Microsoft cuts off supply to China? Rumor! They just updated the Xbox legal dispute clause

Jia Haonan from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit Report | Public Account QbitAI

Microsoft "cuts off supply to China"? When the news came out, domestic netizens were stunned.

The incident started when a netizen pointed out on social networks yesterday that Microsoft’s terms of service updated on August 1 included a clause that “Microsoft will not be responsible for any supply cuts to China.”

Currently, Microsoft's main businesses in China include public cloud Azure, Office and Windows products, as well as hardware products such as Microsoft PCs. A real supply cut will affect almost all domestic Microsoft users .

Now, when you type “Microsoft” into Baidu, the first result you get is:

Just this morning, Microsoft China publicly responded to the matter, saying that the "cut-off of supplies to China" on social media was a rumor and that Microsoft would remain steadfast in its commitment to serving Chinese customers.

Microsoft statement

Microsoft's response is as follows:

The important point is: the interpretation of some media about "cutting off supply to China" is a rumor , and we will unwaveringly serve Chinese users .

What is the real situation? How to interpret the controversy spread online?

Microsoft's new service agreement was released on August 1, 2020 and took effect on October 1, 2020. The "disclaimer"-like statement in the agreement caused controversy.

The content of Article 12 “Limitation of Liability” (b) of its service agreement is:

"Microsoft will not be responsible or liable for any failure or delay in performance of its obligations due to circumstances beyond Microsoft's reasonable control (for example, labor disputes, force majeure, acts of war or terrorism, malicious damage, accidents, or compliance with any applicable law or governmental order). Microsoft will use its best efforts to minimize the effects of these events and perform its obligations that are not affected."

In the section on contract entity, choice of law, and dispute resolution, Microsoft states:

When you use all other Services under these Terms, you are contracting with Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052, USA, and with respect to those Services, these Terms will be governed by the laws of the state of Washington, without regard to conflict of law principles. The state or federal courts located in King County, Washington, USA, will have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

In fact, such disclaimers are a fixed format in the user agreement of content service providers .

This is a common practice for multinational companies to avoid uncontrollable political risks in their actual business. Looking at Apple's user agreement, there is also a similar statement.

The same is true for IBM:

Moreover, Microsoft also has the same disclaimer in its terms of service in the UK, Australia, India and other regions. Is Microsoft going to cut off supply to these countries as well?

This is obviously not true. It is an over-interpretation to draw the conclusion that "we are not responsible for any supply disruption" based solely on the general disclaimer in the agreement.

Moreover, this disclaimer is not new content updated on August 1, but has appeared in Microsoft's Terms of Service since September last year.

It’s just that at this point in time, such clauses have led to more interpretations.

Therefore, the statement that "Microsoft is not responsible for cutting off supply to China " made many netizens and media believe that this was a possible fact, and the rumor spread .

What’s really new in this update?

This service agreement update includes a total of 14 new items, most of which involve changes to the content regulations of related business lines.

The ones related to the law are the ones related to Xbox:

Xbox's contracting entity in China has changed, that's it. But this doesn't seem to have much impact on Xbox players.

To sum up, on August 1, Microsoft just routinely updated the terms of service, and users hardly "felt it". There was no explicit or implicit statement that "it is irresponsible to cut off supply to China".

Reference Links

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4536314554486004?wm=3333_2001&from=10A7093010&sourcetype=weixin