The Fine Print Trap: How 70-Page Contracts Weaponized 'I Agree'

Donna Trump

So Ryan wants a recliner. Just researching one. Big moment, biggest moment of his week. He wants to know about the lumbar support, and a banner jumps out at him like a guy with a clipboard outside the mall. Click OK. Everybody clicks OK. And by the time he leaves, he says, they might have his name, his address, his email, his browser, his IP address, and the last ten, twenty, thirty websites he visited. For a recliner! A recliner is a chair for doing nothing, and they're running a full background check on it.

Jesse

What I respect is that Ryan admits he's one of the people who skips it. Seventy pages of jargon, he says, tiresome, he just wants his article. Nobody reads it. And the companies know nobody reads it. That's the whole business model. The length is the lock.

Donna Trump

The length is the lock! Seventy pages, folks. Nobody reads it, nobody reads it, and then somebody says, you read it. You signed it. We win. We always win.

Jesse

Which is Ryan's real diagnosis. He calls it acknowledgement of receipt. Seeing a banner and swatting it away is not the same as agreeing to something. He's still at a big question mark on the fix, he says so, but the principle is old fashioned. Before you hold a man to a deal, he ought to know there's a deal.

Donna Trump

And now the best example anybody could ask for. Disney. Piccolo versus Disney. Let's go.

Jesse

Let's do it carefully, because it's a sad one. According to the lawsuit, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, who worked at NYU Langone, was highly allergic to dairy and nuts. October 2023, the family ate at Raglan Road Irish Pub in Disney Springs. The complaint says they asked the waiter again and again, and were assured the food was allergen free. About forty five minutes later she collapsed. The medical examiner, per the lawsuit, found she died of anaphylaxis. Her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, sued in February 2024.

Donna Trump

And Disney's lawyers come back and say, not in court, pal. Arbitration. Why? Because in 2019 he signed up for a one month Disney+ free trial on his PlayStation. A free trial! Cartoons! And that, they said, covers a death at a restaurant. Nobody's ever done it bigger. Nobody.

Jesse

The clause says any dispute between you and us, except small claims, is subject to a class action waiver and must go to individual binding arbitration. And it defines disputes to include the Walt Disney Company and its affiliates, in contract, tort, warranty, statute, past, present, or future events. Disney also said he agreed to similar language buying park tickets in 2023, and that whether he ever read any of it was, quote, immaterial.

Donna Trump

Immaterial! Whether he read it is immaterial! Then why is it seventy pages? Why write it? Why not just a sticky note that says, we get you?

Jesse

Fair is fair, though. Legal commentators said Disney's argument was more complicated than the headlines, and courts do lean toward arbitration. Nobody ever got a ruling on it. Piccolo's lawyers called it outrageously unreasonable, in a 123 page filing, and said it would bar 150 million subscribers from ever taking a wrongful death case to a jury. Then the backlash hit, and in August 2024 Disney dropped the request. A Disney executive said they put humanity above all other considerations.

Donna Trump

Humanity! After the public screamed. Great timing. Tremendous timing.

Jesse

And note what they waived. This case. Not the clause. The clause is still sitting there.

Donna Trump

Okay, so let's run Ryan's fixes against it. Fix number one, the one page deal. Agree to the basic terms, not all the terms. You sign up for Disney+. What are the basic terms? You watch movies, you pay the bill. That's it. That's the deal. Done. Winning.

Jesse

Plain and simple, and that's what makes it work. Ryan's idea is you separate what the service needs from what the company merely wants. A streaming account needs streaming and billing. It doesn't need a promise about what happens at a restaurant three years later. Under a one page core agreement, that perpetual arbitration language has nowhere to live. If it's not in the basics, it's an optional extra, and you'd have to say yes to it on its own.

Donna Trump

They'd have to ask you. Separately. Out loud. Do you want to give up a jury trial for a cartoon? And everyone says no. Everyone! The clause dies, believe me.

Jesse

Now Zoom. August 2023. People noticed Section 10.4 of the terms, which said you grant Zoom a perpetual, worldwide, non exclusive, royalty free, sublicensable, and transferable license over your customer content, tied to things like machine learning and artificial intelligence. That's video, audio, chat. People take confidential calls on that thing. Zoom had to put out blog posts and change the terms twice.

Donna Trump

Perpetual! Perpetual means forever, folks. Your Tuesday staff meeting, forever. Your cousin's baby shower, forever, teaching a robot how to be disappointed in people.

Jesse

Here's where Ryan's changelog does its work. He says if a company edits its terms, it has to specifically list out every change. Not bury it, list it. So an update like that has to show up as a line item, in plain words. Added the right to use your meetings for machine learning. You can't hide that behind an OK button.

Donna Trump

Picture the changelog. Version four point two. Fixed a bug. Improved speed. Also, we own your face. Forever. That line gets noticed! That line goes viral on day one, not after somebody digs it up and it's already August.

Jesse

And one more piece, because Zoom's critics made it: the consent was bundled. One lump of purposes, no real choice except leave. Ryan's third fix covers that. Receipt is not assent. Clearing a banner so you can read your article isn't a signature. If they want your IP address, your history, your identity profile, they ask on its own, a yes you can actually give, and a no that still lets you read.

Donna Trump

So three fixes, two disasters. One page deal kills the Disney trap. The changelog kills the stealth grab. Real consent kills the recliner spy. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Jesse

He doesn't claim it's finished, to his credit. He asked listeners for the idea he didn't cover. Mine's a short one. If the contract can't fit on one page, ask why a free trial needed seventy.

Donna Trump

And Ryan, buy the recliner. Just buy it. Sit in it. They're still watching, but at least you're comfortable.