GAW ZenCloud ZenPool Hashlet - does it really exist? ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :-)

[jayendo]

Attention ALL community members here on BitcoinTalk.org

As of today, November 10th, 2014, GAW/Zen has reportedly sought the assistance of a Los Angeles based law firm to issue cease and desist communications to members of THIS public forum, not theirs, in what appears to be an attempt to censor those who have legitimate and factual claims against the alleged less-than ethical business processes and moral standing of GAW/Zen, its "CEO", and the various BDA’s they use.

Irrespective of numerous peoples’ opinions published here and elsewhere on the Internet regarding GAW/Zen continually proving their fundamental M.O. is that of an elaborate SCAM in every sense of the word, this law firm has apparently taken it upon itself to either ignore the harm/losses dozens if not hundreds of previous GAW/Zen customers have been forced to endure or feel it is more appropriate to threaten legal action against those exercising their Constitutional rights rather than facilitating a thorough due-diligence investigation of their own client.

Although I too have received a communication simply titled “Cease and Desist Letter” with a .pdf attachment from this law firm to one of my business email addresses, I refuse to open any such attachments or speculate on what the .pdf specifically says, if anything, as I do not know firsthand who the sender is or if the attachment contains anything potentially damaging to my system or network. Regardless, I would like to invite anyone else who is a US citizen and has also received any communication directly from GAW/Zen, any of their DBA’s, or this (or any other) law firm to contact my Mining Advocates Organization with their story at legal@miningadvocates.org in preparation of the potential establishment of our own legal offensive to ensure this type of conduct by what can be seen as a questionable business, its "CEO", and/or a retained yet misguided law firm is not allowed to overtake the protections guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution and its amended Bill of Rights in addition to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Thank you,
Scott Booth

can we crowdsource a legal defence fund?

[KC6TTR]

can we crowdsource a legal defence fund?

At some point, that may be a possibility, but at this moment my focus is elsewhere - collecting data and other "discovery".

Scott-

[seedtrue]

[NeonTranceBadger]

Attention ALL community members here on BitcoinTalk.org

As of today, November 10th, 2014, GAW/Zen has reportedly sought the assistance of a Los Angeles based law firm to issue cease and desist communications to members of THIS public forum, not theirs, in what appears to be an attempt to censor those who have legitimate and factual claims against the alleged less-than ethical business processes and moral standing of GAW/Zen, its "CEO", and the various BDA’s they use.

Irrespective of numerous peoples’ opinions published here and elsewhere on the Internet regarding GAW/Zen continually proving their fundamental M.O. is that of an elaborate SCAM in every sense of the word, this law firm has apparently taken it upon itself to either ignore the harm/losses dozens if not hundreds of previous GAW/Zen customers have been forced to endure or feel it is more appropriate to threaten legal action against those exercising their Constitutional rights rather than facilitating a thorough due-diligence investigation of their own client.

Although I too have received a communication simply titled “Cease and Desist Letter” with a .pdf attachment from this law firm to one of my business email addresses, I refuse to open any such attachments or speculate on what the .pdf specifically says, if anything, as I do not know firsthand who the sender is or if the attachment contains anything potentially damaging to my system or network. Regardless, I would like to invite anyone else who is a US citizen and has also received any communication directly from GAW/Zen, any of their DBA’s, or this (or any other) law firm to contact my Mining Advocates Organization with their story at legal@miningadvocates.org in preparation of the potential establishment of our own legal offensive to ensure this type of conduct by what can be seen as a questionable business, its "CEO", and/or a retained yet misguided law firm is not allowed to overtake the protections guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution and its amended Bill of Rights in addition to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Thank you,
Scott Booth

What you need to find is the original statement of that ZenPool will always be the highest paying pool.  Then get times and dates of when they gave out prime codes that gave out 25mh/s primes instead of 1mh/s primes and that's about the time that ZenPool crashed for the first time.  Then when they released hashpool and how ZenPool crashed at almost exactly the same time.  There seems to be some bait and switching going on right there.

