IAL, and I could imagine this fee getting upheld in at least a few US jurisdictions (with the right judge), leaving consumers to rely solely on the Streisand effect to get satisfaction.
The classic notion of a contract as an expression of the compromises forged in a battle between two sophisticated, represented parties has been replaced by overlawyering, boilerplate, and clickwrap.
What's the solution? Hold consumers responsible for every detail of wordy documents they didn't have the time to read, much less negotiate? Make companies bear the costs of every complaint - real, imagined, or fraudlent - a consumer can dream up? Companies can be cheap and sneaky, and consumers can be petty, stubborn, and stupid.
The classic notion of a contract as an expression of the compromises forged in a battle between two sophisticated, represented parties has been replaced by overlawyering, boilerplate, and clickwrap.
http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/do-lawyers-actaully-read-boil... (Judge Posner is perhaps the most acclaimed US jurist not on the Supreme Court - a "Law and Economics" pioneer who can roughly be described as libertarian)
What's the solution? Hold consumers responsible for every detail of wordy documents they didn't have the time to read, much less negotiate? Make companies bear the costs of every complaint - real, imagined, or fraudlent - a consumer can dream up? Companies can be cheap and sneaky, and consumers can be petty, stubborn, and stupid.