Corporations Not Happy Innovators Have 'Hacked' The Crappy U.S. Binding Arbitration System
from the dysfunction-junction dept
For years, AT&T worked tirelessly to erode its customers' legal rights, using mouse print in its terms of service preventing consumers from participating in lawsuits against the company. Instead, customers were forced into binding arbitration, where arbitrators chosen and paid by the companies under fire unsurprisingly rule in favor of the party likely to hire them again a huge percentage of the time. Initially, the lower courts derided this anti-consumer behavior for what it was, critics highlighting that however brutally flawed the class action system can be, binding arbitration, at least the way we let companies design it, in many ways made things worse.
But these lower court roadblocks quickly evaporated when the Supreme Court ruled in 2011 (Mobility v. Concepcion) that what AT&T was doing was perfectly OK. While lower courts saw this as an "unconscionable" abuse of consumer rights and the law, the Supreme Court bought into the ongoing myth that binding arbitration is a hyper-efficient, modern alternative to class actions. The Supreme Court reiterated its position in 2015, and now most companies employ similar language in their terms of service fine print. Thanks, AT&T.
Shockingly, despite the telecom industry being a clear and obvious train wreck rife with endless examples of clear billing fraud, users aren't finding arbitration provides an effective path to justice. Despite having a combined 330 million video, voice, and broadband customers, just 30 people took AT&T and Comcast to arbitration last year. Driven in part by this, folks in recent years have been trying to find ways to help simplify the complicated process for pissed off consumers and employees, launching services like Radvocate and Fairshake.
As the NY Times notes, these systems are unsurprisingly driving up arbitration complaints as the process is streamlined and made more affordable for participants (consumers and employees often can't afford to take on corporations individually):
"Mr. Lidow, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with a law degree, figured there had to be more people upset with their cable companies. He was right. Within a few months, Mr. Lidow found more than 1,000 people interested in filing arbitration claims against the industry. About the same time last year, Travis Lenkner and his law partners at the firm Keller Lenkner had a similar realization. Arbitration clauses bar employees at many companies from joining together to mount class-action lawsuits."
While the original arbitration idea may have been sound, corporations designed their vision of it with an eye on minimizing costs, tap dancing around accountability, and making it a costly uphill climb for employees and customers to battle them. And now that folks are actually trying to use the system, they're unsurprisingly not excited about it:
"There is no way that the system can handle mass arbitrations,” said Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco employment lawyer who has worked to develop fairness standards for arbitration. “The companies are trying to weasel their way out of the system that they created."
AT&T, which helped kick this whole shift off with its sneaky bullshit mouse print, has been one of several corporations to hype binding arbitration as a more efficient alternative to class actions. Yet once folks actually began using the process thanks to these new services, companies like AT&T were caught flat footed:
"The companies were caught off guard. It took six months for many of the claims to move through arbitration. And some were still making their way through the system two years later. To Mr. Lidow, that seemed like a long time for two of the nation’s largest companies, with ample legal resources, that have vouched publicly for the efficiencies of arbitration over court."
Again yes, the class action system is broken, more often than not delivering new boats to attorneys and very little to those who are treated unfairly. But class actions most certainly have driven substantive change over the years (such lawsuits stopped cellular carriers from charging you long term contract early termination fees, for example). And the replacement system corporations built to replace the justice system is proving, as many predicted, to be decidedly worse.
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Filed Under: arbitration, binding arbitration, class action lawsuits, lawsuits
Companies: at&t
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Arbitration? It’s often better than full blown litigation. No appeals, for example. More certain outcomes . People think more deeply at the beginning, and that’s a good thing. Remember the western digital arbitration? Wow, great.
Did you hear Bbill Barr recently? I think he’s going to roast some marshmallows.
And what about trump’s miracle cure? Wow! Like, suddenly, everybody is cured, the hospitals are empty, and only radical leftists, who won’t take the malaria drug, are dying. Everyone sensible is ok! Great news, right?
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The publisher of the study that seemed to back up Trump’s claim retracted it. And no scientific evidence (the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”) says hydroxychloroquine can treat, or has treated, COVID-19 with any real effectiveness.
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Re:
Good. If you’re a leftist, just don’t take it. MAGA
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Re: Re:
Do you plan on live streaming your suicide?
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Re: Re: Re:
Please try not to sink to their level, just because they're an ass/psychopath doesn't mean others need to act in kind, one person like that is already one too many.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
“Please try not to sink to there level”
They are nazis “sometimes in the literal sense”
You isn’t have to sink to the level. But you don’t have to stop them from destroying themselves either.
