Sony is justifying its new “no sure” clause in the Playstation Network terms of service by saying that AT&T did the same thing.
Sony recently updated the TOS to the PS3 online service to prevent users from suing the company for any issue that arises out of using the Playstation Network.
This comes after Sony faced a bevy of legal trouble with the PSN, and faces multiple class-action lawsuits over its decisions to remove features from the console and over the several-week outage that occurred after someone was able to compromise the PSN’s security.
Many gamers are rightly outraged that Sony felt the need to add such a clause, essentially giving itself immunity from any consumer complaints, and some have even questioned the legality of such an agreement.
Sony, though, is certain that it’s in the clear because, well, another notoious anti-consumer company did the same thing.
“The Supreme Court recently ruled in the AT&T case that language like this is enforceable,. The updated language in the TOS is designed to benefit both the consumer and the company by ensuring that there is adequate time and procedures to resolve disputes
User license agreements are notorious for being unnecessarily long and riddled with legalese that no average user actually reads. There have been numerous cases where plaintiffs have tried to argue they shouldn’t be bound to the terms because they are systematically written to deter anyone from reading them.
In the end, though, this is an area where the law is quite favorably on the corporate side.