[mutha]

Attention ALL community members here on BitcoinTalk.org

As of today, November 10th, 2014, GAW/Zen has reportedly sought the assistance of a Los Angeles based law firm to issue cease and desist communications to members of THIS public forum, not theirs, in what appears to be an attempt to censor those who have legitimate and factual claims against the alleged less-than ethical business processes and moral standing of GAW/Zen, its "CEO", and the various BDA’s they use.

Irrespective of numerous peoples’ opinions published here and elsewhere on the Internet regarding GAW/Zen continually proving their fundamental M.O. is that of an elaborate SCAM in every sense of the word, this law firm has apparently taken it upon itself to either ignore the harm/losses dozens if not hundreds of previous GAW/Zen customers have been forced to endure or feel it is more appropriate to threaten legal action against those exercising their Constitutional rights rather than facilitating a thorough due-diligence investigation of their own client.

Although I too have received a communication simply titled “Cease and Desist Letter” with a .pdf attachment from this law firm to one of my business email addresses, I refuse to open any such attachments or speculate on what the .pdf specifically says, if anything, as I do not know firsthand who the sender is or if the attachment contains anything potentially damaging to my system or network. Regardless, I would like to invite anyone else who is a US citizen and has also received any communication directly from GAW/Zen, any of their DBA’s, or this (or any other) law firm to contact my Mining Advocates Organization with their story at legal@miningadvocates.org in preparation of the potential establishment of our own legal offensive to ensure this type of conduct by what can be seen as a questionable business, its "CEO", and/or a retained yet misguided law firm is not allowed to overtake the protections guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution and its amended Bill of Rights in addition to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Thank you,
Scott Booth

Interesting... so how did they get your email address? Did you voluntarily/accidently disclose that to them? Did they track it down from using their service/email communications? Subpoena a provider? Illegally acquire it? These things are very important to determine from the very start.

But you do have the freedom of speech to say what you want, but you have to be responsible for that speech. IE slander, misrepresentations and other aspects of it. But if you can prove this is what you honestly believe, think or actually happened then not much they can do except play the intimidation game and try to shut up a disgruntled customer... which alot of companies do try to do.

It's all a matter of is it worth it to get into a legal pissing match with them? The a CnD is an opening shot, even if you say "oh ok I will abide by their request" that doesnt mean that solves the problem. Maybe it will, Maybe not because later they could still make a run at you. Also there is a thing called "voluntary agreement/acceptance through silence."  

I am not trying to give you legal advice, but hypothetically speaking I may know a little about these things?  

[benjamin07]

I totally distrust GAW

[alienesb]

Duh what a joke.

[suchmoon]

There will be no pre-mine for hashcoin although I'm still puzzled as to how exactly this is going to work. Primes will still have some kind of unspecified advantage and then there is this:

GAW_CEO
Admins
Global Moderator
Industry Innovator

@djcarlos000 said:

   ONLY ONE QUESTION JOSH!!

   The HC pool will be public?? or only for GAW product??

for a defined period of time

https://hashtalk.org/topic/17634
https://hashtalk.org/topic/17638

[suchmoon]

https://i.imgur.com/L3mW4xA.png

Duh what a joke.

Have they released any other details? Can't find anything on HT.

Hopefully it's not the Titan

The only other 250 MH/s hardware I'm aware of is this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=825673.0

[MOB]

Duh what a joke.

So, essentially, Josh has been lying about VB's for the last 4 months? What a shocker! Why wouldn't a responsible company have posted this at least two months ago when they found another company to do the work (If that is even true).

Josh was bragging about beating Titan's to market at a time when he did not even have a company working on his own product. Pretty hilarious if he ends up shipping Titans to those that ordered VBs

The customer buying one thing, then getting delayed for months, then pawned off on some different product entirely is part of why BFL got shut down.