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I wouldn’t encourage anyone on any part of the political spectrum to take hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 until we have better proof that the drug can effectively treat that specific disease.
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Re:
Well, Trump would and it's already demonstrably killed people, so there's that.
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Re: Re:
He is profiting off it.
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Re: Re:
Just like the assclowns who wanna drink bleach. Enjoy.
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Ever since the Tide-pod eating challenge...
I've been wondering if those challenges are a mechanism of natural selection. Even since the early ages of 4Chan/b the __Del C:\Windows\System32*.__ to boost your computer speed* thing has been a running meme. Later challenges seem to be an evolution of the same sort, of which the drink bleach to prevent coronavirus seems to be the latest version. Those who survive learn to not trust everything they read on the internet.
Trump is a walking mechanism of the same sort. Sure, some people voted for him to send a message to the DNC (that we won't tolerate Republican-lite anymore) or because they were GOP loyalists or because they can't think beyond abortion but in after all the analyses of the 2016 election most of them were about keeping the non-whites in their place and stopping the inflow of more non-whites, because they, and not unchecked monied interests are easy to blame for all our woes.
That said, they're still going to vote that way. Biden is just as much a milquetoast rival to an incumbent as Romney, Kerry and Dole. Of all the candidates, the Democratic party ultimate chose one that stands for nothing. And that (compounded with the reasons above) practically assures going to lose to the monster.
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Stupid markup failure.
Yep. This one's beyond me. I can't seem to reconcile the command line text with the markdown.
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You have to escape any character that generates markup through Markdown with a backslash. It's why...
¯_(ツ)_/¯
...looks like it does unless you use...
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
...to get the desired output:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Basically, use the backslash before an asterisk, octothorpe (at the beginning of a line), or an underscore to prevent unneeded Markdown stuff.
#TheMoreYouKnow
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Re: Stupid markup failure.
Not sure whether Techdirt is just behind the times or if there is another reason, but there is now something called ``HTML'' which avoids some of these problems. In fact, quotes even work in HTML.
Some fora have turned to using that HTML stuff, with the advantage that there is a large body of readers and potential comment authors who are familiar with it. And, even for those less familiar with it, HTML has the advantage that it does less damage to your text.
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Re: Re: Stupid markup failure.
In what world do you live where you think HTML is the new kid on the block compared to markdown?
"And, even for those less familiar with it, HTML has the advantage that it does less damage to your text."
You've not seen the hilarious outcomes of people missing tags or forgetting to close them, I see.
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Re: Re: Stupid markup failure.
HTML makes text less readable due all the opening and closing tags cluttering up the text, and takes longer to write things in when taking care to keep the tags balanced. For example
[description](the link)
is easier to use than
<a href="the link">description</a>
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Re: Re: Re: Stupid markup failure.
Plain old text is much more readable?
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If'n you wanna get anal about it, technically, this…
[Link text][1]
[1]: the link
…would be a bit more readable in Markdown because you could stick the link reference at the end of the document and a Markdown parser would insert the link in the right place. 😛
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Re:
Not really, as you version is harder to eyeball check, requiring a skip to the end of the text to check the link. Also, it is harder on servers, as it requires a two pass conversion process, 1 pass to check, and build a link table, and a second pass to paste them in place.
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Re: Re:
so what do you suggest, or are you just complaining?
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Re: Re: Re:
Unless a sophisticated editor, complete with popups of the contents of urls, notes etc. is available, inline is the way to go to enable proof reading and avoid errors due to the tag and what it links to being separate and unlinked (at the software level) entities. Therefore, for a markup language, which can be edited with a simple text editor, inline is the best approach. Markdown is better that HTML, at least for simpler requirements, because it is less noisy, and less fussy to use.
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Re: Re: Re:
I suggest upgrading to this ``html'' technology.
Most likely that is how the Techdirt folks would have gone had it been available at the time, because you can write plain text including quotes and have it come out less damaged.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"you can write plain text including quotes and have it come out less damaged."
Because clicking preview and or the "use plain text option" are so hard? Also, plain text works fine, it's the default way HTML parses text unless tags are used. But, it's when people forget to close tags that it's a real mess.
Which is why this forum and others that (sensibly) disable post-editing decide to use the markup formatting that was created in response to the shortcomings of the pure HTML as they used to in the past.
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Markdown over HTML
I'm glad for HTML but that's because I have an HTML friendly text editor at my desktop.
But when I'm not at my desktop, Markdown is much friendlier. I just didn't know the escape character, which Stephen T. Stone was happy to reveal to me.
To be fair, Google's half-assed Markdown does suck like a galactic hub.
