18 ms·

Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

188 points by hugoroy 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
castorp 6y ago
Ages ago I installed a shareware product. And it also had a scrollable "terms and condition" screen (about 2 pages long) when starting it for the first time. When you clicked the "I Agree" button too quickly it would ask you "Do you really agree to the terms you read in only 0.76 seconds?"
- josefx 6y ago
  I have seen a few that forced you to at least scroll down before unlocking the accept button or included a thirty second countdown to keep you from clicking through.
- rdpintqogeogsaa 6y ago
  If there is an acceptance screen anyway, is there a reason not to tie this to actually reading the terms? Please consider the following idea: The installer presents the end-user license agreement (EULA). Immediately following it, it presents a multiple-choice quiz that asks questions about core parts of the EULA, such as permissible use, cancellation, refunds, jurisdiction/arbitration. The installer then contains all the files to be installed. They are encrypted with a key that is composed of a hash value of the correct answers to the above quiz. In this way, you could tie together whether someone reads the EULA with the possibility of performing the installation at all. This, in turn, causes successful installation to act as implicit proof of having read the terms. The order of the values must be randomized to prevent transmission of correct answers by index number only.
  - faeyanpiraat 6y ago
    Let me try translating this into a different scenario: You are at home, and want to go shopping. Your door only lets you out if you correctly answer some questions about the most recent changes in the law of your state. Are you not a lawyer? Well tough luck, order your groceries trough Amazon then..
    - phonon 6y ago
      “The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.” ― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    The idea behind a checkbox is that it’s an affirmative. You are stating that you did read them. And as long as that checkbox was unchecked when you opened the page, that’s enough. However, your idea of an installer is novel. The problem is that it adds friction to the install process than would turn many users away.
- Moru 6y ago
  My favourites are the boxed games that comes with "If you break the seal you agree to our terms that you can read inside the box" style of agreements. Those are ofcourse not valid though so not a problem.
- PaulKeeble 6y ago
  The problem is more that every single piece of software and website and such did this and required you actually read it you would get nothing done all day but read agreements. I think the issue is the very need for all these agreements to begin with, we all know almost no one reads them. I did for a while in the beginning but now its just too much.
- dstick 6y ago
  That’s indeed a fun implementation. Most of my shareware memories consist of dark patterns and purple gorillas.
absolutelyrad 6y ago
Thought experiment: can we have a standard TOS for centralized services? Building the next Facebook? Legally bind yourself that you'll always provide API access and this right cannot ever be taken away to the extent permitted by the law. Maybe we need a standardization for centralized service TOS like MIT/GPL etc are for OSS. So people can decide more easily which centralized services to use.
- joshka 6y ago
  I was thinking something similar the other day, but rather than a fully standard TOS, where I get to is that we need standard atomic pieces of contracts and TOS docs. For instance in the language in the definitions part about who the customer is, who the business is should be {common:customer-is-you, common:business-is-mybusinessname} or a part that talks about not using other customer's login information. Etc. Why should we have to read every single line when it's mostly the same? DRY the TOS.
  - joshka 6y ago
    Looks like someone actually started doing some of this already: is https://stonecutters.law/ https://stonecutters.law/
ourmandave 6y ago
Then the second biggest lie is: We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume you are happy with it. [Ok] [No] [Privacy Policy] Actual text from the www.gdpr.eu cookie consent pop-up. =)
- itronitron 6y ago
  I always thought "We value your privacy" was the biggest lie on the internet.
  - dest 6y ago
    or the most cynical statement
  - Simon_says 6y ago
    They value it. Here's how much: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-valuable-of-any-social-network.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-v...
- soylentgraham 6y ago
  The biggest confusion I have with the modern web is why these cookie agreements never remember that Ive agreed to them before. I wouldn't mind being tracked so much if... they could identify that I've agreed to being tracked on the 7 websites I visit 1000 times before.
  - PaulKeeble 6y ago
    If this was being handled honestly and straight forwardly this would just be a preference set in the browser they complied with. Then someone who was never accept could just be that way, someone else could always accept and others could choose once for each site. But then we had that with headers and such and we all know they just ignored it, because the entire point is to steal the data as often as they can.
    - 6y ago
gorgoiler 6y ago
If a website knows I didn't really read a contract, can they claim I am bound by it? I like to hope that the time-spent-reading is logged somewhere. Should it come up in court, Website.com would be required to disclose their logs which would show that I spent all of 1.35s reading their terms and conditions, most of which was spent scrolling. Another puerile hack of mine is to sign a document with the name "I do not agree" and then press accept, and see if they agreed to let me use the service anyway.
