Information Law Possum

Happy new year to all of you out there who read my blog!

In 2007, among others, a new form (or genre?) of literature has emerged, namely satire in the guise of an online product review. Here’s a fine example (hat tip to James): reviews of the BIC ballpoint pen in black. Enjoy!

Niklas Luhmann explaining his Zettelkasten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu3t_zzHJJs. (Hat tip to Andreas Böhm via Claudia.)

A man convicted of multiple murder sought permission to buy the flight simulating software “X-Plane”, arguing that he wanted to leave his prison cell at least virtually from time to time. The request was refused by the prison authority for reasons of security: Due to the high data capacity of DVDs, the effort to search the data carrier for secret messages would be disproportionate. In addition, the authority reasoned that the wish to escape to a virtual world — such as a flight simulator — has to give way to these considerations.

The Federal Supreme Court ruled that this decision is not unconstitutional. (Decision in German is here.)

As Jusletter reports, two attorneys from the French-speaking part of Switzerland have created an online divorce website, divorce.ch.

For a bit more than 30 dollars, users get access to a database containing information on all legal aspects of a divorce.

For about 800 dollars, couples may create their own divorce settlement and the paperwork necessary to demand a divorce by consent (one of the “modes” of divorce the Swiss Civil Code knows). The settlement is created automatically on the basis of a questionnaire that the spouses have to fill out.

For Switzerland, this service is a true innovation. But I wonder how the lawyers who offer their services handle their liability for the automatically-generated settlements. Here is what their terms of use say:

Nous déclinons en outre toute responsabilité quant à d’éventuels dommages susceptibles de survenir du fait de l’utilisation des pages du site divorce.ch, y compris par suite de téléchargement d’éventuels fichiers ou pour ce qui concerne la Convention de divorce ou la Requête en divorce.

I have doubts as to the validity of this waiver, but all depends on the legal qualification of the contract concluded by the couple and the website owners.  Especially the high price of the service and the fact that the website owners are attorneys would make a good case for saying that the contract involves more duties than just offering the online form and its processing “as is”.