I was bored. and I Google terms and conditions I found this

Not one customer of online computer game seller Gamestation read the terms and conditions of sale on 1st April, the company has said. In an April Fools' Day prank, it has claimed the legal right to the souls of all those customers.

Gamestation changed its terms and conditions to say that anyone buying goods from it online on 1st April this year and not clicking on a link contained within them would forfeit their soul.

The prank, which was designed to highlight that terms and conditions are almost never read, fooled all 7,500 customers who made a purchase that day, a company spokesman said.

The new conditions said: "By placing an order via this web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul".

"Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk or one of its duly authorised minions. We reserve the right to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire, however we can accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by such an act," said the terms. "If you a) do not believe you have an immortal soul, b) have already given it to another party, or c) do not wish to grant Us such a license, please click the link below to nullify this sub-clause and proceed with your transaction."

That link led the user to a page saying that the clause was an April Fool, congratulating the user of being "so vigilant" and offering them a £5 voucher.

Gamestation said that 7,500 people made online purchases on 1 April and that none of them clicked on the link, meaning that all the customers failed to check the terms and conditions closely.

The retailer carried out the experiment because it had previously conducted research which indicated that as few as 12% of customers read terms and conditions when buying online. In fact its experiment showed that the situation is even worse than it had thought.

Gamestation said that the prank was designed to remind customers that when it came to buying online "the devil is in the detail and ... always read the terms and conditions", according to a company statement.

The results of the experiment chime with others' findings. Computer optimisation software maker PC Pitstop tried a similar experiment. It buried a clause in its end user licence agreement (EULA) offering money to anybody who read the clause and sent an email to the address within it.

It said that it was only after four months and 3,000 downloads of its software that somebody finally emailed the address and claimed a $1,000 reward.


Am one of them

Can you blame people? I can't enjoy reading interesting things most of the time, let alone every tos they force down my gullet. Sure, I skim though for terms like "refund" and such. On average, how long are these things anyway? I never printed one.

That is soo true I see this everyday! I know i don't read every tos i see or sign up with but i do skim though it tho.

Great Post!

Well understand not everyone does not ready ever word and even just search down the text for highlighted areas for issues they think could conflict them.

I guess I'm the exception. Not only do I read the TOS, but also the Privacy Policies and AUP's.

I was so amused by this that I tweeted about it!

i send a txt to my friends asking them is they read the tos when the buy online all of them told me (look i buy it, pay for it and wait for it) i don't have time to read the tos. lolz

It's funny but kind of sad at the same time. If you're going to sign a contract with a company, typically, you usually try to read and understand as much as you can about what exactly it is you are about to sign.

Why should an online agreement, TOS, privacy policy, etc. be any different?

I have heard of companies doing this before and in some cases they put in the terms and conditions that if the customer quits services within 100 years they still owe for the remander of those years.

I do not read them but being that they are legally binding a company could enforce it. Wow thanks for that post it made me laugh.

I'd say less than 1% of people read the TOS. I don't think I have ever read a full TOS...

I trust that the company wont use an shady tactics...

Is it really a big surprise to anyone? I think that most people do not bother to think twice about reading a single word of tos agreements. Then you get others that skim through scanning for terms like "refund" or "damages" but, All in all this shows you a good example of people that agree to terms and when something goes wrong, the complain about never being "told" or are actually convinced that they have a right to be angry.
- ladesignandcoding -

The problem is that most TOS agreements are umteen million pages long. No one wants to read all that legalese. My personal recommendation is to put a condensed TOS on the page as well that highlights the important points.

I totally agree with this advice, but it may be difficult to carry out it ,because the key point may be different to different customers.

I never read the TOS because in switzerland the court don't accept tos agreements.

I have a hard time reading our TOS when we need to up date it every so offten... why would I want to read some one else's (LOL).