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Re: Ever since the Tide-pod eating challenge...
Technically everything which affects reproduction is natural selection evem if there is no sense init. Fitness is a tautology essentially - if some people were immune to all diseases (ignoring the improbability of such a mechanism developing) and were burned as witches then it would be selected against in spite of its obvious species utility. Killing people for being 'unlucky' woulld impact selection randomly even though there is no mechanism to protect against it.
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Natural selection
In this case, people are making sociopolitical choices. Today some 5000+ persons went to an evangelist mass / political rally for Easter Sunday and not did not social distancing, partly to show solidarity for the GOP, for Protestant Evangelicalism and for Reelecting Trump. And in doing so, they increase their risk for COVID-19 infection.
Short of a miracle, some people who are infected (and unaware) are going to attend and transmit the disease, and of those newly infected, some of them may die.
This is not to say people who are social distancing may not have other factors working against their survival, but they don't have that factor working against their survival.
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If you want your Darwin Award that freakin' badly...
Today some 5000+ persons went to an evangelist mass / political rally for Easter Sunday and not did not social distancing, partly to show solidarity for the GOP, for Protestant Evangelicalism and for Reelecting Trump. And in doing so, they increase their risk for COVID-19 infection.
... because of course they did. While I try not to wish death or suffering on anyone as that's the sort of thing that comes from a twisted mind or leads to one, some people do seem to go out of their way to make it downright impossible to feel any sympathy if they do suffer and/or die.
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Re: If you want your Darwin Award that freakin' badly...
But, the problem is the increased infection and death will not be contained among those people. They will spread it to others, some of whom are doing the right thing. The problem is the same one we face when criticising anti-vaxxers - it's not a question them getting what they asked for, its the other people who had no choice that suffer as well.
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Re: Re: If you want your Darwin Award that freakin' badly...
Yeah, that is the biggest problem with self-centered idiots like that, that others so often end up suffering thanks to their attempt at a Darwin Award. While I have no sympathy for the idiots themselves I have plenty for those around them who end up suffering because of said idiots, made to pay not because of choice but simple proximity.
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Re: Re: Re: If you want your Darwin Award that freakin' badly...
Yes, it is frustrating. If these people were going in and drinking bleach en masse because they thought that was the solution, I'd roll my eyes, engage in a little schadenfreude, and get on with my day a little sorry but aware that nothing of value was likely lost.
But, these people are going to go around infecting not only their families, but the often low-paid workers who have the misfortune of having to deal with them. It's especially sad as, seeing my country getting the figures down and preparing to start a slow return to normal, these people are going to help more people die than we've seen in the entire pandemic.
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Re:
I heard staying at Mara Lago or golfing on one of Trumps courses will Cure the Coronavirus, raise your IQ as high as the Cheeto in Charge's, grow your manhood by 3 inches or increase your bust to DD's...
I'm sure the president will be promoting these cures soon (If I had an online show and was hawking my own line of luxury vitamins...)
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Re: Retraction (not)
It's not a retraction. It's a response to some complaints by 3rd parties.
Read it: https://www.isac.world/news-and-publications/official-isac-statement
The case for hydrooxychloroquinine is far from proven by one small study, but there is substantial evidence that it helps with COVID-19, and the side effects are mostly mild (unless you take excessively high doses).
Politics aside, in emergencies sometimes we have to make decisions on weak data. If I get COVID-19, I'll take it.
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The plural. Of “anecdote”. Is not “data”.
Until I see more evidence beyond a handful of success stories that might not be replicable on a large enough scale to prove hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19, the drug’s status as such a treatment will — and should — remain in question.
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Re:
^This.
The response to "this small study and some anecdotal evidence suggests hydroxychloroquine may be an effective treatment" should not be "great, everyone start taking it." The response should be, "Well then let's get a couple of full clinical studies going RIGHT NOW to find out if it is effective so we can either start giving it to people who need it, or keep looking elsewhere for a real treatment."
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You do the best you can do, with the knowledge you have
In a crisis, you make the best judgement you can until more information comes in.
You don't sit on your hands doing nothing, waiting for p to become less then 0.05.
If the best we can do now is suggest a drug that may help (some weak evidence) and won't do much harm (decades of experience) then you suggest it.
While at the same time "looking elsewhere for a real treatment".
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Re: You do the best you can do, with the knowledge you have
Here is the Wikipedia entry on hydroxychloroquine, and reading that makes caution seem a better approach than large scale experimental administration. Besides which large scale use requires that production is ramped up, and that can take time.
