As several sources reported last week, the ASUS computer company had been offering a special extended warranty program that looked pretty good except for the express exclusion of coverage for "damage caused by natural disaster, intentional or unintentional misuse, acts of war, space invasions, abuse, neglect, improper maintenance, or use under abnormal conditions."
Emphasis added. Obviously this raises all sorts of questions about how the exclusion should be interpreted. If there's already an exclusion for "acts of war," why also separately exclude acts of war by aliens (or humans attacking from space)? Could there be space invasions that would not constitute "acts of war"? Seems like there must be, or the two terms would be redundant. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers was not too warlike, but people still seemed to have strong feelings about it (at first). So maybe the point is to clarify that computer damage caused by (inter alia) body snatchers would not be covered, whether said snatching qualified as an "act of war" or not.
I suppose that might also be "use under abnormal conditions," assuming body snatching is an unusual event, and I guess we don't really know if that's true, do we? Or do you?
Now, though, we have a whole other set of questions, because I checked the company's website and the warranty has apparently since been amended to remove the words "space invasions." Well, now I'm thoroughly confused. Which version is binding, the one that existed until recently or the new one? Can they change the warranty just by amending the website? Seems doubtful. Also, if there was previously a specific exclusion for space-invasion damage, and it's now been removed, then doesn't that confirm that they do intend to cover such damage?
Maybe ASUS decided to quietly tweak its warranty and just hope there aren't any space invasions in the near future that might lead to a rash of computer-damage claims. Fair enough, but this is the kind of thing that can come back to bite you.
