Like Comcast, Google Fiber Now Forces Customers Into Arbitration (arstechnica.com) 89
An anonymous reader writes: In Google Fiber's updated terms, the company now says they "require the use of binding arbitration to resolve disputes rather than jury trials or class actions." Ars Technica reports: "While the clause allows cases in small claims court, it otherwise forces customers to waive the right to bring legal actions against the ISP. Arbitration must be sought on an individual basis, as the clause also prevents class arbitration. The previous terms of service did not have the binding arbitration clause, though they did limit Google Fiber's liability to the amount customers pay to use the services." The good news: customers can opt out of the change. The bad news: they have 30 days. "According to the terms, the new agreement kicks in within 30 days of accepting the new language. Customers can, however, during that time period use this online form (you must be logged in to your Fiber account to access it) to opt out of this change and future changes to the arbitration agreement," writes The Consumerist. Ars Technica reports that Google told them customers have 60 days to opt out. "An e-mail sent to customers on June 14 says the new terms of service will apply unless they call to cancel service within 30 days. If customers do nothing, they will have "accepted" the terms at that 30-day mark. After that, customers who remain with Google Fiber have another 30 days to opt out of the new terms using the online form," writes Ars.
Google's motto used to be (Score:4, Insightful)
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"sell out."
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Arbitration is not evil. It reduces costs and overhead for both parties. It means less money for the lawyers, and more to fund a settlement. Arbitration is much more accessible for the little guy than the normal courts. The only exception is small claims courts, which Google allows.
Many, many companies include arbitration clauses. When I am offered a work contract, if it doesn't include an arbitration clause, I ask for one. It is better for both parties.
Re:Google's motto used to be (Score:5, Informative)
Arbitration is evil, because arbitrator more often than not rule in favor of the side paying his invoices; that is almost never the "little people."
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Talk to the hand, fat cat.
The one holding the gun.
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Generally speaking arbitration is either good or evil dependent upon on clause being in there or not and that would be the legally binding clause. Non-legally binding arbitration is good because it allows an arbiter, basically a neutral referee with knowledge, to provide a venue for those in dispute to discuss the problem and gain the neutral opinion of the arbiter and a reasonable outcome to resolve the dispute. The parties either accept the consultation provided by the arbiter or take the matter to court
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Generally speaking arbitration is either good or evil dependent upon on clause being in there or not and that would be the legally binding clause. Non-legally binding arbitration is good because it allows an arbiter, basically a neutral referee with knowledge, to provide a venue for those in dispute to discuss the problem and gain the neutral opinion of the arbiter and a reasonable outcome to resolve the dispute. The parties either accept the consultation provided by the arbiter or take the matter to court. Arbitration is truly evil when they try to make it legally binding and the arbiter is a representative of an industry club of which one side is a member and the arbiter is not neutral and only serves the interests of industry club member.
You are confusing arbitration and mediation. The term "mediation" is usually used for non-binding third-party dispute resolution and "arbitration" is reserved for binding third-party dispute resolution. Of course, different jurisdictions use different terminologies (sometimes incorrectly) for their own local practices, but these are the generally-accepted meanings of the terms.
One way to improve arbitration is to let each side pick one arbitrator, and then have the first two arbitrators pick a third arbi
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Which is a bullshit statistic in itself which ignores the fact that there are far more "little people" who are absolute self entitled dicks. It's a causality problem. Arbitration is by far preferred if you're on shaky ground and unlikely to win in court and leads to a lot more crap claims.
On the face of it there's no reason arbitration is any more or less evil unless the arbiters are in bed with corporations, something that is not guaranteed to be any better by a judge.
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Many, many companies include arbitration clauses. When I am offered a work contract, if it doesn't include an arbitration clause, I ask for one. It is better for both parties.
You are a naive person. Arbitration is a win for the businesses that send arbitration fees to whichever arbitration company. The rules of evidence in real court do not apply. For example, you couldn't compel your employer to produce all of your time card records in an arbitration over a pay dispute like you could in court. You often do not have the right to cross examine their witnesses, or if you do you're very limited in what you can ask them.
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It's not easy all the time to actually see what's right or wrong. However some clauses found in agreements can actually break the law and therefore be invalid.
Changing an agreement "by default" is not necessarily acceptable either from a legal point of view.
Re: Google's motto used to be (Score:1)
You're a corporate stooge or a fool. It's really hard to tell which. Arbitration has consistently been shown to favor monied interests.
