Roku made all of its users across the country wake up this week to find an unwelcome surprise: the company made them agree to new terms governing the way disputes can be resolved so as to get access to their device. That is to say, the devices are unworkable until the user agrees.

The day before, users-including this one-had received an email that stated: "we made changes to our Dispute Resolution Terms, which describe how you can resolve disputes with Roku. We encourage you to read the updated Dispute Resolution Terms. By continuing to use our products or services, you are agreeing to these updated terms.".

The terms, of course, include a forced arbitration agreement that prevents the user from suing or participating in lawsuits against Roku. It's pretty common these days as a way to limit liability, and users often have little or no recourse. They only find out later, when the company does something heinous and consequences are negligible. Tech companies love this one dirty trick to save millions! (Full disclosure, our parent company requires arbitration as part of its dispute resolution policy as well.)

But what's really new on reading the terms is a whole "Informal Dispute Resolution" section. This demands that anybody with legal complaints take them to Roku lawyers first, who will make a "Meet-and-Confer" call and then "make a fair, fact-based offer of resolution" that no doubt will be generous and thoughtful. So they've brought in a pre-arbitration arbiter to put even greater distance between legal threats and materializing. In fact, the change was instigated last autumn (no notification, apparently, was issued), but it didn't come into effect until recently, and now, weeks later, users are being notified by this dubious mechanism.

I try to opt out of these when I can, and after reading the terms-to which, of course, by "continuing to use" my TV, I'd already agreed-I found that you could only do so by mailing a written notice to their lawyers-something I fully intended to do today. Actually, since arbitration was apparently already mandatory, this release allows me to opt out of something I didn't know I was already under.

But yesterday I turned on the TV and saw the notice again, as did thousands of others (some saw it a few days ago), who quickly took to the forums to complain. I'd tapped the star button out of curiosity to see the terms, then pressed back, hoping that would bring up some exit, but of course there was no way out. There was no way to activate the device without agreeing to the new terms.

The terms themselves have actually been unchanged for years, interestingly. To anyone desperate to watch the next installment of "Shōgun" (which, so far, is great):
That's from forum user AJCxZ0; don't mind if I shared it.
Not that this is all so unusual. After all, we frequently install apps and play games that throw up new end-user license agreements (EULAs) and terms and conditions. I likely ignored a hundred and risked seeing a thousand more, but there's something profoundly reprehensible about completely locking a user's device until they assent and essentially anything the user ever does constitutes assent. Many phones, apps, and services permit you to continue using them for a little while or confine you to the version you are currently running until you assent.

That is not the case here. As of now, I am under this new deal. I will still opt out; you should too-but you must hurry. You only can do this within 30 days of the new terms being effective upon you. That may be when you were told, but it might also be on March 20, which is 30 days after they nominally (and silently) kicked in, on February 20. So grab a pen and paper and take down the following information:

Name of person opting out.
Contact details (address and phone number, likely).
Email used to create Roku account if applicable.
Product model, software or service "at issue" — e.g. model number of your TV or streaming stick. Might as well include version of Roku OS here, too.
Include a receipt if you have one handy - doesn't seem to be required though.
They are supposed to already have that. Stuff that in an envelope and mail it to:

Stephen Kay, General Counsel, Roku, Inc.
1701 Junction Court, Suite 100
San Jose, CA 95112
Thanks in advance, Stephen. Though in hindsight, I-and literally every single user of your company's services-would have preferred a simple electronic opt-out rather than this deceptive tactic to add friction and further incentivize us into this amongst the terms.

Don't wait, or when people sue them over how they held devices hostage to coerce them into consumer-hostile dispute resolution terms, you won't be able to party along with the rest. It's just going to be the 35 of us left who can still quickly reach pens, paper, and envelopes.

Update: My error, arbitration terms were in place but informal terms of dispute resolution were not. But devices do not operate until user agreement which quietly implemented two weeks ago to those arbitration terms. I've updated the post throughout to reflect that.

Roku would not comment on the record, but did indicate arbitration was part of the terms from the start. I've posed some follow-up questions and will update again if they get back to me.