- stunt 6y ago
  Yes, as long as they make it a required step. It's your fault if you choose to not read it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    I am curious if there is any legal doctrine on this in any part of the world.
    - wolco5 6y ago
      You could skip steps on some systems, put in null values, click yes get the next link and remove approval. There is no legal requirement you agree to use the service. The system may prevent access but that's not a legal requirement.
    - 13415 6y ago
      In most EU countries ToS are pretty much void anyway because they tend to contain frivolous or illegal clauses. For example, a ToS is void in the EU that limits the consumer's rights for legal action in any way. Here is a list of unfair contract terms that will likely cause an EULA or ToS to have no legal binding at all: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...
    - 6y ago
Vinnl 6y ago
The team recently did an AMA on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/kogsuw/we_are_terms_of_service_didnt_read_ask_us_anything/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/kogsuw/we_are_term...
stunt 6y ago
I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  Yes, this is great. Similar to how app permissions work on iOs.
- dwighttk 6y ago
  Yeah let the lawyers argue over what the pictures mean and let us normals just have little pictures.
- 1ncorrect 6y ago
  I’ve been chewing on an idea for a while around programmatically handling license agreements, basically each clause is checked atomically, with flow logic as necessary. You could have a personal profile, possibly multiple, of things you’ve decided to accept or reject beforehand, and the anomalous clauses would be presented as a list to review. Providers would have an incentive to reduce the friction by limiting scope to what’s actually required, not just what they want. With wide enough support, a couple of benefits would be nefarious and malicious components would get highlighted quickly, and it could serve as a feedback channel from consumers to suppliers on why an agreement was rejected. Ultimately, the power dynamic needs to be recalibrated.
  - byecomputer 6y ago
    So the idea is a form with a checklist?
    - 1ncorrect 6y ago
      That’s one major function it would provide if clauses were included which weren’t covered by the pre-populated profile. A core component would be standardising clauses so they could be handled individually and automatically. If you’ve already answered the clause, and the parameters (time spans, quantities) were within the range you’d set, it would be ‘green’ and could be hidden. Clauses which you had answered but are outside your criteria would be ‘amber’, and unanswered clauses would be ‘red’. As you process more agreements, your can save answers to your profile so the process becomes more optimised over time.
forgingahead 6y ago
It's all farcical, but it's pervasive because of the lawyers I guess. Even a supposedly design-first-consumer-friendly company like Apple has walls of tiny text to scroll through. If only Terms of Services could be upgraded to: 1. A simple, plain English/local language explanation in bullet points of what the software will be doing. Like how you would explain it to your parents. 2. A link to the legalese, so that covers the legal requirements? If I recall correctly, Stripe is one company whereby the Terms of Service tries to explain things to you clearly. That's certainly a start, but this would be an interesting thing to improve on and solve. Maybe a GPT-2/GPT-3 application? Tell me simply what this block of text means?
- PaulKeeble 6y ago
  The problem is the entire point is to hide all the nefarious things they can do with your data. Plenty of open source software has really straight forward agreements based on common terms but they can do that because they aren't working out scary ways to utilise your data to make money from you.
- josefx 6y ago
  > Even a supposedly design-first-consumer-friendly company like Apple The company that actively misled consumers about the EU wide minimum two year warranty, sold it separately as extended warranty and finally placed the court mandated correction on its home page just a bit out of sight. If so called "consumer friendly" companies had to write a honest guide to social interactions it would start of with a chapter on the benefits of rape and pillaging.
- lcall 6y ago
  Yes, like we do with Creative Commons or FLOSS licenses, so you don't have any reason to read them more than once or occasionally. Whether somebody. Maybe something like the uniform commercial code, in the USA. That would be a nice contribution by some organization. Even if only some sections are standardized and others not, that would be a comparative win. Maybe an "exceptions/additions" part. Edit: also, there are some few sites I recall that summarized terms and/or pointed out problematic parts, to help someone who cared but didn't want to read them all. I might be able to hunt up (a) link(s) if desired. What I do currently is read them once, mentally note the date displayed, save them, and when they change, use a short script to make it easy to see differences (uses fmt to make lines to shorter first, and get sometimes fewer differences that way). Sometimes I have pushed back and contacted the organization, or just not used them. I wrote a bunch of complaints about this kind of thing, at my site -- it takes us further down the slippery slope of saying things we don't mean to each other, habitually, which is sadly dishonest IMO.
noname120 6y ago
