[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.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

That would be sane. I did not get any TOS prompts last time I visited Europe.

[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.