Roku Will Brick Your Streaming Devices If You Don’t Agree To Binding Arbitration

Ever since AT&T’s 2011 Supreme Court victory, the courts have declared it perfectly legal for a corporation to erode your legal rights using fine print. As a result, most every service and company in the U.S. now uses contract fine print to try and prevent you from suing the company (either alone or in a class action), instead forcing you toward binding arbitration, a process that usually favors the company.

Streaming hardware device maker Roku is no exception, having included such language in its terms of service since 2019. But the company recently added a new wrinkle to the annoying practice: they rolled out a new terms of service that effectively blocks you from being able to use your Roku streaming device or TV until you agree to the immolation of your own legal rights.

The company’s terms of service feature a freshly designed “Informal Dispute Resolution” system, whereby anybody who has a complaint about Roku’s service is required to have a “meet-and-confer” call with Roku lawyers, who claim they’ll “make a fair, fact-based offer of resolution.” If that doesn’t work, you’re sent to binding arbitration. If you disagree, your devices become paperweights.

You can still opt out of the arbitration and dispute resolution rules and use your device, but it requires sending a written letter (including a bunch of personal and device information the company likely already has) to a Roku lawyer who may or may not resolve your concerns on a timely basis:

• Stephen Kay, General Counsel, Roku, Inc.
  1701 Junction Court, Suite 100
  San Jose, CA 95112

Not too surprisingly, Roku is refusing to respond to press inquiries as to why it thought being a restrictive and obnoxious jackass was a great business decision.