Previous discussions: – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031020 (2017) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9678357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9678357 (2015) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394144 (2014) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393 (2013) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350907 (2012)
- lcall 6y ago
  Thanks. Also it seems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16885000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16885000 (2018)
II2II 6y ago
On the first day of a university course, several hundred students asked to line up and sign a two page agreement in order to access computing resources necessary for the course. When my turn came, I asked where I could read it without holding up the entire line. They were shocked that anyone would ask such a question, though they provided me a space to read over the document. If blindly signing a contract one of the first things that computer science students encounter, I'm not surprised that they simply put up those ToS without the expectation that they will be read.
- LadyCailin 6y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what happened if you declined to sign? You flunk out of the course? Reading the TOS is pointless anyways, when declining them is very problematic for you.
  - Hnrobert42 6y ago
    What you are describing is a contact of adhesion. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_%28contract_of_adhesion%29 https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_%28contrac...
  - II2II 6y ago
    I really don't know what would have happened. There was nothing worth objecting to, though it was certainly worth reading to understand the boundaries while accessing their system (i.e. it was for course use). Even if there was anything objectionable, the student may have to drop the course (rather than flunk it). Overall, I view blindly signing ToS as the foundation for the situation we see today: these agreements exist in cases where they probably should not or include terms that are increasingly detrimental to the recipient. There is a bit of a difference between outlining the rules for accessing a service and granting a service the right to sell your data or stripping away avenues for legal recourse.
    - ethbr0 6y ago
      In university, I was involved in a situation that still haunts me. We had a couple Linux servers allocated to our multi-year project design team. I ended up as de facto systems admin. One of the younger team members asked me if he could use one of the machines to compile homework for another course. Given that the machine wasn't critical, I said certainly! (Applauding his initiative) A week later, the department sys admin sends me an email, noting our server pegged cpu and men utilization briefly and asking if we required additional resources. I responded, laid out exactly what happened (omitting the student's name), thank him for the attention, and tell him we don't need anything. At which point he drops me from the email chain, writes to the professor in charge of our group (a guy doing some really interesting stuff in AUUVs, and only teaching undergrads out of the kindness of his heart), and launches into a tirade about students abusing system resources, unfair advantages, violations of the honor code, academic integrity cases, etc. After discussing it with my professor, I send the admin an email apologizing for the misunderstanding, will make sure it won't happen again, and would appreciate if he raised concerns with me first next time. To which professor receives another email about "not letting students contact him about faculty matters." My prof told me to stop emailing him, which I wisely listened to. The student's name was never shared, and no actions were taken. But my takeaway was that kid almost had his academic career (and potentially his future) trashed, because someone decided to get a bee in their bonnet over an interpretation of rules. ... As a happy ending, I happened to know the BOFH in social circles outside of academia (doubt he linked me to my school self) and subsequent to this interaction his marriage collapsed, he moved to his farm, and eventually left university and took up an in depth study of the copious and frequent application of alcohol. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy...
pitspotter 6y ago
I frequently get mails from banks and other service providers with subject lines like 'changes to our agreement'. I don't read those either. Mind you, it might be fun to send a few unilateral changes back their way, detailed in a suitably upbeat or condescending letter.
- PaulKeeble 6y ago
  A few contracts I have done in the past I got the terms through and had serious issues with so just ended up blacking out and initially it or adding in an appendix. I don't think I have ever seen a company say a thing about a unilateral change to the contract I just made without negotiation, they like most simply people sign it and accept it without reading it.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    One one contract I asked for some changes. The company said that they've dealt with hundreds of companies who agreed with the contract and didn't see why it should change. I pointed out that the contract had several places where it referred to other documents I must agree to, referenced by URL, and the linked-to documents didn't exist.
    - PaulKeeble 6y ago
