Re: [ga] Important New Ruling

["James S. Tyre" <jstyre@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 02:16 PM 7/26/2007 -0700, Karl Auerbach wrote:
> Danny Younger wrote:
> > "A company cannot change its contract with consumers
> > simply by posting revised conditions on its website, a
> > US appeals court has ruled" --
> > full story here: 
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/26/online_contract_changes/
> > Court decision here: http://pub.bna.com/eclr/0675424_071807.pdf
> > As I read it, this ruling should impact registrar
> > Terms of Service Agreements.
>
> Don't read what isn't there.  This was a decision that is quite 
> dependent on the law of the particular jurisdictions involved.
>
> I only skimmed the opinion, but much seemed to involve the lack of 
> notice.  A registrar might be able to avoid this problem simply by 
> sending a notice via an email to one of the registration contacts or 
> by setting up an RSS feed and requiring registrants to monitor it.

More specifically, complete lack of notice.  The court distinguished, 
for example, the situation where your credit card company changes 
your contract by stuffing a supplement in the envelope with your 
monthly statement.

Interesting question whether the court would bless a forced RSS 
feed.  I don't think so, but I know that the court has never come 
close to that issue.


> In fact, one thing that ICANN could set up is an aggegator (serving 
> as a kind of gazette of notices) for registrar announcements.
>
>                 --karl--


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James S. Tyre                                      jstyre@xxxxxxxxxx
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Co-founder, The Censorware Project             http://censorware.net
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