SecondLife Terms of Service Not Legally Binding?

Via Reuters, Judge rules against ‘one-sided’ TOS in Bragg lawsuit (See the attachment as well):

SECOND LIFE, May 31 (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania judge has ruled that Linden Lab’s terms of service for Second Life residents are not legally binding, according to court papers filed on Wednesday.

The ruling came in the case of Bragg v. Linden Research. Marc Bragg, a lawyer from West Chester, Pa., filed suit in 2006 claiming that Linden unfairly terminated his account, causing the loss of his virtual business venture. Linden filed motions to dismiss the suit and compel Bragg to arbitrate his claim out of court, consistent with Linden’s Terms of Service.

Judge Eduardo Robreno ruled on May 30 that Linden’s Terms of Service constitute a “contract of adhesion”, allowing the suit to proceed.

“Linden presents the TOS on a take-it-or-leave-it basis,” he wrote. “In effect, the TOS provide Linden with a variety of one-sided remedies to resolve disputes, while forcing its customers to arbitrate any disputes with Linden.”

“The arbitration clause is not designed to provide Second Life participants an effective means of resolving disputes with Linden. Rather, it is a one-sided means which tilts unfairly, in almost all cases, in Linden’s favor,” Robreno added...

Yeah, we knew that Judge Robreno. Take the ambiguity here, and look at the community response in the comments as well as those captured by Tateru Nino.

Let's talk about the flawed land system causing people to lose money (which oddly, despite being repeatedly informed, Reuters has completely avoided. Strange, isn't it?). Let us talk about age verification and other things, such as the ability of Linden Lab to fine people 150% if they receive linden dollars which Linden Lab uses its sole opaque discretion to decide - without providing tools for residents to deal with things themselves.

As Edward Castronova wrote:

No frontier is truly separate from its homeland; one dramatically affects the other. The rules of the game in synthetic worlds serve only to create a certain kind of society. When that society interacts with the society of Earth, which operates under its own set of rules, the rule sets of both systems begin to change and adapt, as institutional theorists would predict. How the rules evolve will determine what role synthetic worlds will play in the daily lives of people.

The rules are evolving. Personally, I see this victory by Bragg as a defeat for every honest resident in SecondLife - but in its own way it provides a much needed legal precedent with [w:Linden Lab]. It is a double edged sword, and the bad part is that any idiot who games the system has legal precedent which gives them parlay.

But the good part? Maybe Linden Lab will start working on community policy and code more to assure that they won't get sued. As Jack Balkin wrote:

The enormous power that platform owners wield over events in the game space, and their ability to see everything that is going on in that space, means that they have abundant opportunity to abuse their authority. The fact that players have signed an agreement with the platform owner and can voluntarily exit from the space does not necessarily settle the matter.

Indeed.