Excellent to see this "your contract may be changed at our will without informing you" crap getting overturned. Precedent is a wonderful thing.

Mid-way through a contract period they change from free support calls to start charging customers to phone them on a premium rate number. Would that be grounds to terminate a contract with them?

my bank regularly send me letters changing my contract with them. I don't agree with them (throbbing vein in the neck, puce face, gasping for air, all that sort of thing) so I can say "Oy, bank, no"?

Which is what TalkAmerica didn't do. If they had sent out an email saying 'we are changing our T&Cs, take a look at our website [link] for this information' they wouldn't have been in this trouble. As your bank sends you letters, you have every right not to accept their changes, primarily by not banking with them anymore.

Yes, nickj, you can say no. Of course, this will terminate your relationship with the bank. Which, in the case of your credit cards, means that they are cancelled. You'll still be able to (or at least in the States) pay your cards off at the old terms, but you won't be able to put any new charges on them.

So, yes, you can tell them to piss off. You just need to start looking for a new bank.

From the iPlayer T&C's:

"The BBC may change these terms at any time by posting changes online. Please review these terms regularly to ensure you are aware of any changes made by the BBC. Your continued use of BBC iPlayer after changes are posted means you agree to be legally bound by these terms as updated and/or amended."

As the requirement to check online regularly is clearly stated in their initial terms and conditions, you may be deemed to have agreed to that when accepting their terms. How well that might hold up in court might depend on how sweeping or fundamental any change in terms might be; but you couldn't make the same claim not to have been warned, as in the Talk America case.

On the other hand, if you include an unusual or contentious clause, buried in a long and apparently otherwise quite standard set of terms - like a requirement to look out for future, otherwise unannounced changes - that may not be accepted as fair warning.

Oh, yes - no, I'm not a lawyer, so take all of the above with a pinch of salt.