LJ Terms Of Shit

[beer_good_foamy]

I just spent 20 minutes trying to add the following reply on the LJ News post (http://news.livejournal.com/151767.html):

Since I won't sign anything where I have no way of knowing what it is I'm signing, I'm commenting through (OpenID/Twitter).

Please note that in accordance with part 3 Article 10.1 of the Federal Act of the Russian Federation No. 149-ФЗ the Administration shall keep the following information and provide it upon the lawful request of the competent authorities regardless of Users will
I am not a Russian citizen. What is Article 10.2 of the Federal Act of the Russian Federation No. 149-ФЗ? Please provide me with a full text of it before I agree to it.

Mark Content estimated by Russian legislation as inappropriate for children (0 −18) as “adult material” by using Service functions.
I am not a Russian citizen. Please provide me with a comprehensive list of content that Russian legislation considers inappropriate for children, and which of these LJ intends to inforce.

ATTENTION: this translation of the User Agreement is not a legally binding document. The original User Agreement, which is valid, is located at the following address: http://www.livejournal.com/legal/tos-ru.bml.
I am not a Russian citizen. If the English translation is not valid, why do I need to sign it? What's in the Russian version that we're not told in the translation?

Unfortunately, LJ won't let me sign in through OpenID, and when I created a Twitter account and signed on using that, I was told my reply was marked as spam.

(Remember that when LJ was first bought by the Russians, we were told that "Complaints will not be accepted. They'll get used to it. Anything sent in English is spam.")

So, fuck LJ.

Comments

[shadowkat]

After my Russian co-worker almost talked me into signing it, you've talked me out of it.

I'm not willing to sign the thing in order to delete my journal, which by the way annoys me that I can't delete it without signing the agreement. But it feels safer somehow.

You can by the way read LJ without signing it. Just don't log in. Actually you can do a lot anonymously on it by not logging in. I discovered that yesterday.
But they may decide it's spam.

Interestingly enough it doesn't apply to paid users (because it can't, since they aren't protected under the consumer rights act.)

[beer_good_foamy]

Barb has posted a few more links to people looking into what the TOS actually say here, and it doesn't exactly make me breathe a sigh of relief.

If I do sign, what I agree to only lasts as long as my actual LJ does. I'm thinking that might be worth it just to export comments etc over to DW before deleting my LJ.

[shadowkat]

I read Barb's links at work on my iphone, after discussing the situation with a fellow contracts lawyer. I installed Ghostry, and deleted my journal tonight with signing the user agreement.

I suggest everyone do the same.

[dragonyphoenix]

I deleted my journal without signing in by disabling JavaScripts.

[shadowkat]

Thank you!! I deleted it and told them why. Goodbye LJ. The only thing I lost was posts on a recent trip to Costa Rica. I can always repost that stuff here on DW, if I wish. Everything else is backed up here. Oh and the comments...but, I don't tend to re-read my journal anyhow.

[dragonyphoenix]

I also told them why although I think I said something like "stop fucking with us" ;-)

[shadowkat]

I was a bit more diplomatic.

There are folks on LJ who don't understand why we are leaving. They think all user agreements on social media are the same and just as sketchy. (I know they aren't.)

Apparently the JavaScript option is no longer available -- the LJ coders figured out we were using that. But Ghostery which blocks script and tracking on sites, might me.

[dragonyphoenix]

It looks like Ghostery worked for you? I'm glad if so.

I figured the JavaScript option wouldn't last long. That's why I used it right away and shared that fix quickly.

[shadowkat]

You the Ghostery worked like a charm. Although, granted, I didn't try anything other than deleting the journal. I sort of wish I had, but I doubt it would have worked.

My mistake...was not leaving completely when they announced they were moving the servers to Russia. As a legal professional, I knew that what that meant, I've no excuse. But, damn, I was on lj since 2003, I didn't want to leave.

[dragonyphoenix]

I'm glad that worked.

I had ported my LJ journals to dreamwidth after they'd announced moving to the Russian servers, but I hadn't closed LJ down completely.