Resorts World Las Vegas, a hotel that is hosting attendees of the DEF CON hacking conference this week, will perform daily inspections of rooms including those displaying a privacy sign, according to a letter from the hotel given to guests. An information security professional posted a photo of the letter online. Members of the cybersecurity community have reacted with a mix of anger and disappointment on social media.
“Welcome, and thank you for choosing Resorts World Las Vegas. We are pleased that you have joined us, as you have chosen to stay with us for relaxation, fun and excitement!” the message, written on hotel letterhead, reads.
“As you may or may not know, a well-known hacking convention will be held in Las Vegas during your stay,” it adds. DEF CON runs from August 8 to 11, with many attendees already in the city for the separate Black Hat cybersecurity conference or other events. “We remain committed to our guests’ safety and understand the utmost importance of cybersecurity, as well.”
The letter then describes what staff at Resorts World Las Vegas will be doing: “In an effort to increase the safety of our guests, we will be conducting scheduled, brief visual and non-intrusive room inspections daily beginning Monday, August 5. Rooms with a privacy sign will be included as part of the inspection process.”
Let’s break those contract down: contracts are enforceable. Unless, they interfere with other rights you have and those take priority. How? Well there’s things like conscionability and consideration.
Consideration means, both parties have to get something in return. It can literally be a corn of rice, but it has to be something.
Conscionability means there’s things too egregious to be enforceable through contract law.
For example I can’t sign a contract that I want to be killed by someone else. It gets very complicated, but in it’s most basic form, it is unconscionable to just chalk a death up to freedom, just because you found a contract of the victim stating they want to be killed. The investigation takes priority and a prosecution’s case could be brought in spite of any contract. This render such a contract void.
So what does this fall under? Well there’s a lot of rights that people that rent a property have and that they can enforce against them against the landlords. Some of those rights pierce the veil of the contract and therefore are enforceable in spite of the contract.
Now I am not sure about the rights in this particular situation but there is a solid chance this creates a legal claim against the hotel company.
My point is, both of you are right, but you are getting down voted right now because you are ignoring the the fact that contract law, although very broad, is not absolute, and especially in this case it might be unenforceable.
Obligatory IANAL.
The biggest point of issue, if I were a lawyer, is whether or not these terms were agreed upon (or ‘not’) before or after the point of sale.
I mean yeah if it’s not in the original contract that obv makes it way easier, assuming they didn’t suddenly agree to a second contract mentioning explicitly that.
That is, either terms of the contract can be unenforceable, the whole contract could get voided or the the terms are not in the contract. Any of that means there’s a good chance the hotel is doing illegal things.
And quiet frankly, if I were the hotel I would not try that stuff, and even if I announced this, I wouldn’t follow through.
Way to make your lawyers and bank account work overtime.