Out of the Blue

Most of us have been flooded the last couple of years with notifications of changes to just about every tech company's Terms of Service. These all seem to follow the same playbook, which is to disallow lawsuits and relegate the resolution of all conflicts to binding arbitration. So it wasn't a shock to get word from Valve of a ToS change on Steam. Except in this case, the Steam Subscriber Agreement states that rather than arbitration, all disputes will be handled in the courts. This carries its own baggage of having to travel to Valve's jurisdiction, and I am certainly no lawyer to figure out the pros and cons of the different approaches. But I do find it interesting that Valve is choosing to zig on this front when just about everyone else is zagging.

Obituary: Maggie Smith, beloved ‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Harry Potter’ star, dead at 89 - CNN.

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Thanks Ant, Neutronbeam, and Max.

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