      I have seen contracts that made the work I was meant to do for them impossible, that type of work wasn't allowed under the contract. The classic example is a company wanting me to work on some open source software and potentially put in patches on it but having a clause in their contract that assigns all rights to the software I produce to them. They don't often read them themselves to see if they are sensible or correct before sending them. The entire situation is really dumb, no one anywhere in the process seems to read them.
cosmodisk 6y ago
I remember reading my bank's ToS at the time I was just out of the school. I read the whole piece, printed in font size 4 and the conclusion was like this: no matter what happens, it's my fault. It doesn't matter what the TOCs are if they are presented at a gun point: a lot of services don't have alternatives and as much as I wouldn't cry for losing access to Reddit or YouTube,for some that would be the case.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tomgs 6y ago
Sidenote: This is how you properly deal with massive load on your site: https://imgur.com/a/zKMh5zg https://imgur.com/a/zKMh5zg The "checkout our twitter" thing is especially cool.
Luff 6y ago
Here's a graph showing how long it would take to read the ToS of some prominent companies: https://i.redd.it/j6cd57dbrga61.png https://i.redd.it/j6cd57dbrga61.png
Uninen 6y ago
Are there any examples of minimal human-friendly Terms Of Service texts that one could use or adopt to their own projects?
- lcall 6y ago
  I tried to make some for onemodel.org (in github, there is the file LICENSE, and CONTRIBUTING). But I did not have them reviewed by an attorney yet. But my offering is not an online service (yet); I have other thoughts stored away on that. But I've also read that attorneys can always find holes in things written by non-attorneys, so there's that.
herodotus 6y ago
Yes, this is a big problem. In fact, in May 2019, I mad a semi-serious post about it (https://notdaily.com/blog/2019/05/05/you-are-a-liar-yes-you/ https://notdaily.com/blog/2019/05/05/you-are-a-liar-yes-you/) My major concern is the normalization of lying: the craziness of "I have read and accept..." makes liars out of all of us. So I applaud the tosdr effort, but I don't believe it is addressing the real problem.
novok 6y ago
I think the compromise to TOS type things is they can only be limited to a list of house rules that you can enforce with or without an agreement, kind of like booting off a rowdy customer off of the property of your retail store. Like, ‘here are the rules’ and that is about it.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
Their scored system seems flawed. For example, both Facebook and Reddit have the same "E" score, while Facebook requires you to disclose your real identity and to link your phone, and Reddit doesn't. They are worlds away with regard to privacy.
curlyQueue 6y ago
Reputable source who goes over Instagrams latest, quick 10 min: https://youtu.be/VhSX7IzHkrE https://youtu.be/VhSX7IzHkrE
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Daho0n 6y ago
>Yep, we use cookies as well and we have to show it to you as we are based in Germany, sorry folks! Following one law and breaking another by not having a No button (only a link to duckduckgo.com under "get my out of here"). Not sure I trust someone to explain me Terms if they don't understand it themselves.
- JustinBack 6y ago
  Sorry for the confusion, the cookie notice was a fast implementation. Now, cookies will only be stored once you click the accept button. "No" will hide it for the on the current page.
rkagerer 6y ago
Educational settings are one of the worst places where insidious terms crop up. You often simply don't have a choice. I'm a volunteer firefighter and was registered by my department to take a course with a government-run institution to upgrade my certification. A while back that institution began using Blackboard - a Netherlands company - for all learning materials, whose ToS [1] includes a clause where I must agree to defend and indemnify Blackboard from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees) arising from my use of and access to their product, as well as any other party's access and use of the product with my username or password (which I contemplate could occur if Blackboard or the institution were to suffer a data breach). To read the textbook (only available online) there was a similar ToS from yet another third party. You can't access any of the material without explicitly agreeing to both contracts. I was uncomfortable with the clause. For one, I didn't understand why my interaction with my local government institution required me to indemnify two foreign companies with whom I have zero relation (and didn't want any). Before "cloud services", the institution would have contracted with the vendors themselves to buy the platform, then presented their own contract to me (which is the right way to do this, and which I'd be fine with). I deferred accepting, and reached out to the institution to find out if there was some alternative way to obtain the materials (e.g. in hardcopy). I spent months trying to find alternative arrangements, but the bottom line was nobody cared. I showed it to a commercial lawyer in the department who agreed the clause is nonsensical and he expressed some choice words for the institution foisting this upon its students. I give of my own time and volition do firefighting and rescue (and love doing so!). Nobody was paying me to take this course. In the end I wound up hitting the Accept button, with a deep feeling of having effectively been bullied into it. Compared to some of the other ToS's I've seen out there this one was comparatively mild. I can only imagine how parents must feel when such garbage finds its way into their kids' learning environments. [1] https://help.blackboard.com/Terms_of_Use https://help.blackboard.com/Terms_of_Use and https://tosdr.org/en/service/2230 https://tosdr.org/en/service/2230

