TOSAmend Automates Counteroffer Terms For Service Agreements

First time accepted submitter BigSlowTarget writes "Are we simply subject to whatever a software provider demands of us in their clickthrough TOS agreement or are they real contracts where we can counteroffer our preferred terms and expect a refund if they are rejected? One blogger has come up with an applet to change TOS agreements and automatically submit the changes for approval (or rejection). Even he is not sure of the legal standing for the offer, but with these contracts so common they have been featured on South Park the issue certainly could be coming to the courts soon."

Let's run with this idea!

[laird]

I love the idea of this. I have to wonder, though - does sending a POST message to a web server have any legal meaning? It'll just end up in some web server log, ignored by the app and never notified to a person, so I'd think it wouldn't be a very strong argument. Now, if your app could figure out where to email a modified TOS, that would be much stronger, but of course that's a lot more work.

Realistically, though, no consumer web site can afford to negotiate individual contracts for individual users, so the best you can really achieve would be to get them to change their standard TOS to have better terms. To that end, I would suggest that you could extend this widget so that it not only nofied the site owner, but also collected a database of TOS objections. Imagine if you could say "10,000 people objected to site X's standard TOS, and 75% of the objections were to paragraph Y." That might pressure companies to change their TOS.

I'd be happy to build and host the server side, if you'd like. I don't know much about client side JavaScript, but servers are easy. :-)

Obviously No Strong Legal Standing

[Nivardus]

Though this is a fun concept, I'm sure it'd have a stronger legal standing if it sent revised contracts to sites through a reliable and expected route such as email rather than an unknown and nonstandard HTTP argument. You might as well submit a revised physical contract by wadding it up into a ball and throwing it onto the lawn of the agent that gave it to you, continuing merrily as if they accepted it. Whether a script would be able to find reliable routes is another issue.