After a night's sleep
I forced myself to sleep, instead of writing my comments on the two posts made my Livejournal staff. I got up, and read the comments, and have a few observations of my own to make.
1. Refunds
California law (thanks to a rep at the California State Attorney's office I spoke to) is absolutely clear as a bell. If a service provider changes the Terms of Service, they must notify their customers individually of this change, and they must refund monies paid by those customers if they chose to terminate their relationship. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why 6A/LJ will not make their new "policies" part of the Terms of Service. Instead, they present it as "policy", and enforce it illegally, because they are counting on the very real fact that most of the affected users do not live in California and will not go to the trouble of filing a claim or a complaint with the proper authorities.
Additionally, California consumer law clearly requires providers of a service or product to refund to the consumer, in full or prorated form, the monies paid to them by the consumer, should the vendor or business chose to terminate their business relationship. This has been upheld by numerous cases. Therefore, if Livejournal wishes to suspend or remove a user, they must, under the laws of the State of California, refund monies to the consumer. There's no gray area there. It's not up to LJ to decide that. They must refund. I don't know what morons they are hiring for their legal counsel, but for them to say 'neener, neener, we'll ban you and not refund' is laughably stupid. They have to refund. End of story.
If you are leaving LJ and you want your money back, you can file a small claims suit. My understanding (and I am not a lawyer) is that you can file in your home county and state, because the contract was entered into on the Internet. For those living in California, go here for more info:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/smallclaims/
California law requires that companies send an actual management or owner officer to defend the case, not a lawyer and not a hired gun. If they fail to appear, they lose.
2. Complain where it will make a difference.
Spam of cat macros and Shakespeare are cute. Annoying, but cute. But if you want to keep LJ busy? Complain with teeth.
http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/
http://www.dca.ca.gov/consumer/cic/index.shtml
http://www.ag.ca.gov/
State Attorney Edmond Brown is a former governor of California who is a big proponent of free speech, anti-censorship and privacy law. He is pretty cool, actually, and has spoken out against Internet companies taking advantage of their customers.
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL
Go here to complain. If we get enough people to complain, then the state attorney general will force 6A to answer the questions that they dance around for us.
I urge everyone reading this to go file a complaint today, if you feel strongly. Make LJ answer to the Attorney General, if they won't answer to us. I've seen how fast we can hit 5000 spam comments. How fast can we hit 5000 complaints filed? I work in government, people. I guarantee you this will get their attention. Make it happen. It's a great solution, I think. Anyone?
3. Stop the hysteria and the spam. Get serious if you want them to take you seriously. Livejournal is attempting to bully people with "guidelines" that they refuse to make Terms of Service, because they want to alter the contract without risking having to pay refunds. Don't let them get away with it. They are violating their own written contract, so they must pay.
Lastly, on a personal note:
burr86 is a childish, ignorant jerk. Not apologizing was bad enough. But being the "HAHA! I'M THE FIRST COMMENTER! WHEEEEEEE!" on Barak's post was a slap in the face. He's too busy to face the consequences of his actions because he's "on vacation", but not too busy to post cutesy posts on the explanation post. FIRE THIS IDIOT! Didn't anyone at 6A have the business smarts to tell him to STFU and lay low for a while? Bueller? Bueller? When I think they can't be any dumber, they do another stunt like this. It's like watching Wylie Coyote building a trap. You keep saying to yourself that they can't seriously be doing this crap again, they can't really think that this is going to work, and then they do and it blows up and you shake your head in wonder.
Oh, and the new LJ staff sockpuppet? Cute. Can I report them to Abuse Team for using a goat icon while they screw us? Bestiality!
Oh, god, Livejournal's lame attempts to look like a professional company is like a train wreck I can't take my eyes off of. Look, LJ/Wylie! Here comes the train! It's going to...*sigh*...run over you.
Morons.
EDITED TO ADD: I deleted the line about Burr86 being first poster. For some strange reason, LJ news had Barak's post from June on top, yesterday, over Krissy's (and how weird is that?) and it got mistaken for being new. However, we did have the utter joy of yet another staff member, Anildash, making vulgar language comments that he later ammended to say were directed at a publication, not the customers. So the utter fail is continuing, unabated, as yet another LJ team member uses his personal journal to bash people.
