RE: [projectvrm] On Datacoup's Patently Unfair T&Cs

["Crosbie Fitch" < >]

>Like everything else it depends  on the context.  

>Between people (trust in the classical sense) enforceability
>is out of context.  In terms of regulators incentivising companies
>(or the market) to obey the rules this is perhaps a different context
>and the where the term was directed. (In a manner that I suppose was
>bit ambiguous.  Thanks for point that out) 

Human beings, face to face, is indeed one context, and trust, in the pure
sense of the term, depends upon whether & how much they know each other.

In the public marketplace that is planet Earth, in which we are all able to
communicate and trade with each other via the public communications network
we call The Internet, the current context is transitioning from "No-one
knows you are a dog" to "Via centralised/walled garden Trust system X we can
pretend we trust each other, despite being modelled as inherently
untrustworthy psychopathic corporations compensated for by minimal assurance
of state/legal enforcement of contracts" to "Via a (yet to be developed)
decentralised identity/reputation system we can trade in confidence without
reliance upon state/legal enforcement".

Most people seem to be working on streamlining that intermediate phase,
redefining Trust as 'Not trust as such, but viable confidence obtained
through a combination of charlatanism and legal mumbo jumbo packaged into an
easy to use technological gizmo'. Your mobile reads the
T&C/TOS/AdhesiveContract/FBI warning/Disclaimer for you, so you can do more
important things.

>Relationships between people and the promise to treat personal 
>information in a particular way is another very worthy (and rarely
> discussed) topic.   I would imagine this would include not terms of 
>service but something along the lines of Non Disclosure agreements and the
like.

If you understand liberty as inalienable, you understand promises to
surrender liberty (action vs property) as not contractually valid (legally
binding). Hence people cannot surrender their freedom of speech in a
contract. Contracts are for the (conditional) exchange of that which is
alienable, e.g. baskets and silver coins.

So, this kind of contract does not abridge freedom of speech: "$50 in
exchange for washing my wife's car on condition you don't tell her it was
you who washed it, before X date, when I will pay you", whereas this one
attempts to: "I'll give you $50 if you promise never to tell anyone you
washed my wife's car. And if you break your promise, the court will likely
award me the $5,000,000 I require in damages."

In other words, one can make an exchange conditional upon one's
non-disclosure, but one cannot exchange one's (inalienable) liberty of
disclosure. Unfortunately, NDAs tend to persuade people (and judges*) into
believing they can sign away their liberty. * YJMV - your juridiction may
vary.

But then, given natural rights has been all but forgotten (if not
deprecated) these days, the concept of inalienability is moot. If you have a
large enough budget, the law is your servant.

>Is this along the lines of what you are suggesting?  

Therefore, probably not.