[bitcoinnoisseur]

There will be no pre-mine for hashcoin although I'm still puzzled as to how exactly this is going to work. Primes will still have some kind of unspecified advantage and then there is this:

GAW_CEO
Admins
Global Moderator
Industry Innovator

@djcarlos000 said:

   ONLY ONE QUESTION JOSH!!

   The HC pool will be public?? or only for GAW product??

for a defined period of time

https://hashtalk.org/topic/17634
https://hashtalk.org/topic/17638

This entire thread is deleted: https://hashtalk.org/topic/17634
It was started by Josh and was titled: Before you start asking...
I never got to read any of it. What was it about?

[suchmoon]

There will be no pre-mine for hashcoin although I'm still puzzled as to how exactly this is going to work. Primes will still have some kind of unspecified advantage and then there is this:

GAW_CEO
Admins
Global Moderator
Industry Innovator

@djcarlos000 said:

   ONLY ONE QUESTION JOSH!!

   The HC pool will be public?? or only for GAW product??

for a defined period of time

https://hashtalk.org/topic/17634
https://hashtalk.org/topic/17638

This entire thread is deleted: https://hashtalk.org/topic/17634
It was started by Josh and was titled: Before you start asking...
I never got to read any of it. What was it about?

I think it was just the initial version of the same post, some questions were asked in the thread, he was updating the OP in response but then posted the other thread.

[kupan787]

Of all the "cloud" mining vendors out there, do others have payment issues (paying wrong amount, holds on payments, etc)? Honest question, as I haven't spent much time looking at the other vendors, but it seems like it is more of a recurring issue for GAW than others. It seems a large part of this is there strange casino style "mining" where you bought something that was artificially tied to the rate of a different pools payouts, but without actually mining there. Seems like it is more work for GAW, than just creating "RandomHashlet" and assigning a random payout using a provably fair method (ala any number of the bitcoin gambling sites).

Also, what is the legality of changing your TOS for a contracted miner i've already bought? Meaning, can they really just change the terms as they see fit on something I have already paid for? Isn't that a breach of contract? If you look at the mobile space (Verizon, ATT, etc) they can't just decide to change the terms on existing subscribers. Thats why some people have unlimited plans still, even though the mobiles no longer sell them. I just wonder if GAW has kept date stamped copies of the TOS and kept track of which miners apply to which version. Or maybe the laws are different, and they can just change the terms on the fly, with no repercussions.

[Edit: Fix spelling errors]

[NeonTranceBadger]

Of all the "cloud" mining vendors out there, do others have payment issues (paying wrong amount, holds on payments, etc)? Honest question, as I haven't spent much time looking at the other venders, but it seems like it is more of a recurring issue for GAW than others. It seems a large part of this is there strange casino style "mining" where you bought something that was artificially tied to the rate of a different pools payouts, but without actually mining there. Seems like it is more work for GAW, than just creating "RandomHashlet" and assigning a random payout using a provably fair method (ala any number of the bitcoin gambling sites).

I use Genesis-Mining, Hashie.co, and LTCGear and have always gotten my payouts with Genesis-Mining and Hashie.co every day right on time and have always been able to withdraw with no problem.  LTCGear has always payed out on Friday flawlessly. 

As of right now this seems to be only a GAW thing and I think it results of their gross incompetence at running the company.  The only other companies that I have read that had problems like this turned out to be scams.

Also, what is the legality of changing your TOS for a contracted miner i've already bought? Meaning, can they really just change the terms as they see fit on something I have already paid for? Isn't that a breach of contract? If you look at the mobile space (Verizon, ATT, etc) they can't just decide to change the terms on existing subscribers. Thats why some people have unlimited plans still, even though the mobiles no longer sell them. I just wonder if GAW has kept date stamped copies of the TOS and kept track of which miners apply to which version. Or maybe the laws are different, and they can just change the terms on the fly, with no repercussions.

I'm not a legal expert so I can't really say, but any time a website or service that I use has changed their TOS they have notified me about it which GAW has never done. 

[DARKANGEL6415]

Anyone recommend some good medication for when hashcoin goes live?