Both parties to a case can always agree to arbitration at the outset of a dispute. Forcing one party to to give up their rights in advance of any dispute is done for one reason only. The game is rigged in favor of the corporate interests that write the contracts.
That our courts have ruled this is ok is just indicative of more monied interest corruption. Of course we can
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Arbitration is not evil. It reduces costs and overhead for both parties.
Yes, when it's done fairly, but quite often it's not done fairly. Oftentimes the arbitrator tends to side with whoever is paying them so as not to endanger his/her future earnings. This isn't exactly a secret. Arbitrators function more like advocates for whoever signs their check, and if they rule against their employer too often then they're let go.
If you went to arbitration with Mastercard, for example, and the arbitrator was paid by Mastercard and Mastercard was his sole source of income, how fair of a
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That was a very hostile way to agree with the poster. Not sure why you even felt the need to post this.
Not just arbitration... (Score:2)
It's more than a mockery of "don't be evil." Rather than just going to the Arbitration Rules for general disputes, I bet they're going to the arbitration rules of the Communications Industry. Industries literally write their own rules now for disputes with customers.
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"To take advantage of our 'Don't Be Evil' clause, please click the 'I agree to binding arbitration' checkbox."
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Forever and always, my odd little friend.
Its a symptom of a response to a problem (Score:3)
The legal system is too expensive and difficult to use for just about everyone. Toss in the fact that the outcomes are potentially unbounded and class actions are more often than not. (Lawyers get millions, victims get coupons).
It just points out the need to simplify civil disputes, and reduce the costs. You shouldn't have to be a lawyer to go about your life.
Re:Its a symptom of a response to a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Class actions are about punishing the companies. No matter if lawyers get millions or victims, as long as the company lost more than it gained it was a win for the current and future victims by helping to curb future wrongdoings. It was annoying enough that companies successfully battled to get these binding arbitration claims which are even worse for the victims.
I don't understand why people find that so hard to understand. Crashmarik, why do you think class actions are so wrong? Why do you prefer the method where it costs the victim $50 in court costs for the chance of getting a $5 over-billing fixed (but only for a month) and where the company only pays out $5 to that single person compared to the case where the victim pays nothing, gets a $2 discount for doing nothing, and the company pays millions?
ISPs, mobile, and media services companies constantly incorrectly bill people. That doesn't happen in any other industry. When was the last time your water bill suddenly contained a new water coloring service that you never ordered, never noticed, but apparently has been being auto-payed by you for the last 5 months? I just had a mobile ISP start charging me out of the blue from when I canceled service with them 4 years ago. These companies are completely corrupt or completely mismanaged and the lawsuits against them should be strong enough to put them out of business. But no, too many people like you believe class actions are immoral because I won't get thousands from them, so instead I get nothing because I can't travel to their state for their sham of an arbitration service that relies on their cases to exist. And they rake in almost a million a year of easy money for services they're not even providing.
Crashmarik, do you really think the now 50 companies that are going to start scamming you will cost you less than the threat of a class action handing over their heads? You won't be able to take all of them to arbitration yet you didn't have to do anything for the class actions. Don't think 50 companies are trying to scam you? You'll never know because arbitration proceeding are kept private. You'll never learn that the last 2 month supply of milk had lead in it. The people who do learn will be court ordered to silence. Just look at the recent vitamins scam. That would have never been made public and the fake vitamins never pulled from the stores if opening their seal meant you agreed to a arbitration agreement.
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No class actions aren't about punishing companies at all. They are about enriching lawyers.
When a company can collect 100,000,000 in profits pay 5 million to the lawyers and send coupons to the "victims" both of which will be absorbed by their liability insurance, I have no idea how anyone could say it's about punishing the company.
Since having to pay a huge fine... (Score:3)
...is objectively a punishment making a statement such as yours ("I have no idea how anyone could say it's about punishing the company.") takes an extraordinary level of cognitive dissonance. You are quite amazing.
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I don't understand why people find that so hard to understand.
Because that's rarely the outcome and the face value of the punishment dished out to corporations is not at all related to the actual damage they suffer. Take the GP's example of coupons. Yes we've all seen it a hundred times, you get $10 off your next product you buy from us they say to the consumer they just massively screwed over with the previous product.
This is neither good for the consumer nor an impact to the company as these coupons end up in the bottom of the waste paper basket while the owner mutt
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The 70's wasn't bad compared to how it have been in other times. McCarthy anyone?
