[wowoc]

Anthropic does a somewhat similar thing. If you visit their ToS (the one for Max/Pro plans) from a European IP address, they replace one section with this:

Non-commercial use only. You agree not to use our Services for any commercial or business purposes and we (and our Providers) have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.

It's funny that a plan called "Pro" cannot be used professionally.

https://www.anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms

[giobox]

Ha out of curiosity I loaded that same consumer terms URL on both a USA and a UK VPN exit node - sure enough, the UK terms inject that extra clause you quoted banning commercial usage that is not present for USA users.

diff of the changes between US and UK:

https://www.diffchecker.com/BtqVrR9p/

There's the usual expected legal boilerplate differences. However, the UK version injects the additional clause at line 134 that has no analog in the US version.

[rkagerer]

Wow, if you brought a paper contract to court that mutated itself depending which way you look at the paper, I wonder what a judge would think of that?

Personally I would crumple it up and pitch it out the window. I don't know why they can't simply be clear about what clauses apply to which geographies. An IP address should not be assumed as a reliable indicator of the jurisdiction in which an end-user resides. (Eg. In addition of VPNs's and unexpected routing, what happens if you travel?)

[adonovan]

I once wrote a contract document in PostScript that changed the wording based on the date. Two parties could cryptographically sign an agreement in the document, which would change when printed on a later date.

One of the reasons we don’t use PostScript so much any more.

[someguyornotidk]

Isn't PDF also programmable? I think it supports javascript and even a subset of PostScript if I'm not mistaken.

[cassianoleal]

> I think it supports javascript

Indeed it does! https://github.com/ading2210/doompdf

[ytoawwhra92]

It's perfectly normal for contracts in different jurisdictions to use different wording and include different clauses.

Even within the US, employment contracts with the same organisation may contain different wording depending on the state in which the employment is occurring.

[solid_fuel]

> It's perfectly normal for contracts in different jurisdictions to use different wording and include different clauses.

Before signing, yes, but once signed the contract stays constant. Mutating terms of service are weird - I would expect them to be locked to a canonical URL at least, like "https://.../tos?region=eu" or ideally something that locks the version too, like "https://.../tos?version=eu-002".

Let me pose a question from a different angle - these are legal contracts we are talking about, and the version they present to the user apparently changes based only on the client IP address. So if the terms in the EU ToS are better than in the US ToS, what would prevent me from signing up with an EU IP Address the first time? I would expect to be bound to the contract I actually agree to, not just the one they "intended" to show me.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

What if I sign the contract in the US, then fly to the UK?

[przemub]

Ask to sign a separate one for providing services in the UK, or include terms that vary depending on where you are in the first place.

[rkagerer]

My issue isn't with them having different verbiage for different jurisdictions. It's with the way they sneakily change the verbiage in a manner nobody would expect.

The correct way to do this is to clearly distinguish them e.g. two different contracts, one titled "US Terms of Service" and another "European Terms of Service". Both with static content. Preferably PDF's or some other fixed format which you can download to redline changes when they inevitably tweak it every couple years, and properly print in the event you need to embark on litigation.

Not some "Global Terms of Service that silently change depending on quasi-pseudorandom network stack effects"

How the hell are you supposed to have confidence you're even looking at the right document? Contracts are meant to be clear and unambiguous, this dark pattern works against consensus ad idem.

[seanmcdirmid]

Having different contracts for different countries with different rules is a normal thing.

[tossandthrow]

This is not it, though.

This is one contract that mutates.

Other websites have EU terms, us terms, etc and declare which one you are covered under.

[graemep]

In the Uk there seem to be separate commercial and consumer terms.

In the UK the consumer terms say its subject to English law and the courts of the UK jurisdiction you live in.

The commercial terms say that in the UK, Switzerland and the EEA there will be binding arbitration by an arbitrator in Ireland appointed by the President of the Law Society of Ireland.

[giobox]

The UK commercial terms explicitly do not apply to individual user plans. The US also has a separate terms sheet for commercial plans.

We are comparing like for like - an individual user using a Claude Pro subscription. A US user can use it for commercial use and be in compliance with the terms, the UK user cannot.

[conductr]

> A US user can use it for commercial use and be in compliance with the terms, the UK user cannot.

But why? My guess is the liability exposure is what they’re trying to control. So you probably can if you’re ok with no liability. It’s still noncompliant to how they wrote it but I would guess it’s the motivation. Unless they really just want to force the UK to pay for all commercial uses, which I suppose is possible.

[graemep]

I think its because the law in the UK limits exclusions of liabilities in consumer contracts far more than in business contracts (in general consumer law has a LOT of protections that do not apply to business contracts). If you look at the clauses excluding liabilities they are very different. I think the same applies to many other countries so they will also have separate consumer contracts.

