3 ms·
> “In order to create a legally binding contract, a tech company has actually put the terms in front of the user and get them to affirmatively agree to them.”
by davidhyde 6y ago
> “In order to create a legally binding contract, a tech company has actually put the terms in front of the user and get them to affirmatively agree to them.”
This is effectively “legal theatre” from the perspective of the user. Companies can and do hide whatever they want in lengthy legalese which can have no limit in size. There should be the equivalent of a plain English abstract which is customised for the use case and target audience.
What we have now is a small percentage people who actually read those terms and conditions and of those people a handful of them write about it and that’s how we learn about dodgy terms and conditions. It’s very haphazard.
- canofbars 6y agoThere should be a quiz on the accept screen that you are only likely to pass if you read the tos. In order to keep users you would have to make the document as short as possible. There could even be a short bullet point summary that gives the information in short english and then a longer version that covers all the edge cases and defining common sense.
- bigwavedave 6y agoInteresting idea! Who audits the quizzes to make sure they actually use information relevant to the ToS? I could easily see a company providing their standard insane ToS, several bullet points at the end that simplify things but don't cover everything in the ToS, and then the quiz merely asking about the limited information in the bullet points.