plan to be two years, but the vast majority of phones only have a one-year warranty. So if it dies after 12 months, you’re stuck with the same plan (unless you want to pay, often quite a bit of money, to break the contract) for the full two years, and you’ll probably have to get a replacement phone yourself.

      Last I heard, some of the consumer rights groups and the relevant ombudsman’s office were making progress on pushing warranties out so you got more coverage while you were under the initial plan.

• [oldtaku]

  Keep in mind that the time bomb for the Sony EULA is already ticking.

  The PSN update happened around September 16th, and you have one month from whenever you were forced to download it to get your opt-out in (this was explicitly spelled out in the new EULA).

  Also, how are you enjoying being a battered spouse?

  • [greay]

    I still haven’t agreed! I knew I probably would end up not sending in the letter if I agreed before sending it in.  So I’ve just been ignoring it.

• [Chris Sexton]

  Most annoying form submission ever. At least on Chrome in Linux, they force you to unfocus every allah-damn text box before entering the next one. Tab moves to the submit button and you have to shift tab back to the newly created text box each time.

  THIS IS HOW NOT TO MAKE HTML FORMS, FOLKS!!

  • [Matt Jakubowski]

    We hear ya, we are pushing an update up shortly that addresses this and the fact that our international friends couldn’t submit.

    What can we say, it looked pretty in testing. :)

• [LAPete]

  I am puzzled as to how a EULA agreement is enforceable, PERIOD, in light of how you are not aware of the terms until AFTER you open the box – making the product non-returnable. Basically, you are agreeing to it under duress.

  • [Brian Easton]

    The particular EULAs in question are for free services (Sony’s Playstation Network, and EA’s Origin). These aren’t shrink-wrap EULAs. You have to agree to the terms before you create the account. Not that I find these terms to be particularly agreeable, but it’s disengenuous to imply that the terms of all EULAs are only made available after a point of no return.

  • [Douglas Stuart]

    It IS enforceable. I personally think this sort of click-wrap/ shrink wrap agreement is totally unconscionable. Totally goes against the whole contract being an “agreement” thing.

    http://xkcd.com/501/

• [Andrew Singleton]

  I’d always thought e
  ULA terms were unenforcable if actual written law contradicted them.

  • [greay]

    I’m sure this is pretty common, but there’s actually a clause somewhere in there that says if any part of the agreement is found to be illegal, that part is automatically removed & the rest remains.

• [Diet Mr Pibb]

  Personally, I preferred my approach: unsubscribe from PSN entirely. If your company wants me to waive my right to sue you with a bunch of other people who have also been wronged by you in the same way, I don’t want to give you my money.

  Then, I only own a PSP, and I use it primarily as a music-listening device; I don’t properly remember the reason I signed up for PSN  in the first place.

• [Justin Cain]

  I really hope this website is owned by Sony/EA and they are using it to prove that people don’t really care about their personal information as they freely give it away to this website in order to save 50 cents instead of doing it their selves.

• [awjt]

  On an individual level, all of it is essentially meaningless. Use the software and if it sucks… Throw it out. Or do as I do and don’t get involved in the first place.

  Soon, there will be EULAs on fruit.

• [Hollow]

  I have a problem with giving half my information to a “gamer’s” sight, it just feels like a unique way to get my info to steal my account. They want my Account Name, that’s my Login for my game. How many steps beyond that is it to get my Password and then steal what ever is on my account?  I think I will do it myself to keep my OBVIOUS game info private.

  • [Dewi Morgan]

    For most gaming sites, anyone on the site can see your name. It is, if you like, the “public key”. Your password is your “private key”.

    If you use a single word, or a poorly chosen passphrase, or a passphrase that you use on multiple sites, then you have shared your private key, and have nobody to blame but yourself.