Nipping at the heels of the recently dismissed “other OS” class-action lawsuit, a Northern California man has ironically filed a class-action lawsuit against Sony for the very clause that prohibits users from suing.
Gamespot reports that that the man filed suit in late November 2011 for himself and all the other customers who bought PS3’s and signed up for the Playstation Network before the Sony TOS changes in September. The suit revolves around alleged unfair business practices which force PS3 owners to forfeit their legal rights or give up a service that was included in the purchase of the console. Saying no to the TOS meant no online gaming at all.
Sony instituted the Terms of Service change as an answer to the grief it received as a result of the apocalyptic PlayStation network hacks. Sony experienced lawsuits for lax security and credit card fraud in the aftermath of the PSN breech. At the end of the 21-page long TOS form, viewable only on the PS3, users were told they could only sue only as individuals, and if they decided to opt out after agreement they had 30 days to notify Sony of their dissent in writing,
The new suit claims that the no-sue clause was buried in the form, and Sony erred in not making a version easily available online, as it has done with user agreements in the past. Also, the claim is that Sony made this clause deliberately difficult by forcing consumers to notify by writing, with only 30 days from the time of agreement, rather than a simple phone call or even email.
Sony has not commented on the matter yet, but this could be a pivotal suit as not only will the Playstion developer have to revise its policy, but so may other companies (Microsoft) who have jumped on the no-sue bandwagon.
