Forced arbitration means any legal disputes you may have with Discord must be resolved through a single third party mediator, who 99% of the time is chosen by, and will rule in favor of, the corporation/Discord. This effectively removes all your legal rights as a consumer, because arbitration decisions are legally binding and non-appealable.
The new ToS goes into effect April 15th, 2024.
YOU CAN OPT OUT OF ARBITRATION. You must email arbitration-opt-out@discord.comBEFORE MAY 15TH (30 days after ToS effective date) with your username stating that you wish to opt out of the arbitration clause. Once May 15th passes you are bound to arbitration with Discord forever.
It has to be noted that this applies to US citizens. For EU citizens the arbitration rules do not apply (that at least is how I read the ToS). Instead, they get an EU body that handles disputes:
If you reside in the European Union, you may also be entitled to submit your complaint to the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform or the Out-of-Court Dispute Settlement (“OCDS”) mechanism under DSA Article 21.
European countries don’t really have class action suits, issues are usually resolved through all kinds of government agencies and without court involvement. Why bother with court when The Consumer Ombudsman in the UK can fuck any company sideways in a fraction of time and for free?
Suits can also set legal precedents that the company (and others!) may need to follow. Yeah the settlement is typically ass but grounds to sue again for continued bad behavior can’t get ruled on by an actual court of law during arbitration.
In other words, this is actual class warfare against customers.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !privacyguides@lemmy.one
In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.
This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.
You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:
Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We’ve tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!
Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!
This community is the “official” Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other “Privacy Guides” communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.
Moderation Rules:
We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
No soliciting engagement: Don’t ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
Don’t repost topics which have already been covered here.
News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don’t abuse our community’s willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.
It has to be noted that this applies to US citizens. For EU citizens the arbitration rules do not apply (that at least is how I read the ToS). Instead, they get an EU body that handles disputes:
What the means actually? Does that mean I sent an email to ODR/OCDS to opt-out or suggesting instead of suing them, submit a complaint to ODR/OCDS?
To my knowledge, you don’t need to opt out of anything.
European countries don’t really have class action suits, issues are usually resolved through all kinds of government agencies and without court involvement. Why bother with court when The Consumer Ombudsman in the UK can fuck any company sideways in a fraction of time and for free?
You mean they don’t get their $0.55 check in the mail when some lawyer successfully sues a company on their behalf and walks out with $50M?
Gee, that’s truly a loss.
Suits can also set legal precedents that the company (and others!) may need to follow. Yeah the settlement is typically ass but grounds to sue again for continued bad behavior can’t get ruled on by an actual court of law during arbitration.
In other words, this is actual class warfare against customers.