Der Blog

Argh, don't you just hate it when you spend ages writing a long rant, and then your session expires and you lose it. Anyway.

I've been hearing lots about Half-Life 2: Episode 1. It looks pretty shiny, so I decided to buy it through Steam. Just after I fired up Steam I remembered that my debit card expired just over a week ago, and I received a replacement on the 7th. The bank said it had been posted on 3 May. Not only has it taken over a month to arrive, the envelope was sealed with sellotape. Very likely it's been intercepted and opened and the card cloned. So I sent the bank a message rejecting the thing. Sigh.

I clicked on 'purchase' anyway, to see how much it would cost. It gave me a price in dollars... "plus tax". It didn't say what tax. So do I pay US sales tax, VAT, import duty, all three? What exactly am I paying here?

Carrying on, I arrive at the Steam Subscriber "Agreement". As with all such things, this isn't really an agreement. If it were an agreement, I would have been consulted about its terms and been given a chance to object to them. It's also ambiguous as to whether it is legally a license, a contract, or what. At least the term "EULA" contains the word "license". If this is, as I suspect, a service contract, it seems incredibly biased towards Valve.

Normally I just skip through such things. They're invariably crap and biased towards the company, but I just ignore it because I'm very unlikely to get bitten by it. But the wording of this agreement, and its structure, makes it clear to me that Valve doesn't give a toss about its foreign customers.

1. Throughout the "agreement", I am referred to as a "consumer". Yes, in an economic sense I am a consumer, but this is not an economic essay, it is a... whatever it is, maybe a contract (see above). The term is demeaning. It suggests that my purpose is to eat what Valve feeds me, as if I am a pig and Valve the farmer. Here's my tip for all companies that want their customers not to despise them: call them "customers", not "consumers". Calling them "customers" doesn't indicate any particular level of respect for them, but calling them "consumers" makes it crystal clear that you are only interested in the contents of their wallets.
2. The section entitled Acceptance/Rejection/Returns, referring to non-software merchandise, begins: "The terms of this Section 3.C do not apply to European Union consumers." In this case I don't care, because I am trying to buy a computer game, i.e. software, so this section doesn't apply. But suppose for some bizarre reason I wanted to buy a T-shirt via Steam, and got a rag in the post, or nothing. What am I supposed to do to remedy this?
3. Limitation of liability: "IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT OF A EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRY, THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU." So, again, what does apply?
4. Exclusive remedy: "YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY FOR ANY DISPUTE WITH VALVE WITH REGARD TO STEAM OR THE STEAM SOFTWARE IS TO DISCONTINUE USE OF STEAM AND CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT." So if their software sends my credit card number to some random third party who then abuses it, am I not allowed to prosecute them? (As far as I know, contracts can't trump criminal law, but IANAL.)
5. Amendments: "Valve may amend this Agreement at any time in its sole discretion." It goes on to say that you have 30 days to accept the changes or not, and if you don't, you have to cancel your account. Again, this is forcing terms on me, and means this cannot meaningfully be described as an "agreement", as I have not been consulted or given a chance to object and negotiate.
6. Applicable law/jurisdiction. This is the most evil and cowardly section of any EULA. "You agree that this Agreement shall be deemed to have been made and executed in the State of Washington, and any dispute arising hereunder shall be resolved in accordance with the law of Washington. You agree that any claim asserted in any legal proceeding by you against Valve shall be commenced and maintained exclusively in any state or federal court located in King County, Washington, having subject matter jurisdiction with respect to the dispute between the parties and you hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts. In any dispute arising under this Agreement, the prevailing party will be entitled to attorneys' fees and expenses."
   I object strongly to this. Valve is selling me a product in my country, using servers located (presumably) in my country. This means they are doing business in my country. A fundamental prerequisite of doing business in any country is that you agree to abide by that country's laws, which implies that you are prepared to expose yourself to lawsuits in that country's courts. They should not be allowed to be so cowardly as to specify a jurisdiction outside the country that they're doing business in. I should be entitled to sue them in my own country, not have to fork out for a flight to Washington.

Dom brought to my attention that the Norwegian courts agree with me on the jurisdiction issue. Unfortunately Norwegian court decisions aren't binding on other countries, so it remains to be seen if British judges would be as sensible. Maybe I'm optimistic, but I suspect that they would.