CobrastanJorji
6 hours ago
I like how, even when the whole point is to not have any terms or conditions, there are still disclaimers. "Only for lawful purposes," "no warranty," "we are not responsible."
Those are still terms and conditions!
goodmythical
6 hours ago
Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies. Including it in the license is just redundant.
Had it simply read "You may use this site for any purpose." or "You may use this site." or "You may use this" or "This can be used." it would have the same level actual restriciton in that you obviously aren't allowed to use it to break the law regardless of what it actually says.
And, having typed all that, I realize that there is another restriction in that it presumes that there is a 'you' using it. Things that are not 'you' cannot use it given that it specifically lists 'you' in the referenced parties. "This can be used" would be more permissive.
lxgr
6 hours ago
I recently had to confirm to a brokerage that I won’t be using the money I’m withdrawing for any illegal activities.
A sure sign of a legal team or possibly an entire legal system having lost the plot. Hopefully only the former.
wrs
4 hours ago
That’s simple CYA, and also ensures you’ve not only done the illegal activity, you’ve defrauded the brokerage and breached your contract with them, and they get a weak KYC defense as well.
Similar to the “Al Capone” instructions from the IRS:
>Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about these stickers all over Seattle saying you’re not allowed to conduct illegal activities on the premises…
janalsncm
3 hours ago
I still don’t understand the CYA though.
For the majority of banks, they do not want people to conduct illegal activity via their bank. For the minority of banks which don’t mind it, nothing stops them from adding the clause anyways. A cartel bank probably cannot use the existence of the clause as a defense if they’re still allowing illegal activity.
If the purpose is to allow the bank to terminate accounts suspected of illegal activity, my assumption is they can already terminate for much less than that.
stevage
an hour ago
Having a clear clause to point to when terminating the account seems useful.
wrs
2 hours ago
It’s not just that they don’t want it, it’s that they’re liable for it themselves if they should have known it was happening. Asking you adds one more small layer of “we discouraged illegal activity and we didn’t know about any”.
janalsncm
32 minutes ago
Maybe I am just slow.
Bank 1 has the CYA clause and a cartel uses them for a decade for illegal purposes.
Bank 2 does not have the clause and a cartel uses them for a decade for illegal purposes.
In neither case does the clause prevent the illegal activity or make the bank any more or less aware of what customers are doing. They have to do KYC regardless of what the TOS says.
abustamam
2 hours ago
I'm curious if anyone has ever said yes to income from illegal activities. Moreover, I wonder if something like this would be protected under 5th amendment.
bombcar
6 hours ago
For Good, not Evil, unless you're IBM™
https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38...
nickff
5 hours ago
This is probably a meek attempt at demonstrating compliance with Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) laws and regulations. Lawyers will often suggest this sort of thing, because the only cost is a slight inconvenience to the client, and it might suggest 'good faith' in the case of a prosecution or enforcement action.
AnimalMuppet
5 hours ago
So, the entire legal system.
josephg
5 hours ago
> I won’t be using the money I’m withdrawing for any illegal activities.
My guess is that this is so they can ban any drug dealers from their site without consequence. "They violated our terms of service your honour!"
spalzdog
5 hours ago
When it's in the contract, then it means that when you break the law you both break the law and the contract. SHould it be necessary? Perhaps not, but in some places that makes a meaningful difference.
AnimalMuppet
5 hours ago
Now I'm paranoid. To your knowledge, which places does it make a difference, and what difference does it make?
fastball
4 hours ago
Legal matters are almost never black and white. If someone does something illegal using my service, and some other 3rd party sues me as party to that illegal behavior, from a legal perspective having a clause like "no criminal behavior allowed" in there makes it easier for your lawyers to argue "my client clearly didn't intend to authorize/facilitate such behavior". This argument is of course made much stronger if it is paired with behavior, like banning (or attempting to ban) the criminal user as soon as the activity was identified.
But if you are paranoid you should speak with a lawyer in your jurisdiction.
greycol
3 hours ago
In most places it doesn't make a difference to the outcome of the legal process what it does do is give you a quicker simpler off ramp from the legal process (which reduces costs) and may stop some idiots even trying to sue in the first place.
"Do not iron clothes while on body" should not be required to not be found liable, but it does change the question in court from providing discovery for safety consideration, how comprehensive is the manual, how... and the costs involved with that to "Did the customer use the device in a way that was it was clearly labelled to not be used? Did any part of the product packaging or instructions contradict this warning? ...Dismissed".
abustamam
an hour ago
On top of that, I think my canister of Lysol wet wipes and many other bottles of cleaning chemicals says something like "it is against federal law to use this product for any purposes other than its intended use"
Like, yeah it's illegal to do illegal stuff with or without the label, but at least Lysol could say "we did tell him that he can't use it for that."
zephen
6 hours ago
> Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies. Including it in the license is just redundant.
Perhaps not. The law, as automatically applied, often include implied warranties.
j_bizzle
6 hours ago
It's almost like the most effective way to publish without T&Cs is to just, you know, omit the section and publish what you want without T&Cs.
terrabiped
5 hours ago
Interesting question. I wonder what the default (implied) T&C would be if nothing has been explicitly stated. For example, publishing a source code without an explicit license doesn't make it open source.
volemo
3 hours ago
I guess it’d be whatever the other party’s lawyer can persuade the judge into.
awesome_dude
4 hours ago
> Right? Why include that? The law automatically applies.
Because the law applies - by that I mean if you don't put a disclaimer in then the law takes the view that you do provide a warranty, etc.
volemo
3 hours ago
Does it take the view that I encourage/facilitate illegal use of my product unless I state otherwise in the T&C?
abustamam
an hour ago
Encourage, probably not. Facilitate, possibly. That's why my bottle of Windex glass cleaner says "it's against federal law to use this product for anything other than its intended purpose."
In either case it's illegal for me to use it for bad purposes, but how much I can blame on Windex depends on how much they let me know that I shouldn't do bad stuff with their products.
awesome_dude
3 hours ago
Ask every account that has ever released information on drug use, lock picking, explosives manufacture, or "hacking" - they all say "for educational purposes only" for a damned good reason
sph
5 hours ago
If anyone knows that rules exist to be broken, it's Jorji. Glory to Cobrastan.
isoprophlex
5 hours ago
Should have gone for the WTFPL
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.daveguy
6 hours ago
"NoTermsNoConditions"... Proceeds to list 9 terms and conditions.
It should be called bare-termsandconditions or minimal-termsandconditions.
AndrewKemendo
6 hours ago
This is the real salient point in this post in my opinion;
It unintentionally demonstrates the limits of individual agency to avoid legal embroilments
That is to say: it doesn’t really matter what this person puts on their website because there is a judge and a sheriff somewhere that can force you to do something that would violate the things you wrote down because the things you wrote are subordinate to jurisdictional law (which is invoked as you point out)
It’s actually pretty poetic when you think about it because the page effectively says nothing because it doesn’t have content that the license applies to
If it’s a art piece intended to show something about licensure all it does is demonstrate the degree to which licensure is predicated on jurisdiction
shevy-java
6 hours ago
Right. The cake is a lie.