188 points by hugoroy 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Ages ago I installed a shareware product. And it also had a scrollable "terms and condition" screen (about 2 pages long) when starting it for the first time. When you clicked the "I Agree" button too quickly it would ask you "Do you really agree to the terms you read in only 0.76 seconds?"

josefx 6y ago
I have seen a few that forced you to at least scroll down before unlocking the accept button or included a thirty second countdown to keep you from clicking through.
rdpintqogeogsaa 6y ago
If there is an acceptance screen anyway, is there a reason not to tie this to actually reading the terms? Please consider the following idea: The installer presents the end-user license agreement (EULA). Immediately following it, it presents a multiple-choice quiz that asks questions about core parts of the EULA, such as permissible use, cancellation, refunds, jurisdiction/arbitration. The installer then contains all the files to be installed. They are encrypted with a key that is composed of a hash value of the correct answers to the above quiz. In this way, you could tie together whether someone reads the EULA with the possibility of performing the installation at all. This, in turn, causes successful installation to act as implicit proof of having read the terms. The order of the values must be randomized to prevent transmission of correct answers by index number only.
- faeyanpiraat 6y ago
  Let me try translating this into a different scenario: You are at home, and want to go shopping. Your door only lets you out if you correctly answer some questions about the most recent changes in the law of your state. Are you not a lawyer? Well tough luck, order your groceries trough Amazon then..
  - phonon 6y ago
    “The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.” ― Philip K. Dick, Ubik
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The idea behind a checkbox is that it’s an affirmative. You are stating that you did read them. And as long as that checkbox was unchecked when you opened the page, that’s enough. However, your idea of an installer is novel. The problem is that it adds friction to the install process than would turn many users away.
Moru 6y ago
My favourites are the boxed games that comes with "If you break the seal you agree to our terms that you can read inside the box" style of agreements. Those are ofcourse not valid though so not a problem.
PaulKeeble 6y ago
The problem is more that every single piece of software and website and such did this and required you actually read it you would get nothing done all day but read agreements. I think the issue is the very need for all these agreements to begin with, we all know almost no one reads them. I did for a while in the beginning but now its just too much.
dstick 6y ago
That’s indeed a fun implementation. Most of my shareware memories consist of dark patterns and purple gorillas.