I prefer arbitration, lawsuits suck. Google pays (Score:2, Insightful)
Courts are a PITA. I don't mind at all having arbitration clauses. Google's is quite a bit better than Comcast's - Google gives up the right to sue you, too, subjecting themselves to binding arbitration. Also, Google pays the fees. (Except claims over $75,000 have a fee up to $200 in some states).
Obviously this doesn't effect your main recourse, filing complaints with the FCC and FTC, or canceling the service.
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> Courts are a PITA. I don't mind at all having arbitration clauses.
Agreements with binding arbitration clauses are strictly more limiting than those without. Without such clauses, both parties can either agree to take their grievance to an arbiter and agree that his decision is binding, or take their grievances before a court. With such clauses, both parties can *only* use an arbiter and are *barred* from taking their grievance before a court.
Given that the results of arbitration proceedings are almost
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You left out a MAJOR point.... The arbitrator is picked by the company. No arbitrator is going to bite the hand that feeds them.
This is an excellent point. If Google gets to pick the arbitrator, do I have veto power? Can I ask the arbitrator for references? Can I ask the arbitrator for a list of all the people they ruled against in the last two years, so I can pick say three of them and ask if they felt they got a fair shake? I think all of these things are fair asks.
Answers to those questions (Score:4, Informative)
The arbitrator is assigned by the American Arbitration Association. You can read all the details at https://www.adr.org/ [adr.org] . Basically, AAA assigns at arbitrator in your geographical area (not Google's) with knowledge of the subject matter, and an administrator to handle the initial paperwork such as listing the points on which both parties agree. A different arbitrator can be assigned by agreement of both parties - neither party gets to unilaterally choose who the arbitrator will be.
That WOULD be stupid, which is that is false (Score:4, Informative)
> The arbitrator is picked by the company.
Uhm, no. The arbitrator is assigned by the American Arbitration Association. https://www.adr.org/ [adr.org]
Nobody would ever use arbitration if the other party got to choose the arbitrator.
If you'd like to see the terms rather than making wild guesses, you can read them here:
https://fiber.google.com/legal... [google.com]
Re: That WOULD be stupid, which is that is false (Score:3, Insightful)
Irrelevant. Arbitrators are also a pool of professionals. With cable companies in particular and their slimy behavior, an arbitrator may deal with dozens or hundreds of cases. One who consistently rules against a constant 'customer' is not going to be employable. This is why arbitrations constantly (well over 90 percent) favor corporate interests.
What? You think quiet words about what companies think of arbitrators don't get exchanged? You think people don't want to please their employers? You must be
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The term "crony capitalism" was invented to deceive people about the normal working of capitalism.
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In what Universe does one party in a dispute get to choose an arbitrator? You're just flat out wrong here.
Limit expense & time choosing ahead of time (Score:2)
True, by choosing arbitration when you enter a contract, you are limiting certain things. Importantly, you're limiting the expense and the time that a dispute can eat up.
The last significant contract I did, it took nearly a year to negotiate the exact words of the contract, mostly because the other guy is a PITA. That cost tens of thousands of dollars. I darn sure wouldn't want to fight a law suit about it with that guy. Winning would probably cost me $100,000 and three years.
Yes, it's certainly possible
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Courts are a PITA. I don't mind at all having arbitration clauses.
There are various problems with arbitration clauses in cases like this, but the biggest one is that most arbitrations are not public record. That's a BIG problem for combating systemic abuses, since future plaintiffs won't be able to determine what wrongdoing may have come up in previous actions.
There are problems with courts and class action suits, too, of course. (And in many settlements for court cases, some details are private too -- though at least a record of an action will often exist in public d
This just seems like a better solution (Score:2)
http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com]
Binding arbitration is anti-consumer (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, Google and Comcast force their employees to sign binding arbitration agreements. Now you know who you're dealing with.
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> By the way, Google and Comcast force their employees to sign binding arbitration agreements.
I know and speak regularly with a guy who works as a programmer for Google. Google doesn't require its programmers to sign such agreements.
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Binding arbitration is incredibly cheap compared to a legal challenge and hence 2/3rds of customers probably had a shit-house case that they would never dream of taking to court in the first place.
And just an anecdote I know an idiot I worked with (briefly, she didn't make it past her trial period) who gave her credit card to someone she barely knew, told her the pin and asked her to go get her something while she was at work. Surprise surprise there was a very expensive purchase on the card and she then bl
Void where prohibited (Score:1)
My understanding is that some states forbid binding arbitration since people have an absolute right to a jury trial.
