Forced arbitration with Smartwool socks

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Smartwool is a brand of wool clothing. The incident described in this article is a example EULA roofieing, where one a business attempts to create a contract on the basis of no-response from customers. Often this is done as prudence for business interests. However, it creates the potential for unjust situations. Due to the unexpected, and casual nature that these terms are presented to the consumers, and the frequent difficulty in opt-ing out, these agreements. This is an example of one such agreement.

Incident of EULA roofieing

Smartwool emailed a list of their account holders stating that they were opting them into forced arbitration, and to opt out, they must send a letter. through USPS Priority Mail, which is not the First Class mail that people typically use for mailing letters.

Text from the EULA as it appeared.

In addition to the typical loss of rights associated with arbitration, the customers were opted in via email and could simply reply to the email to opt out.

References

Video associated with this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=670rwHz1WV8