The joke is going to be so indescribable i don't think i'll be able to watch it unfold without a prescription.

take some pentothal will help you alot. It is used to induce comas for people who would other wise be in to much pain while recovering.

[eightcylinders]

Of all the "cloud" mining vendors out there, do others have payment issues (paying wrong amount, holds on payments, etc)? Honest question, as I haven't spent much time looking at the other vendors, but it seems like it is more of a recurring issue for GAW than others. It seems a large part of this is there strange casino style "mining" where you bought something that was artificially tied to the rate of a different pools payouts, but without actually mining there. Seems like it is more work for GAW, than just creating "RandomHashlet" and assigning a random payout using a provably fair method (ala any number of the bitcoin gambling sites).

No.  Not at all. I have tried a dozen cloud mining companies (see my post trying to establish a rating system elsewhere) ... not a one has had any major withdrawal problems.  Second worst IMHO has been Zeushash, which sometimes requires that you open a support ticket to get your coins but those are resolved within 24 hours and the problems are not as frequent as with GAW in my experience.

Also, what is the legality of changing your TOS for a contracted miner i've already bought? Meaning, can they really just change the terms as they see fit on something I have already paid for? Isn't that a breach of contract? If you look at the mobile space (Verizon, ATT, etc) they can't just decide to change the terms on existing subscribers. Thats why some people have unlimited plans still, even though the mobiles no longer sell them. I just wonder if GAW has kept date stamped copies of the TOS and kept track of which miners apply to which version. Or maybe the laws are different, and they can just change the terms on the fly, with no repercussions.

Its an evolving area of law, but the short answer is: very likely not enforceable if the first time the TOS was presented was after you bought the miner (which was the case for me because I bought early on .. not sure how they do it now).  There is a very recent case where the appellate court refused to allow SiriusXm to impose T&Cs that were sent after purchase of an automobile as part of the "Welcome Kit"... seems pretty much on point though as in everything, you can always debate minor differences.

[I_IZ_CEO]

I would think a class action lawsuit can be filed for a couple of things here, zencontroler, highest paying pool, vaultbreaker and some other things as well.

English is not my 1st or main language but I am sure others here can reach out to law firms and find out more information.

Questions about Class Action Lawsuits
What is a class action lawsuit?

A class action lawsuit is filed when several consumers who have been victimized by similar fraudulent business tactics come together to hold the offending company liable. A class action lawsuit is a lawsuit that is specially created to help consumers recover the financial damages sustained by the fraudulent tactics of the company.

What benefits will I see from filing a class action lawsuit?

There are several benefits to filing a consumer class action lawsuit. Three of the major benefits are:

Ability to file a claim that may be too small to file individually
More leverage with more consumers involved
No legal fees are incurred or owed until the case is successfully closed
Consumers who have been similarly stricken with the terrible outcomes of consumer fraud can come together to file a lawsuit. Many victims of consumer fraud either have not suffered a wrongdoing substantial enough to file an individual claim, or they do not have enough financial backing to file a claim.

A group of consumers in a lawsuit can accomplish much with a single action. This also allows for better representation because one attorney or one group of attorneys can focus on the needs and requirements of one group of consumers. More leverage is created with one group stating how the same company used similar fraudulent tactics to cause harm and damages.

Can anyone file a class action lawsuit for consumer fraud?

Not just anyone may file a class action lawsuit. Any consumer who has suffered damages financial or otherwise or who has been deceived by a company due to fraudulent tactics may file a class action lawsuit. It is in your best interest to contact an attorney to find out if you are eligible to file a class action lawsuit for consumer fraud.

What are the types of consumer fraud class action lawsuits?

There are many types of consumer fraud class action lawsuits. The more common types involve:

Insurance fraud
Misleading or false advertising
Credit card fraud
Lending fraud
Defective products
What compensation for damages may I ask for in a class action lawsuit?

