Wanna sue us for selling your location? Think again: You should read your contract's fine print, says T-Mobile US T-Mobile US has finally responded to a lawsuit filed in May that accuses it of trashing its customers' privacy by selling off their location data. But in that first response [PDF], the mobile network makes no mention of the issue at the heart of the lawsuit – peddling subscribers' whereabouts to third parties who then resold …
Arbitration clauses in service agreements like that should not be allowed. They are nothing but a "get out of jail free" card for the companies involved.
As to T-Mobile specifically, their stance is par for the course. They're a US telecom, and like all US telecoms that I'm aware of (and their lacky, Ajit Pai), they are actively hostile to their customers.
No, they serve a purpose.
However, in this case... the arbitration clause should be stricken because you don't have any real consent. Its a bit of a 'shrink wrap' contract.
IMHO This should become a class action lawsuit.
Ajit Pai is the wrong man for the job.
Under UK law, generally arbitration clauses are secondary to existing law. So in this case Tmob could insist on their own arbitration, but that wouldn't stop someone from taking them to court for the exact same issues (in this particular case I assume it would be covered under the GDPR).
So, although we all think arbitration clauses are harmful, they'll probably get supported. I can only hope that the contract makes the company cover the costs for the arbitration unless they are proven to not be at fault (I'm sure they don't want to do that, but I've seen it before in such clauses). Maybe we can get enough people to start individual arbitration cases to show the companies that, if they want this to end within their lifetimes, they should just let the single trial go through.
""As T-Mobile customers, each Plaintiff accepted T-Mobile’s Terms and Condition," T-Mob's response reads. "In so doing, they agreed to arbitrate on an individual basis any dispute related to T-Mobile’s services and waive their right to participate in a class action unless they timely opted out of the arbitration procedure outlined in the Ts&Cs. Neither Plaintiff elected to opt out."
Hmmm, it's this sort of clause that should be illegal. Firstly, not only for the fact that it was probably buried deep down on page 12 of their T&Cs in a four point font, but secondly for the fact that it's highly unlikely that the average T-Mobile punter has the geological amount of time available to put into a challenge - which is how long these sort of things usually take, and thirdly because they'd probably be drowned in lawyers.
T-Mobile know this, and also know that it is a scummy position to put your "highly valued" customers in. Yet they do it anyway.
Scumbags.
My understanding is that under modern English law (so I don't know if it applies in america) is that arbitration might be binding for a breach of contract but because the plaintiffs are claiming a breach of law the contracted terms don't apply. That should mean that this can be converted into a court case and converted to a class action. The mobile companies are actually more exposed because the FCC haven't enforced the law and hence the plaintiffs can pursue that breach of law themselves.
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