See title - very frustrating. There is no way to continue to use the TV without agreeing to the terms. I couldn’t use different inputs, or even go to settings from the home screen and disconnect from the internet to disable their services. If I don’t agree to their terms, then I don’t get access to their new products. That sucks, but fine - I don’t use their services except for the TV itself, and honestly, I’d rather by a dumb TV with a streaming box anyway, but I can’t find those anymore.
Anyway, the new terms are about waiving your right to a class action lawsuit. It’s weird to me because I’d never considered filing a class action lawsuit against Roku until this. They shouldn’t be able to hold my physical device hostage until I agree to new terms that I didn’t agree at the time of purchase or initial setup.
I wish Roku TVs weren’t cheap walmart brand sh*t. Someone with some actual money might sue them and sort this out…
EDIT: Shout out to @[email protected] for recommending the brand “Sceptre” when buying my next (dumb) TV.
EDIT2: Shout out to @[email protected] for recommending LG smart TVs as a dumb-TV stand in. They apparently do require an agreement at startup, which is certainly NOT ideal, but the setup can be completed without an internet connection and it remembers input selection on powerup. So, once you have it setup, you’re good to rock and roll.
Report Roku to the FBI for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking into and sabotaging your property.
That’s a sincere suggestion, by the way. This shit should literally be a crime.
Don’t do this. This just creates more work for the FBI and you know that report is going straight into the rubbish bin. That is just wasting public resources.
In that case, you should additionally complain to your Congressperson that the FBI isn’t doing their goddamn job.
No, what’s more productive is writing that this should be a crime. It’s currently not.
If you think otherwise, let’s pretend you’re a prosecutor. Which offence do you accuse them of committing (use a legal citation to refer to a specific section), list out each of the elements of that offence and explain why you believe each of them is satisfied.
It’s at the very least coercion by ways of property damage, at least in sane legal systems.
Also it’s generally not the job of citizens to figure out which paragraph exactly to throw at an accused, that’s what police and prosecutors are for.
The parent commenter asserts that it is a crime. What I essentially said is “prove it”. I assert there is no law that makes this behaviour a criminal offence. Prove me wrong. Don’t say “Well, this is what the law should be”, tell me what the law is.
If you want to talk about what the law ought to be, write to your legislators. It’s not the FBI’s job to write the rules. They only enforce what’s already there.
I don’t think the behaviour is right, and it may be illegal in other ways, but it isn’t a crime, and if it isn’t a crime, reporting it to a law enforcement agency is just wasting your time.
And it is the responsibility of law enforcement to figure that out. If I go to the police and say “that guy stole from me” and the actual criminal case ends up not being for theft but embezzlement, did I waste the agency’s time?
You don’t need to have a law degree to be entitled to file a complaint with the system.
By “illegal in other ways” I mean “creates a civil cause of action”. This is not something the police can help with. You don’t need a law degree to complain but I think you’re just being purposefully obtuse.
Last I checked coercion is a crime over here. Property damage is, too.
You’re one of those people who hear a smoke alarm, want to call the fire brigade, but first wonder whether it’s actually opportune, whether you shouldn’t deal with it yourself, whether the situation is bad enough, aren’t you. The answer is yes it is the department rather moves out too often than not often enough and chalks up burnt potatoes at the bottom of a now dry pot under exercise.
You have a reason to believe that a crime could have occurred because your innate sense of justice got offended. You can articulate which action of a particular entity offended it. That’s enough, they’ll take it from there. Might it go into the bin and you be told “sorry that’s a civil matter”? Yes. But that’s their job. Just as it’s the job of the fire department to deal with you not being able to cook potatoes.
It’s not a crime per se, but it does open them up to civil litigation. Because it’s a contract of adhesion, where the consumer gains nothing from the additional terms, cannot negotiate the terms prior to acceptance, and is forced into accepting the terms on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
In order for a contract to be enforceable, both sides need to be able to negotiate the terms, and both sides need to receive something meaningful from said contract.
I think you’re likely right, but I think this is also why reporting it to the FBI is a waste of time. The FBI only deals with criminal matters.
If I am a shop owner and sell you a washing machine, and then three days later come into your house with a baseball bat saying “sign this or I’ll destroy the machine”, did I commit a crime?
The thing they want you to coerce you into is civil, yes, but that doesn’t make coercion a civil matter.
“We can’t solve your case until we solve all the murders first. All of them.”
Crime is crime dude.
Piss off. You’re not even an American. Don’t tell us what to do with our FBI.
I am American.
Imposter! No Murcan would use “rubbish bin”.
“Offence” as opposed to offense, and “behaviour” instead of behavior are also non-standard for American English.
So I looked at his post history, and sure enough, there are multiple instances of “cheque” instead of check, “centralised” instead of centralized, and other obvious uses of British or Asian English.
Maybe NateNate60 is American by citizenship, but doesn’t appear to be a native American English speaker.
It’s almost as if being American and speaking languages are separate things!
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Way to sleuth!
Yeah, that would definitely not go anywhere. Roku isn’t hacking into their device. OP probably bought a Roku Smart TV for like $75 (the cost is subsidized by Roku, hence why it’s so cheap) and is now complaining about it. It’s like buying an Amazon FireTV and then complaining about Amazon having control over the TV.
Edit: am I saying it’s right? No, but sometimes it pays to read the EULA. If you’re getting something for cheap, there’s probably a reason for it.
Non American here, and also not a lawyer, but I’m curious what the correlation is between consumer rights (or lack of) and the relative cost of the product. This is somewhat different to buying a cheaply manufactured product and it unsurprisingly falling to bits - though in many jurisdictions there are even basic rights for that situation, the price is irrelevent. Someone elsewhere in chat has suggested suing in small claims for the cost of the product, due to Roku intentionally bricking their own product unless the rightful owner (is the purchaser even the owner?) agrees to certain terms, even though OP purchased it in good faith. If a straight up refund is not available during a straight forward opt OUT option, we have a very unfair situation for the rightful owner of this product. Needless to say opting out should be as straight forward as opting in. Your suggestions is that if a product is of or below a certain price you must bend over and gratefully accept the corporation you paid money to, then inserting anything they like up your rear end. In my opinion your thesis is not price based as this is a common practice unfortunately in the consumer (and enterprise for that matter) tech industry where we have had shiny brand even expensive products initially sensitively torpedoed up our various orifices, only for brand HQ weeks later to press a button which flicks open hidden blades in the torpedo. No one wants or deserves this. The question is what recourse is there in OP’s jurisdiction.
I may be misunderstanding you if actually you mean that any tech corp can do such a thing at any time that you have paid for. In which case we agree. But it’s far from ideal and shouldn’t be accepted.
I’m not saying it’s right for them to do this, it’s a shitty practice and I’d definitely be pissed off. What I’m saying is there’s probably a clause in the EULA/TOS that pretty much says Roku has control over the function of the TV and either you accept those terms or you don’t use the TV. The price comparison was just pointing out the difference in experience between getting a $50-75 Amazon Fire tablet vs a $700 Samsung Galaxy tablet. The former is going to have ads all over it and Amazon controls it essentially, they tell you this, meanwhile the Galaxy tablet most likely has no advertising or additional strong-arming since you’re paying a lot more for it. The company is always out to get their income one way or another is simply the point I was making.
There is practically zero consumer protection in the US (assuming OP is from the US).
Thanks for clarifying. Yeah none of this is ideal for consumers.