The compensation that consumers seek in a class action lawsuit varies from lawsuit to lawsuit. The specific circumstances of the lawsuit will determine what compensation may be rewarded. The possible compensation that may be sought includes:

Damages for a personal injury
Damages for economic loss
All litigation costs
There may be a statute of limitations in regards to the amount and type of compensation awarded in a lawsuit. There are some circumstances where the consumers of the lawsuit can stop the fraudulent practices of the company or change how the company acts. This can be accomplished by obtaining an injunction.

What, if any, are the statutes of limitation associated with a class action lawsuit for consumer fraud?

A statute of limitations is applicable for all class action lawsuits dealing with consumer fraud. The statute of limitations varies for every claim. The most common limitation is on the amount of time a consumer has to file his or her claim. You will want to file your claim in a timely manner to make sure your lawsuit can go forward.

The statutes of limitations for a consumer class action lawsuit depend on:

The type of fraudulent activities
The state in which the activities took place
Your consumer fraud attorney will be able to walk you through the statute of limitations that applies to your claim as well as your legal rights.

How do I join or file a class action lawsuit for my consumer fraud experience?

You may not be the only victim of the fraudulent activities committed by a company. An experienced attorney will help you determine if you are eligible for either joining an existing class action lawsuit or filing a new class action lawsuit.

Please contact the experienced consumer fraud attorneys at Jacoby & Meyers today to speak with an attorney in your area who knows and understands the laws of the state. We serve clients nationwide.

http://www.jacobymeyers.com/questions-about-class-action-l.html

[KC6TTR]

Attention ALL community members here on BitcoinTalk.org

As of today, November 10th, 2014, GAW/Zen has reportedly sought the assistance of a Los Angeles based law firm to issue cease and desist communications to members of THIS public forum, not theirs, in what appears to be an attempt to censor those who have legitimate and factual claims against the alleged less-than ethical business processes and moral standing of GAW/Zen, its "CEO", and the various BDA’s they use.

Irrespective of numerous peoples’ opinions published here and elsewhere on the Internet regarding GAW/Zen continually proving their fundamental M.O. is that of an elaborate SCAM in every sense of the word, this law firm has apparently taken it upon itself to either ignore the harm/losses dozens if not hundreds of previous GAW/Zen customers have been forced to endure or feel it is more appropriate to threaten legal action against those exercising their Constitutional rights rather than facilitating a thorough due-diligence investigation of their own client.

Although I too have received a communication simply titled “Cease and Desist Letter” with a .pdf attachment from this law firm to one of my business email addresses, I refuse to open any such attachments or speculate on what the .pdf specifically says, if anything, as I do not know firsthand who the sender is or if the attachment contains anything potentially damaging to my system or network. Regardless, I would like to invite anyone else who is a US citizen and has also received any communication directly from GAW/Zen, any of their DBA’s, or this (or any other) law firm to contact my Mining Advocates Organization with their story at legal@miningadvocates.org in preparation of the potential establishment of our own legal offensive to ensure this type of conduct by what can be seen as a questionable business, its "CEO", and/or a retained yet misguided law firm is not allowed to overtake the protections guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution and its amended Bill of Rights in addition to Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

Thank you,
Scott Booth

What you need to find is the original statement of that ZenPool will always be the highest paying pool.  Then get times and dates of when they gave out prime codes that gave out 25mh/s primes instead of 1mh/s primes and that's about the time that ZenPool crashed for the first time.  Then when they released hashpool and how ZenPool crashed at almost exactly the same time.  There seems to be some bait and switching going on right there.

Thanks to those who have contacted me privately and shared their stories thus far...

=============

Since this forum is still being monitored and documented, I may as well bring others up to speed regarding my justification in believing what I do.