absolutelyrad 6y ago

Thought experiment: can we have a standard TOS for centralized services? Building the next Facebook? Legally bind yourself that you'll always provide API access and this right cannot ever be taken away to the extent permitted by the law. Maybe we need a standardization for centralized service TOS like MIT/GPL etc are for OSS. So people can decide more easily which centralized services to use.

joshka 6y ago
I was thinking something similar the other day, but rather than a fully standard TOS, where I get to is that we need standard atomic pieces of contracts and TOS docs. For instance in the language in the definitions part about who the customer is, who the business is should be {common:customer-is-you, common:business-is-mybusinessname} or a part that talks about not using other customer's login information. Etc. Why should we have to read every single line when it's mostly the same? DRY the TOS.
- joshka 6y ago
  Looks like someone actually started doing some of this already: is https://stonecutters.law/ https://stonecutters.law/

ourmandave 6y ago

Then the second biggest lie is: We use cookies to give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume you are happy with it. [Ok] [No] [Privacy Policy] Actual text from the www.gdpr.eu cookie consent pop-up. =)

itronitron 6y ago
I always thought "We value your privacy" was the biggest lie on the internet.
- dest 6y ago
  or the most cynical statement
- Simon_says 6y ago
  They value it. Here's how much: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-valuable-of-any-social-network.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/11/reddit-users-are-the-least-v...
soylentgraham 6y ago
The biggest confusion I have with the modern web is why these cookie agreements never remember that Ive agreed to them before. I wouldn't mind being tracked so much if... they could identify that I've agreed to being tracked on the 7 websites I visit 1000 times before.
- PaulKeeble 6y ago
  If this was being handled honestly and straight forwardly this would just be a preference set in the browser they complied with. Then someone who was never accept could just be that way, someone else could always accept and others could choose once for each site. But then we had that with headers and such and we all know they just ignored it, because the entire point is to steal the data as often as they can.
  - 6y ago

gorgoiler 6y ago

If a website knows I didn't really read a contract, can they claim I am bound by it? I like to hope that the time-spent-reading is logged somewhere. Should it come up in court, Website.com would be required to disclose their logs which would show that I spent all of 1.35s reading their terms and conditions, most of which was spent scrolling. Another puerile hack of mine is to sign a document with the name "I do not agree" and then press accept, and see if they agreed to let me use the service anyway.

stunt 6y ago
Yes, as long as they make it a required step. It's your fault if you choose to not read it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nerdponx 6y ago
  I am curious if there is any legal doctrine on this in any part of the world.
  - wolco5 6y ago
    You could skip steps on some systems, put in null values, click yes get the next link and remove approval. There is no legal requirement you agree to use the service. The system may prevent access but that's not a legal requirement.
  - 13415 6y ago
    In most EU countries ToS are pretty much void anyway because they tend to contain frivolous or illegal clauses. For example, a ToS is void in the EU that limits the consumer's rights for legal action in any way. Here is a list of unfair contract terms that will likely cause an EULA or ToS to have no legal binding at all: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treatment/unfair-contract-terms/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/unfair-treat...
  - 6y ago

Vinnl 6y ago

The team recently did an AMA on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/kogsuw/we_are_terms_of_service_didnt_read_ask_us_anything/ https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/kogsuw/we_are_term...

stunt 6y ago

I think we need some universal standards for ToS. The same way we have some visual rating signs for movies and video games. Most of it should be regular and easy to categories. And there should be a separate rating for how many irregular terms are in there.

