How companies weaponize the terms of service against you

Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing, increasingly, is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It to Me, how to mind your manners.

New episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil Appitel, editor in chief of the Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking with Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project and author of the new book, When Companies Run the Courts, which is all about the rise of forced arbitration agreements. Brendan's actually been on the show before.

His previous book, Plunder, was all about the rise of private equity in America, and that conversation was among our most popular. episodes. Forced arbitration is similarly everywhere in our modern lives. Deep in almost every single terms of service for almost any product you buy or service you use, there's a clause that says by buying or using the thing, you're giving up your rights to join a class action lawsuit if something goes wrong. Instead, you have to take the company to arbitration, which the company usually pays for.

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