It is publically known, mostly by the longer-term https://community.gawminers.com, https://hashtrader.com, https://hashtalk.org forums members, Mr. Garza and I have a direct contact history that goes back to about May. Before seeing things for how they truly are, Mr. Garza and I were on what could be considered very good-terms. I was a fellow entrepreneur and documented customer with over US$10K invested with GAW/Zen - most of which was comprised of physical hardware at my location (solar powered home-farm) and I even took part in at least one private video chat collaboration session where I, along with "Volder" and a few others, submitted at no cost or expectance of any remuneration strategic marketing advice and other business input to Mr. Garza just after the "Vaultbreaker" campaign went full speed. That was also before the "Hashlet" phase of the business was announced and when things changed drastically. The start of the new forums disguised as an open .org industry community (although not), the odd Hashlet "virtual/digital miners" represented and advertised as physical miners (when first released), excessive moderation/censorship of forum members with legitimate questions, and the quickly degrading ZenCloud backend with the total abandonment of the ZenController Pi OS (and customer base) quickly had me thinking twice about my informal association with and promotion of GAW/Zen. This is also when I began quietly noting specific items that gave me pause as both a business owner myself and customer who was still trying to believe in what GAW/Zen was marketing when they first opened in March. The following red flags could not be ignored:

The operational rules and TOS conditions always being changed on the fly with no notice or reasonable recourse provided to the customer base.

The discovered practice of selling NEW "hosted" physical hardware to customers that never existed and was not available for inspection - such was the case with (4) Bitmain S3's I purchased in early July. Rather used and/or other unknown hardware was utilized and if the customer wanted their 100% paid-for hardware shipped to them, unreasonable amounts of time in excess of (21) business days would be required in order for GAW/Zen to source the hardware (or equivalent) and have it dispatched to the customer as long as they were within the USA. Overseas customers were left with no viable options.

The excessive marketing hype and claims of success even when mass amounts of complaints and issues were/are still being reported.

Ongoing high valued yet unproven "acquisitions" and other private deals with no verifiable backup to the validity of how customer (investor) money was/is being spent - even with existing customer support and other operational issues still not being addressed.

The continual delay of the “Vaultbreaker” release that has now been confirmed was never in actual development in the first place; essentially proving beyond a reasonable doubt GAW/Zen accepted money for goods that never existed and they had reasonable belief would never exist. Rather, the money entrusted to them months ago by the customer base (including me), which they never paid interest to, was used for other undisclosed projects like the “Hashlet” venture, which GAW/Zen then pushed customers to convert their outstanding orders to or continue to wait (for nothing).

The removable of all promised buy-back options or allowing the customer base to sell their own GAW/Zen hosted property on their terms in favor of a previously unannounced 100% GAW/Zen controlled centralized closed market that further places an involuntary GAW/Zen-tax of 5% for both the seller and buyer (10% total) in order to “allow” the ability to exit the “GAW/Zen Buddle” if the customer finds the service not as described or marketed.

Most important and alarming to me:
The freezing and restriction of ALL customer accounts and withdrawals on more than one occasion - effectively holding undisclosed amounts of Bitcoins (BTC) hostage for days and in some cases weeks with no verifiable proof or other legal reason to justify such questionable conduct beyond loose claims of "system exploits" or "manual errors" GAW/Zen states was caused by reseller, customer and/or other external forces that in reality were never proven or investigated by a neutral third party.

I, myself, have been a victim of GAW/Zen holding in excess of $1000 worth of my personal bitcoin earnings for more than (10) business days in late September/early October for no legitimate or implied reason nor response when more than (2) support tickets were raised. During this time, my BTC being held lost value on the open market, I was not able to utilize it for other investments, and I was never offered or received compensation or interest for GAW/Zen having likely used my BTC during this time frame for their own business benefit and/or financial gain.

Once I was able to regained access to my account, again with no explanation as to why it was locked in the first place, I voiced my annoyance and disappointment with what has started to become a trend in the way GAW/Zen does business in their HashTalk.org forums, which quickly resulted in me being “shadow” banned by Mr. Garza himself before being permanently banned by Mr. Garza after I would not conform to his unreasonable censorship demands via private email. Luckily, I was still able liquidate my entire hosted hardware now converted to “virtual/digital” Hashlets account in one-private account transfer to another GAW/Zen supporter (who did not care about the expressed risks) at a NET 0% gain on my initial investment in mid-October; allowing me the freedom to walk away from what I consider a nightmare of a company whose physical actions do not map out to any logical business plan or trustworthy (legal) investment vehicle.