[mjmas]

The law in Australia also has teeth, but visiting the link above just gets me (what seems to be) the US version of the terms without anything around commercial use.

[lenerdenator]

Well, there's your rationale as to why AI cannot replace you.

When sh!t hits the fan, Anthropic will immediately point to this clause. Who knows, maybe a court would see it as valid.

Meanwhile, your customer (and thus, your management) is looking for someone to blame for excrement making contact with the impellers. And that someone's gonna be you.

[wowoc]

Well, OpenAI doesn't seem to have clauses like this. Europeans are allowed to use it for commercial purposes under the ToS. (But check it yourself, I'm not a lawyer).

I reimplemented my startup idea from scratch with Codex a few months ago, just for peace of mind.

[tjmtjmtjm]

Honest question, what peace of mind does this give you? If my idea could be implemented from scratch by one of these agentic harnesses I would be concerned about the viability of it more than anything.

[jmalicki]

But you have limited funds to take in a lawsuit realistically the worst they can do is fire you, it's not like being blameable somehow makes you more valuable.

[throwawaytea]

Employees often make mistakes that cost companies thousands of dollars. And there's no shortage of stories where employees cost companies tens of thousands and millions.

When a construction guy messes up measurements and thousands of dollars of work has the be removed and redone, no one thinks of taking the employee to court. Why would you want to take your Ai to court?

[antihipocrat]

When the construction worker messes up a job that then causes injury or damages the property they absolutely get sued. The state can even get involved if the mistake is deemed criminal negligence.

In your example the owners will often take the construction company or small business owner to court. Most trades people negotiate and redo the work for free or much reduced cost to avoid this.

In office settings if you expose PII you will likely be fired.

[throwawaytea]

I am really losing faith in hacker news intelligence levels or at least reading comprehension.

We were talking about people sueing AI for mistakes.

Employees do not get sued by their employer for mistakes. If your employer wants you to dig a foundation per plan, and you measure it wrong and dig it in the wrong orientation on the lot, you might get fired, but you will not pay the $50k+ to rip out the cement and put a new foundation.

[hubertdinsk]

what the hell are you on about? Have you ever been employed? Employees do got reprimanded because of their mistakes. Employers just don't sue via the courts for the same reason you don't sue your spouse first thing when they break a plate. They settle via internal penalties first.

(Not only that, employees who got a reprimand too heavy handed can sue back. Plenty of cases around.)

"AI" company provides a service. They might or might not be adequate, that's not the point, the point is that the ability to sue them must always be on the cards if the agreed upon terms aren't met.

[throwawaytea]

I have no idea what you are talking about. I've been employed my whole adult life and I have never seen an employee get sued ft $50k because his mistake caused the company to lose $50k.

[motbus3]

the moment they can, each token will be 10,100,1000x more expensive

[tmtvl]

It'd be a dream come true if the TOS said code generated by Claude is licensed under the AGPL.

[zombot]

Not after all the training data was just stolen. That would be legalizing the biggest heist in human history after the fact.

[rubyfan]

It's only called Pro so they can charge you a Pro rate.

[biker142541]

Should just be called the “Funsies” and “More Funsies” plans

[SoftTalker]

Software in general has disclaimed any warranties or fitness for purpose for as long as I can remember. This is nothing new.

[naikrovek]

show me any that have claimed that they were for entertainment purposes only. sql server has never had that in its EULA. The GPL does not say that the software is for entertainment purposes only.

[wat10000]

Prohibiting the user from using it for any commercial or business purposes is definitely new!

[klez]

Have you really never seen any software saying "for non-commercial use only"?

[flawi]

When I'm paying for said software? No, I don't think I have.

[zombot]

The Home/Personal edition of Mathematica is for non-commercial use only although it's a paid subscription. The world around you is not bound by your ignorance.

[wat10000]

Does Wolfram advertise that edition of Mathematica as being "for work" like MS does the individual Copilot plan?

[wat10000]

Only when it's a free/cheap consumer version of something with a pricey business version.

[zombot]

No, it's not.

[mcmcmc]

Will be interesting to see if those still hold any weight (in the US at least) after the latest Meta rulings established defective design as a valid reason to sue big tech for damages

[dylan604]

That's not not set yet though. It hasn't made it to appeals yet.

[chrisjj]

> Software in general has disclaimed any warranties or fitness for purpose

This is not such a disclaimer. If Copilot fails its purpose of entertaining you, you can sue. /i

[phyzome]

That's not what this is, though.

[jrecyclebin]

Well, except that, in this case, Copilot really is for entertainment purposes only.

[saghm]

"Surely our customers understand it's just Latin! Claude _for_ you!"