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Re: You do the best you can do, with the knowledge you have
"You don't sit on your hands doing nothing"
Certainly not - no, ya go out 'n drink aquarium cleaner because you have been driven onto a panic and stopped thinking long ago.
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"We must be seen doing something, even if it kills people!"
Yeah, see, here’s the problem with that notion: You may end up recommending a drug that people are already using for reasons wholly unrelated to COVID-19. That recommendation might end up creating a shortage of the drug for the people using it for those reasons.
People with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus who use hydroxychloroquine need that drug for treatment of those conditions. But ever since Trump opened his fucking mouth and said “we have a miracle cure for COVID-19”, those people have had to worry about whether the desperate search for such a cure will render them unable to treat their conditions. That is what happens when you…
…without having any real evidence (the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”, I can’t believe I have to keep saying that) to back up the suggestion.
Everyone in the world wants a cure for COVID-19. But that isn’t any reason to make reckless suggestions that could put the health and lives of an staggering amount of people at risk — whether they have arthritis, lupus, or COVID-19. Yes, study the drug and see if it has any actual benefit for treating COVID-19. But don’t call it or treat it as a “wonder drug” or a “miracle cure”. And don’t act like the few stories that say “it helped” means “it’ll help everyone”. That way lies madness — and a potter’s field of dead bodies.
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Re: "We must be seen doing something, even if it kills people!"
"…without having any real evidence (the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”, I can’t believe I have to keep saying that) to back up the suggestion."
Well, there is some evidence, but it's the kind of evidence that says "let's put this into a proper clinical trial" not "go on TV and tell people that it cures everything with zero side effects".
Here's an actual doctor on the subject:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/mayo-clinic-cardiologist-inexcusable-ignore-h ydroxychloroquine-side-effects-n1178776
So, around 11% of people in the trial phase are at risk of dying from cardiac issues, and the president is going around telling people to self-medicate claiming zero risk. I wouldn't be surprised if he's already killed people with this even with people who have obtained the correct drug.
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'If this doesn't kill you that likely will'
While hydroxychloroquine is likely to be safe for 90 percent of the population, Ackerman said, it could pose serious and potentially lethal risks to a small number of those susceptible to heart conditions, especially those with other chronic medical problems already on multiple medications.
It's a good thing that COVID-19 doesn't seem to impact the elderly, a group much more likely to fall into those two categories, more, otherwise it would seem rushing to prescribe/suggest that people take that drug would rather be like 'solving' the problem of russian roulette by adding in a second bullet.
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Re: 'If this doesn't kill you that likely will'
Exactly. Even if it weren't for his audience being utter morons in the sense that they take whatever random similar-sounding chemicals they find around the house, he's essentially telling people to self-medicate and there's a definite risk there with any drug. Anyone who takes his advice is at a non-zero risk of killing themselves.
I don't think it will happen, but I would love it if figures were compiled on exactly how many people Trump has killed with his irresponsible advice. Sadly, all that will likely happen is that he'll take credit as if he personally discovered the drug if this gamble works, or more likely find something else to distract.
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Re: Re: "We must be seen doing something, even if it kills peopl
So the antivaxxers, who claim to be in the right because of a substance they don't like that could affect a small part of the population... are now pushing Trump's proposed substance, which could affect a small part of the population? Am I reading that right?
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Re: Re: Re: "We must be seen doing something, even if it ki
Hypocrites are difficult to read, much less understand.
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Re: You do the best you can do, with the knowledge you have
"If the best we can do now is suggest a drug that may help (some weak evidence) and won't do much harm (decades of experience) then you suggest it."
That may be fair. However, Trump did not do that. He kept referring to hydroxychloroquine as a miracle cure - causing shortages for people who already needed it for other things - and the drug is known to have severe side effects for people suffering from certain heart and other conditions.
"won't do much harm" in this case means "causing people to die".
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Re:
"Like, suddenly, everybody is cured, the hospitals are empty"
Your cult leader can use that unproven drug to cure everybody who'd not affected by COVID-19 as well as the ones who are?
Did you confuse some random bullshit claim for being able to cure one disease with being able to cure all diseases?
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Re:
And what about trump’s miracle cure?
Given his track record of supporting things that inevitably turn to shit, he's the last fucking person on the planet I'd take medical advice from.
I'd be better off asking the magic 8-ball for advice.
Wow! Like, suddenly, everybody is cured, the hospitals are empty, and only radical leftists, who won’t take the malaria drug, are dying.
Apart from within the confines of your head, where exactly is this happening?
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Re:
Hydroxychloroquine has been around for decades. Some report came out of Europe that it may be effective in treating COVID-19. Another hack reads this and posts some claims that it's the cure on a random ultra-right-wing Wordpress site. Trump reads this, believes it, and repeats the lie to millions on a daily basis.
