Sony has been the target of many class-action lawsuits recently.  Mainly due to the recent removal of Linux support (I’m still sore on that one) and losing customer data to hackers due to their lax security policies.  Sony has decided they want to alleviate themselves of future class-action lawsuits by having you sign away your right to join in on class action lawsuits in the future.  They are going to do this by changing their Terms of Use agreement in the next mandatory PS3 update.

The Examiner caught the fine print in the latest system update, which states:

ANY DISPUTE RESOLUTION PROCEEDINGS, WHETHER IN ARBITRATION OR COURT, WILL BE CONDUCTED ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT IN A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR AS A NAMED OR UNNAMED MEMBER IN A CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL LEGAL ACTION, UNLESS BOTH YOU AND THE SONY ENTITY WITH WHICH YOU HAVE A DISPUTE SPECIFICALLY AGREE TO DO SO IN WRITING FOLLOWING INITIATION OF THE ARBITRATION.  THIS PROVISION DOES NOT PRECLUDE YOUR PARTICIPATION AS A MEMBER IN A CLASS ACTION FILED ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 20, 2011

Now there is a way to opt-out of this but it requires you to send a letter to them in California.  If you intend on doing this I highly suggest you require a signature and send it with tracking. The following is the information you need in order to opt-out of this ridiculous agreement:

IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THE BINDING ARBITRATION AND CLASS ACTION WAIVER IN THIS SECTION 15, YOU MUST NOTIFY SNEI IN WRITING WITHIN 30 DAYS OF THE DATE THAT YOU ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT.  YOUR WRITTEN NOTIFICATION MUST BE MAILED TO 6080 CENTER DRIVE, 10TH FLOOR, LOS ANGELES, CA 90045, ATTN: LEGAL DEPARTMENT/ARBITRATION AND MUST INCLUDE:  (1) YOUR NAME, (2) YOUR ADDRESS, (3) YOUR PSN ACCOUNT NUMBER, IF YOU HAVE ONE, AND (4) A CLEAR STATEMENT THAT YOU DO NOT WISH TO RESOLVE DISPUTES WITH ANY SONY ENTITY THROUGH ARBITRATION.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to electronically do this, because it of course wouldn’t be in Sony’s best interest to make something like that easy for you.  I’ve already got my letter ready to go and I think you should to.  I really hate companies trying to alleviate themselves of legal liability, and I’m not going to make it easy for them to do so.

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