[DaFranker]

EULAs are never legally binding, and especially not for someone who is 1) not currently a consenting user, and 2) invoking a right.

So in the EU, if current legislation projects bear fruit, a case could probably be made for implementing this under the protection of the right to be forgotten, and there would be very little those services could do to prevent it.

[tbrownaw]

EULAs are never legally binding

And blanket statements are always false.

[DaFranker]

Perhaps you'd like a rephrasing:

A EULA can never bind you into a legal contract that has consequences beyond those already provided for by a law or the ability of the copyright holder of the software to deny use of the license.

The EULA is itself purely informal, but informal speech can serve in the provisions of certain laws that look at it to determine the intentions of the two parties. If a law exists that considers whether a user agreed to something in the determination of whether that user must be held to that thing they agreed to, then accepting a EULA is obviously valid under that provision -- but so would an email stating as much.

EULAs are just a list of statements the copyright holder and the user are throwing at each other in bulk format in order to cover those provisions where laws take such statements into account, along with a conditional authorization to use the software. If a EULA does anything else, it will be ignored, as there is generally no law that says "You must do what it says in the EULA". Unless you have one where you live, in which case ouch.

I can say whatever I want in an EULA, but it's going to be worth nothing in court if the user stopped using the license unless I was saying something that directly ties into an existing law. And if they do continue to use the license after doing things I forbid in the EULA, they are committing the specific crime of unauthorized use, since I'm no longer authorizing them.

As much as some EULA writers might get a kick out of writing that you will be tried according to whichever court's law they want, and that you'll be held responsible for XYZ humongous damages if you breach even the tiniest provision even up to two years after you cease using the software... yeah, nope, you'll still get convicted for unauthorized use, not the rest of that crap they listed.

Mind you, I'm repeating what a canadian lawyer explained to me. YMMV and some places may indeed hold the EULA against you.

[MasterScrat]

Any counter-example about this particular case?

[nathanm412]

https://web.archive.org/web/20061124021646/http://www.justic...

He was threatened with 55 years in jail for abusing an account with the American College of Physicians after clicking accept on the EULA.

[icebraining]

I very much doubt any directive regarding the right to be forgotten will give you the right to use fake information. It's essentially inviting fraud.

[nitrogen]

What is the difference between a fake profile and a pseudonymous profile? Is it really fraud to use something other than your real name in non-financial settings? What about other-than-real data? People have been using fake names and fake data since the dawn of the net; why would this be any different?

[icebraining]

I don't see any problem with the practice per se, but I'd be wary of codifying such Right into law without opening a can of worms.

[TeMPOraL]

Isn't the right to be forgotten a can of worms already? In theory it's about individuals and their privacy, but in practice it's about fraudsters hiding their fraudlent behaviour so that they can continue being fraudsters.

[krapp]

You're basically making the case that, if you have nothing to fear, you should have nothing to hide. But, replacing "fraudsters" with "terrorists" or "online weed dealers" in your comment states the law enforcement and intelligence community case against personal privacy pretty clearly.

I think that, in practice, it's about whether or not social media sites and search engines should be forced to maintain a market on personal data to serve as a crowdsourced proxy for state-sponsored surveillance.

[TeMPOraL]

I see a difference between privacy (preventing information about you from getting out) and rewriting history after the fact. Historical data is a public good, it's much bigger than an individual and his affairs, whether legit or not.

[JupiterMoon]

> EULAs are never legally binding

Violation will certainly give the social media cite grounds and desire to delete the false profiles though.

[VLM]

Aren't their financial valuations based on account numbers and made up metrics like that?

So deleting this fraudulent account will cause a measurable, definable, actionable, $0.0001 decrease in shareholder value, ignoring it will have no effect on shareholder value, what is my fiduciary responsibility here?

[woody223]

You are not a fiduciary in this context so would not have fiduciary responsibility to the owners (public or private). Essentially your relationship is with the company as a user/buyer of their product or services and is governed by user agreement - which may be a blanket EULA and may or may not be enforceable.

[icebraining]

Not to mention blocking such fake-profile creation services.