Claimed after three months
A former Magic Circle lawyer has shown the value of reading terms and conditions by including a clause for a free bottle of wine in the fine print of his website.
The “boozy” term was discreetly inserted into the T&Cs of the Tax Policy Associates website, a non-profit think tank run by former Clifford Chance partner Dan Neidle.
The tax specialist revealed last week that, three months after the clause was inserted into the website’s small print, someone has now claimed the free “bottle of good wine”.
Our ongoing experiment into whether anyone reads website T&Cs continues. We put this in our terms back in February. Just got claimed. pic.twitter.com/N7k3weTuA9
— Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) May 9, 2024
Budding sommeliers may be interested to know that the wine provided by Neidle was a bottle of a bottle of Château de Sales 2013/14, Pomerol.
Speaking to the BBC News, Neidle explained that the clause was “my childish protest that all businesses have to have a privacy policy and no one reads it”.
“Every tiny coffee shop has to have a privacy policy on their website, it’s crazy. It’s money that’s being wasted,” he continued.
He also revealed that the recipient of the wine, who hasn’t been named, stumbled upon the clause because they were trying to write their own policy and looking at examples.
Neidle said that he drew inspiration from the band Van Halen, who famously requested a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed as part of their tour rider. This unusual request served as a way to check if promoters were paying attention to their requests.