If the above does not at least give anyone, including the law firm reading this post, any insight and understanding as to why I take the position I do regarding Mr. Garza and his numerous DBA’s, then so be it. I know for a fact I am not the only one harmed by GAW/Zen and I know for a fact I am not the only one who has been threatened by Mr. Garza both publicly and privately either directly or prior to being contacted by who appears to be his retained counsel. Having lived and worked all over the world over the past decade, I hold my values and rights as a US citizen and consumer very dear and will not allow myself to be scared or threatened under the color of contrived authority to conform to anyone else’s less than ethical standards. Likewise, since this matter concerns a person and business entity I have already reported to at least one Federal authority over a week ago, I will exercise my rights to fight any tampering with my ability to be a witness in what I see are clear and obvious violations of numerous securities, trade, and wire-fraud.


In summary, I do not wish to engage in a costly legal fight, but in this case, I will not allow myself and/or others in the same situation to be bullied by those I consider to be immoral players masquerading as legitimate businessmen.

Scott-

[I_IZ_CEO]

From Wikipedia, Terms of Service

Criticism and lawsuits[edit]
AOL[edit]
In 1994, the Washington Times reported that America Online (AOL) was selling detailed personal information about its subscribers to direct marketers, without notifying or asking its subscribers; this article led to the revision of AOL's terms of service three years later.

On July 1, 1997, AOL posted revised terms of service to take effect July 31, 1997, without formally notifying its users of the changes made, most notably a new policy which would grant third-party business partners, including a marketing firm, access to its members' telephone numbers. Several days before the changes were to take effect, an AOL member informed the media of the changes and the following news coverage incited a large influx of internet traffic on the AOL page which enabled users to opt-out of having their names and numbers on marketing lists.[1]

Sony[edit]
In 2011 George Hotz and others were sued by Sony Corporation. Sony claimed that by violating the terms of service of the PlayStation Network, Hotz and others were committing breach of contract.[3]

Instagram[edit]
See also: Instagram § Criticism and lawsuits
On December 17, 2012, Instagram announced a change to its terms of use that caused a widespread outcry from its user base. The controversial clause stated: "you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you".

There was no apparent option to opt out of the changed terms of use.[4] The move garnered severe criticism from privacy advocates as well as consumers. After one day, Instagram apologized saying that it would remove the controversial language from its terms of use.[5] Kevin Systrom, a co-founder of Instagram, responded to the controversy, stating,

Our intention in updating the terms was to communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram. Instead it was interpreted by many that we were going to sell your photos to others without any compensation. This is not true and it is our mistake that this language is confusing. To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos. We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.[6]

Zappos[edit]
Some terms of service are worded to allow unilateral amendment, where one party can change the agreement at any time without the other party's consent. A 2012 court case In re Zappos.com, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation held that Zappos.com's terms of use, with one such clause, was unenforceable.

https://tosdr.org/
We are a user rights initiative to rate and label website terms & privacy policies, from very good Class A to very bad Class E.
Terms of service are often too long to read, but it's important to understand what's in them. Your rights online depend on them. We hope that our ratings can help you get informed about your rights. Do not hesitate to click on a service below, to have more details! You can also get the ratings directly in your browser by installing our web browser add-on:


https://www.eff.org/
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.


http://www.clickwrapped.com/
Whenever we use a website, we agree (sometimes without knowing it) to legal agreements such as terms of service and privacy policies. There are many clauses in these agreements that deserve our close attention. For example, what can the site can do with content we post? When can it disclose our personal information? But they are hard to read and it is difficult to know how one social network, search engine, or photo sharing site compares to another. Clickwrapped analyzes the policies and practices of leading consumer websites and grades each company according to how well it respects your rights.

[I_IZ_CEO]

Court says “no” to changing terms of service without notification

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2007/07/court-says-no-to-changing-terms-of-service-without-notification/