Grumble and Grouch

Legal Fiction *

No, I'm not talking about John Grisham novels. I'm talking about the bullshit that our legal system has bullied companies and individuals into having to declare whenever making any sort of statement or offering any sort of service or product. Otherwise known as, the small print. Let me offer you a short excerpt of one such agreement for a free guestbook service on the Internet:

"GuestWorld guestbooks are not allowed for web sites that contain, or contain links to, any of the following: nudity, sex, pornography, foul language, hate propaganda, anything illegal, mail fraud, pyramid schemes, or any material which may be insulting to another person(s) or company. This includes anything considered XXX or adult material."

Okay, so if I read that right, if someone is offended by one of the links that I have on my website, GuestWorld is reserving the right to deny me their free service. Wouldn't it be easier just to say "We reserve the right to deny service to anyone based upon our whims at the time."? Oh, no...that might offend someone. Horrors!

The other thing about small print is that no one but anal retentive accountants and lawyers actually reads it. (I'm not going to say which one I am, since I obviously read the above agreement and became irrate at it.) So, you're clicking right along, agreeing to this and that to get what you want, when suddenly you discover that you've just agreed to give your life's savings over to GuestWorld (or their equivilent) if you use their service for commercial gain. Okay, that's unlikely to happen, largely because a court appeal would probably rip the whole agreement to shreds. But what bothers me about THAT is that you're agreeing to something that doesn't need agreeing to. Isn't this sort of like a law that is no longer enforced? It's there, but it'll only getcha when you piss off the wrong person.

My point to this is, obviously, if you're doing anything remarkably stupid like running a porn site and choosing to use GuestWorld for their guest book services, you're going to run the risk of having services denied. This is sort of like walking into a nice french restaurant, nekkid as the day you were born, and expecting them to serve you (that's serve, zilli, not *service*...get yer mind outta the gutter). Would it make much sense for you to sue them later for clothing discrimination?

Well, you probably could. After you got out of jail for indecent exposure. Though if you've got a nice body, they might not mind. I don't know. Suffice it to say, I'm tired of small print and wish that someone, someday would finally say I HAVE HAD ENOUGH. Get a clue. Eat a bowl of reality chex and have an interveneous transfusion of common sense. I don't need to be told the obvious to the point that it masks the important stuff.