A northern California resident has brought a class action lawsuit against Sony due to the inclusion of a clause in their most recent Terms of Service update for the PS3 that prevents gamers from bringing a class action lawsuit against them, reports Gamespot. We wonder if they ever saw this coming.
Suing Sony is apparently the cool thing to do, although it didn't end so well the last time someone tried. But that didn't stop the alleger from claiming "that Sony engaged in unfair business practices by forcing consumers to either give up their right to file a class-action lawsuit or give up access to the online gaming network they effectively paid for when they purchased the hardware." He also accuses Sony of being less upfront about the clause than they have been about updates in the past and making it impractical for users to opt out.
We'll be watching closely to see how this turns out, especially since it doesn't exactly seem fair to us that a company can forbid us from suing them just so we can use the products we already paid for. Now that we think about it, though, didn't Microsoft just pull this exact stunt? Who's bringing the suit against them?
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Eric December 19th, 2011 at 09:09 PM
This is part of SO many large corporation/business contracts and agreements that we take part in on a daily basis. I have not personally read the entirety of the agreement, but normally if suit is barred, there is an arbitration hearing which can lead to suit if a satisfactory agreement is not made. I am not surprised to see this from Sony after all the legal trouble that had with the recent hacking. It's smart, practical, and a common business practice of large corporations. Just as stated in the article, Microsoft has a similar agreement and I would bet the farm that Nintendo has similar language in their own agreement with its customers.
Mike Rougeau December 20th, 2011 at 01:28 PM
That doesn't make it right, and it's good that there's a spotlight being shined on it.