Borrowing a trick from the Comcast/AT&T playbook, Google Fiber now forces customers who are unhappy with the service to surrender their right to sue and to join class actions in favor of binding arbitration, a one-sided system of shadow courts that overwhelmingly delivers rulings in favor of the big companies that pay for it.

The March 29 edition of Airbnb's terms of service requires that people who rent out their homes acknowledge that despite the company's widely advertised Host Protection Insurance program, "you understand and agree that Airbnb does not act as an insurer."

A federal judge called America's move to forced arbitration and bans on class-action suits — bans favored and enabled by Scalia — "among the most profound shifts in our legal
history."

In 1925, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations of similar size and bargaining power could use arbitration, rather than courts, to settle their differences; today, corporations demand that customers and employees agree to use the arbitration system for redress of any grievances, while reserving the right to use the courts to attack humans who offend them.

Instagram may be heading for a partial do-over on its 100% Cask Strength Terms of Service Shitshow, but it's still cramming an arbitration clause down its users' throats, which means that you can't sue them no matter how they screw you over. — Read the rest

John sez, "We all know EULAs, and for the most part, we hate them. However, they do serve a valid purpose. In a complex consumer society it allows quick contracting without teams of lawyers hashing it out over every consumer purchase. — Read the rest

The Canadian judicial system is admitting a new class of arbitrators who will rule on the basis of Shari'a law. If two parties want to settle a civil dispute according to Muslim law, they can seek out a Shari'a arbitrator, whose judgement will be enforced by the regular Canadian courts. — Read the rest

Mike Lindell, the loudmouthed pillow tycoon who traded his gambling and crack cocaine addiction for membership in the delusional cult of MAGA, is spitting mad that a federal judge is forcing him to pay a $5 million arbitration award to a man who proved that Lindell's "election fraud" evidence was garbage. — Read the rest

Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva (previously) was retroactively disqualified for doping at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and as a result the gold medals go instead to U.S. competitors who had originally placed second. Valieva is also suspended from international competition until December 2025, the Court for Arbitration of Sport ruled. — Read the rest

Nearly 7 million of the people who gave their DNA to 23andMe to learn questionably-accurate things about their ethnic origins are now owned by hackers. Though the actual DNA profiles were not taken, swiped data includes family relationships, birth years and geographic locations—sufficiently revealing for there to be lists of people with Jewish ancestry circulating online allegedly based on the hack. — Read the rest

Daryl Hall & John Oates are considered to be the most successful pop duo of all time, but that doesn't mean they're the most compatible duo. In fact, Hall is so fed up with Oates, he has filed a lawsuit — and even a restraining order — against his decades-long partner. — Read the rest

With Florida governor Ron DeSantis's new laws limiting academic freedom and oppressive political oversight of state universities, there is an alarming shortage of college-level teachers in the state. The Guardian reports that DeSantis stacked the board of trustees of one college, the New College of Florida, with anti-"woke" political appointees, who quickly fired the college's president. — Read the rest

Trump cultist Mike Lindell's rage against the voting machine has caused big box retailers and shopping networks to stop selling his pillows, and now he's having to sell some of the company's equipment, reports The Minneapolis StarTribune. "Sewing machines, industrial fabric spreaders, forklifts and even desks and chairs are up for auction," according to the paper. — Read the rest

When one screws over large numbers of people at once, one should anticipate a lot of angry people. It would appear the self-declared "Imperator of Mars" and noted Pedo Guy, Elon Musk, miscalculated and does not have the legal resources to handle the multitude of labor violations he has committed. — Read the rest

A binding arbitration panel has ordered Mike Lindell to pay $5 million to a cybersecurity expert who proved that Lindell's evidence that China interfered in the 2020 Presidential election was bogus. The winner of the prize is Robert Zeidman, a 63-year-old computer forensics expert who says he voted for Trump in the two most recent elections. — Read the rest

Many Americans read To Kill a Mockingbird in school. It's a great book. It was also, curiously, the only book that author Harper Lee published — at least until shortly after her death, when an earlier draft of Mockingbird was published as Go Set a Watchmen. — Read the rest

A gentleman working in a Seattle police department will receive $1.52 million for joking about the Holocaust, sporting a Hitler-style mustache, and hanging Nazi SS insignia on his office door.

Derek Kammerzell, the former Kent assistant police chief who had worked with the department for 27 years, was at first reprimanded with a mere two weeks of unpaid leave after another officer noticed the hateful display. — Read the rest

Yahoo News reports that a Missouri woman sued her ex's car insurance company, Geico, after contracting an STD while having sex in his car. Thanks to the Missouri council of appeals, the woman won a $5.2 million dollar judgment against the insurance company. — Read the rest

Though testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug, Russian ice skater Kamila Valieva will be permitted to compete this week in the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The decision to allow her to carry on isn't going down well, but how many divisions has the Court of Arbitration for Sport? — Read the rest

Kamila Valieva is a teenage figure-skating star from Russia. It turns out she failed a drugs test in December—but officials decided not to disclose the results until she helped her team win gold in Beijing's Winter Olympics this week.

Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, which is used in the prevention of angina attacks, but is on the banned list because it is classed as a cardiac metabolic modulator and has been proven to improve physical efficiency.