Binding arbitration is corporate America’s favorite dirty trick: to use a product, you are forced to give up your right to sue if the company hurts you, cheats you, or even kills you.
But if you buy a Pixel 3, there’s a bizarre, obscure option where you are given the chance to enter your device’s serial number in order to opt out of binding arbitration.
It feels like some kind of uneasy truce between different Google
factions: the mustache-twirling villains who say, “Who cares if it looks
evil? We’re Google, fuck you!” and the more image-conscious ones who
say, “OK, fine, but if we ever do end up in the middle of a shitstorm over this, we can point to this opt-out option and say, ‘See? Everyone chose
binding arbitration! There was a perfectly easy way not to choose it,
in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory
with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.’”
In any event, if you have a Pixel 3, you should opt out of binding arbitration.