1. Refunds
California law (thanks to a rep at the California State Attorney's office I spoke to) is absolutely clear as a bell. If a service provider changes the Terms of Service, they must notify their customers individually of this change, and they must refund monies paid by those customers if they chose to terminate their relationship. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why 6A/LJ will not make their new "policies" part of the Terms of Service. Instead, they present it as "policy", and enforce it illegally, because they are counting on the very real fact that most of the affected users do not live in California and will not go to the trouble of filing a claim or a complaint with the proper authorities.
Additionally, California consumer law clearly requires providers of a service or product to refund to the consumer, in full or prorated form, the monies paid to them by the consumer, should the vendor or business chose to terminate their business relationship. This has been upheld by numerous cases. Therefore, if Livejournal wishes to suspend or remove a user, they must, under the laws of the State of California, refund monies to the consumer. There's no gray area there. It's not up to LJ to decide that. They must refund. I don't know what morons they are hiring for their legal counsel, but for them to say 'neener, neener, we'll ban you and not refund' is laughably stupid. They have to refund. End of story.
If you are leaving LJ and you want your money back, you can file a small claims suit. My understanding (and I am not a lawyer) is that you can file in your home county and state, because the contract was entered into on the Internet. For those living in California, go here for more info:
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/smallclaims/
California law requires that companies send an actual management or owner officer to defend the case, not a lawyer and not a hired gun. If they fail to appear, they lose.
2. Complain where it will make a difference.
Spam of cat macros and Shakespeare are cute. Annoying, but cute. But if you want to keep LJ busy? Complain with teeth.
http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/
http://www.dca.ca.gov/consumer/cic/index.shtml
http://www.ag.ca.gov/
State Attorney Edmond Brown is a former governor of California who is a big proponent of free speech, anti-censorship and privacy law. He is pretty cool, actually, and has spoken out against Internet companies taking advantage of their customers.
http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL
Go here to complain. If we get enough people to complain, then the state attorney general will force 6A to answer the questions that they dance around for us.
I urge everyone reading this to go file a complaint today, if you feel strongly. Make LJ answer to the Attorney General, if they won't answer to us. I've seen how fast we can hit 5000 spam comments. How fast can we hit 5000 complaints filed? I work in government, people. I guarantee you this will get their attention. Make it happen. It's a great solution, I think. Anyone?
3. Stop the hysteria and the spam. Get serious if you want them to take you seriously. Livejournal is attempting to bully people with "guidelines" that they refuse to make Terms of Service, because they want to alter the contract without risking having to pay refunds. Don't let them get away with it. They are violating their own written contract, so they must pay.
Lastly, on a personal note:
burr86 is a childish, ignorant jerk. Not apologizing was bad enough. But being the "HAHA! I'M THE FIRST COMMENTER! WHEEEEEEE!" on Barak's post was a slap in the face. He's too busy to face the consequences of his actions because he's "on vacation", but not too busy to post cutesy posts on the explanation post. FIRE THIS IDIOT! Didn't anyone at 6A have the business smarts to tell him to STFU and lay low for a while? Bueller? Bueller? When I think they can't be any dumber, they do another stunt like this. It's like watching Wylie Coyote building a trap. You keep saying to yourself that they can't seriously be doing this crap again, they can't really think that this is going to work, and then they do and it blows up and you shake your head in wonder.
Oh, and the new LJ staff sockpuppet? Cute. Can I report them to Abuse Team for using a goat icon while they screw us? Bestiality!
Oh, god, Livejournal's lame attempts to look like a professional company is like a train wreck I can't take my eyes off of. Look, LJ/Wylie! Here comes the train! It's going to...*sigh*...run over you.
Morons.
EDITED TO ADD: I deleted the line about Burr86 being first poster. For some strange reason, LJ news had Barak's post from June on top, yesterday, over Krissy's (and how weird is that?) and it got mistaken for being new. However, we did have the utter joy of yet another staff member, Anildash, making vulgar language comments that he later ammended to say were directed at a publication, not the customers. So the utter fail is continuing, unabated, as yet another LJ team member uses his personal journal to bash people.