A. This isn't "Trump's miracle cure". It belongs to many others, but not Trump.
B. It is not even close to proven to be effective and may well be killing people.
C. Right-wing nutjob blog sites are not trustworthy news sites.
D. The drug is not "Trump's" but he is responsible for what people do after listening to his lies.
Trump is a menace to society. He needs to be removed from office along with all of his dumb-as-posts family and cronies. And you are just as bad for spreading the lies and misinformation, even for simply believing everything Trump says like a good little fellator-in-chief.
Everything you say is bad and you should feel bad.
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Re: Re:
...and as I keep trying to stress:
E. The drug is vital for things not related to COVID-19, and people who were already talking it are having their lives put in jeopardy due to Trump's incompetent messaging.
He's not only killing the morons who take aquarium cleaner because it has a similar name, he's killing people who were taking Hydroxychloroquine before he caused a shortage.
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Re: Re:
" C. Right-wing nutjob blog sites are not trustworthy news sites."
How are Left-wing moonbat blog sites any more trustworthy???
....lit that fuse.....run with it....
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Re: Re: Re:
Neither are trustworthy, but only one type of fiction is being spread by the supposed leader of the free world right now.
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Re: Re: Re:
Because right-wing nutjob sites are usually tied with "god said this or that."
And using god as your guidance for anything is just fucking stupid.
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Re: Re:
D. The drug is not "Trump's" but he is responsible for what people do after listening to his lies.
No, he's not responsible for people doing stupid shit. They choose to do stupid shit for.....reasons. Those same people, if they got divorced, would still be legally brother and sister...... lol
The old saying "So, if everyone else jumped off a cliff......."
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Re: Re: Re:
"No, he's not responsible for people doing stupid shit. "
Yes, he is. He said some stupid shit, which led directly to people doing something stupid. Yes, intelligent people would not have done that, but even the stupid ones would not have done it without his prompting.
"The old saying "So, if everyone else jumped off a cliff.......""
The people who would do that voted for the bankrupt conman. That's the problem...
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Re:
Just as the name suggests: if its labeled 'miracle', it's definitely bullshit.
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"Arbitration? It’s often better than full blown litigation."
For the corporation - yeah. Especially when the corp lacks a leg to stand upon, they simply pay the arbiter to rule in their favor and they do not have to bribe a judge. Double plus good :)
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Re:
Bribe? How big? Bigger than $630M?
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Re:
I think the whole point of this article is that since the corporation has to pay for the arbitrator, if everyone who's pissed off files 100,000 arbitration claims versus 1 class action lawsuit, maybe (hopefully) the company will go bankrupt anyway :)
(Financially bankrupt. Most are already morally bankrupt)
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This article is about a company trying to weasel out of an arbitration barrage:
Judge Alsup was the judge who learned Java in order to understand the Oracle vs Google case better.
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Re:
Can we put this judge on the Supreme Court?
I do have to laugh at this situation, as it's going to kill mandatory binding arbitration on class action issues. You just need to build a single case and then file it for each employee impacted.
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“There is a lot of poetic justice here,” the judge added.
Have to love Alsup. You can certainly tell he thinks these arbitration clauses are total BS.
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Chuckles, "I was just going to mention this. Did they really think this was going to work? It's kinda like the monkeys and Shakespeare, this only works for as long as it takes to crowd source a solution, and crowd sourcing is getting easier."
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Re:
I think I remember Leonard French reading the text.
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As is happening.
How many Console game system are About to go, rent games only.
After a few years, that Game on the old systems..
Stop working cause there are no Central servers.
Very Few single player games.
Games that are NOT fully loaded onto your console, most of it is sent to you, instantly to play each time you play.
Old tech(3-5 years) dont play future games.
Apple is of the idea of a New phone every year..Whats your idea on this.
Anyone remember when Cable boxes Started Happening? Encoding and decoding Analog frequencies. Then every 10 years change the box. Umm did you KNOW, that you can buy the box? AND ITS LEGAL.(if you could find it) Its like buying your own modem for the internet.
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AT&T arbitration process start to finish (don't blink or you'll miss it):
AT&T: We have their money now, tell them to fuck off or you're fired.
Arbitrator/Employee of AT&T: Yes sir. Fuck off customer.
Arbitration closed. NEXT!
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AT&T "independent" arbitrators are nothing of the sort. They're regularly told if they start siding with customers they'll be fired from their jobs as AT&T will find a different set of arbitrators for "reasons"......
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