the Zealous

Bryan Stevenson has spent four decades doing what many lawyers claim they want to do, but few actually commit to doing: fighting for the powerless.

As founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, a state with the highest per capita rate of death penalty sentencing, Stevenson has dedicated his career to challenging mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial injustice in the American legal system.

Few can match the number of US Supreme Court victories Stevenson has secured, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia, and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Stevenson and the staff of EJI have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 135 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row, and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced. His work has literally saved lives.

When California passed AB 566, the "Opt Me Out Act," in October 2025, the tech world barely noticed. The law seemed straightforward enough: starting January 2027, browsers must include easy-to-use opt-out signals that let users tell websites not to sell their data. Chrome, Safari, Firefox—those companies would need to add a feature. Simple.

But here's where it gets interesting. The law defines "browser" as "an interactive software application that is used by consumers to locate, access, and navigate internet websites." Not "Chrome and similar applications." Not "software primarily designed for web navigation." Just any interactive software application that consumers use to navigate the web.

Which raises an uncomfortable question for a lot of companies: is Reddit a browser?

No modification, variance, or waiver of this Agreement is valid unless in writing and signed by both parties.

Well, what's wrong with this clause? It facially makes sense. The parties should have the freedom of contract to agree as to how changes to their agreement can be validly made going forward. A writing requirement goes a long way to insulate the parties from fraudulent or frivolous oral claims.
 
And yet, preserving party autonomy compels the conclusion that whatever agreement may have been made before, it can and must be allowed to be unmade if the parties had the sufficient meeting of the minds to do so.

Those who make a contract, may unmake it. The clause which forbids a change, may be changed like any other. The prohibition of oral waiver, may itself be waived … What is excluded by one act, is restored by another. You may put it out by the door, it is back through the window. Whenever two men contract, no limitation self-imposed can destroy their power to contract again….

Beatty v. Guggenheim Exploration Co. (New York Ct. App. 1919) (Cardozo, J.).