Assigned by American Arbitration Association. (Score:3)
The moderator is assigned by the American Arbitration Association. Google's terms specify that the moderator be in the consumer's local area.
How can this be any more than an offer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Help a clueless foreigner understand this. Is there no consumer protection in the USA? If that kind of clause were enforceable, wouldn't that be the privatization of law? Settling out of court as the only option? That can't be it. Surely you can, if you so choose, still sue if the other side violates the contract, right?
Re:How can this be any more than an offer? (Score:4, Informative)
There are protections but they are very weak. It is privatization of law. And companies love it. They get to pick the arbitration company and funnel thousands of cases thus giving them incentive to rule in their favor. On top of that, they can ask for a different arbitrator if they don't like the one the company assigns to the case.
Not surprisingly they always win. And if you don't like the outcome of the arbitration, you can't go to court, the arbitration is usually binding and final.
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> They get to pick the arbitration company
Yep. Which is why this bullshit should be illegal.
Arbitration companies know that if they rule against Kaiser or something too often, they'll lose the contract.
It is preposterously unethical.
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Help a clueless foreigner understand this. Is there no consumer protection in the USA? If that kind of clause were enforceable, wouldn't that be the privatization of law? Settling out of court as the only option? That can't be it. Surely you can, if you so choose, still sue if the other side violates the contract, right?
Wrong. [wikipedia.org]
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What's wrong? He asked 4 questions and all you can do is post one word?
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put the pitchforks down (Score:2)
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What you describe is called mediation. Binding arbitration is not about settling, it's a non-judge making a decision about how the conflict is resolved. It is supposed to be legally binding, so if you'd want to fight the outcome in court you'd first have to get the arbitration itself declared invalid.
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Does this cut both ways? (Score:2)
If I send an email to Google regarding their fiber service, and they don't challenge my proposed changes to our contract in 30 days, are they bound by whatever I put in the email?
Don't blame google. (Score:2)
First I don't oppose arbitration ( BTW often the arbnitrators are ex-judges ) but I think some safeguards have to be added. The way it is now is too abusive. Maybe states could require licensing of arbitrators.
As for Google, I don't particularly like it. but every other company does it. In particular there are people willing to put severed fingers in their chili so they can sue and companies do need a protection from that. If google didn't do it, then a judge would force them to if the shareholders decided
What's the incentive to NOT opt out? (Score:2)
What am I missing here? If the customer gets the same service, whether or not they agree to the new terms, how can the new terms justify a contract? Is it true that there has to be something in it for both parties for a contract to be legal?
Same benefits for both sides. Can "sue" at no cost (Score:2)
> What's the incentive to NOT opt out?
Google is bound by the arbitration, and they have to pay the American Arbitration Association to cover the costs. If you think Google Fiber owes you $400, you can have the case heard by a professional arbitrator at no cost to you.
Without an arbitration clause, figure about $5,000 in legal fees and court costs just to get started.
Whatever, fine, go ahead (Score:2)
Who cares! Yes, obviously, this is crap. But these arbitration clauses are becoming OMNIPRESENT. The faster this happens, the faster we can fix it through judicial or legislative means. Right now the belief seems to be that arbitration clauses are present to prevent malicious legal nonsense, but it is becoming more and more clear that they are a way to get away with bad behavior without the courts being able to help. I seriously doubt that, long term, the legal system will be ok with a set of private l
Binding on both. Assigned by the association (Score:2)
> arbitration is binding on whom?
It's binding on both parties.
> A smart customer will hire an arbiter
Neither side hires one. They are assigned by the American Arbitration Association. Google's terms are that the association should choose an arbitrator in the consumer's local area.
How? (Score:2)
Isn't judicial recourse a right that cannot be taken away by random contracts? This is the same as signing a contract saying you will be killed and you waive your family's rights to sue me. Null and void.
How is this legal? (Score:2)
Essentially, what happens here is to take a key power out of the government's hand. I don't know a single government on the planet that would allow you to tell it to keep its nose out of your business.
Arbitration is bad and lawyers aren't helping (Score:2)
If I had the power to change things, this is what I would do:
1. Arbitration takes away our 7th amendment rights to access the courts for low to middle income persons. Arbitration should be optional, not mandatory, and only used when both parties agree. Encourage the use of small claims court system over arbitration.
2. Lawyers should not be able to take court cases on contingency. They should be required to take payment up-front. This will reduce the number of frivolous lawsuits filed in the court system.
3.