faeyanpiraat 6y ago
Yes, this is great. Similar to how app permissions work on iOs.
dwighttk 6y ago
Yeah let the lawyers argue over what the pictures mean and let us normals just have little pictures.
1ncorrect 6y ago
I’ve been chewing on an idea for a while around programmatically handling license agreements, basically each clause is checked atomically, with flow logic as necessary. You could have a personal profile, possibly multiple, of things you’ve decided to accept or reject beforehand, and the anomalous clauses would be presented as a list to review. Providers would have an incentive to reduce the friction by limiting scope to what’s actually required, not just what they want. With wide enough support, a couple of benefits would be nefarious and malicious components would get highlighted quickly, and it could serve as a feedback channel from consumers to suppliers on why an agreement was rejected. Ultimately, the power dynamic needs to be recalibrated.
- byecomputer 6y ago
  So the idea is a form with a checklist?
  - 1ncorrect 6y ago
    That’s one major function it would provide if clauses were included which weren’t covered by the pre-populated profile. A core component would be standardising clauses so they could be handled individually and automatically. If you’ve already answered the clause, and the parameters (time spans, quantities) were within the range you’d set, it would be ‘green’ and could be hidden. Clauses which you had answered but are outside your criteria would be ‘amber’, and unanswered clauses would be ‘red’. As you process more agreements, your can save answers to your profile so the process becomes more optimised over time.

forgingahead 6y ago

It's all farcical, but it's pervasive because of the lawyers I guess. Even a supposedly design-first-consumer-friendly company like Apple has walls of tiny text to scroll through. If only Terms of Services could be upgraded to: 1. A simple, plain English/local language explanation in bullet points of what the software will be doing. Like how you would explain it to your parents. 2. A link to the legalese, so that covers the legal requirements? If I recall correctly, Stripe is one company whereby the Terms of Service tries to explain things to you clearly. That's certainly a start, but this would be an interesting thing to improve on and solve. Maybe a GPT-2/GPT-3 application? Tell me simply what this block of text means?

PaulKeeble 6y ago
The problem is the entire point is to hide all the nefarious things they can do with your data. Plenty of open source software has really straight forward agreements based on common terms but they can do that because they aren't working out scary ways to utilise your data to make money from you.
josefx 6y ago
> Even a supposedly design-first-consumer-friendly company like Apple The company that actively misled consumers about the EU wide minimum two year warranty, sold it separately as extended warranty and finally placed the court mandated correction on its home page just a bit out of sight. If so called "consumer friendly" companies had to write a honest guide to social interactions it would start of with a chapter on the benefits of rape and pillaging.
lcall 6y ago
Yes, like we do with Creative Commons or FLOSS licenses, so you don't have any reason to read them more than once or occasionally. Whether somebody. Maybe something like the uniform commercial code, in the USA. That would be a nice contribution by some organization. Even if only some sections are standardized and others not, that would be a comparative win. Maybe an "exceptions/additions" part. Edit: also, there are some few sites I recall that summarized terms and/or pointed out problematic parts, to help someone who cared but didn't want to read them all. I might be able to hunt up (a) link(s) if desired. What I do currently is read them once, mentally note the date displayed, save them, and when they change, use a short script to make it easy to see differences (uses fmt to make lines to shorter first, and get sometimes fewer differences that way). Sometimes I have pushed back and contacted the organization, or just not used them. I wrote a bunch of complaints about this kind of thing, at my site -- it takes us further down the slippery slope of saying things we don't mean to each other, habitually, which is sadly dishonest IMO.

noname120 6y ago

Previous discussions: – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031020 (2017) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9678357 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9678357 (2015) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8394144 (2014) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393 (2013) – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350907 (2012)

lcall 6y ago
Thanks. Also it seems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16885000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16885000 (2018)

II2II 6y ago

On the first day of a university course, several hundred students asked to line up and sign a two page agreement in order to access computing resources necessary for the course. When my turn came, I asked where I could read it without holding up the entire line. They were shocked that anyone would ask such a question, though they provided me a space to read over the document. If blindly signing a contract one of the first things that computer science students encounter, I'm not surprised that they simply put up those ToS without the expectation that they will be read.

LadyCailin 6y ago
Just out of curiosity, what happened if you declined to sign? You flunk out of the course? Reading the TOS is pointless anyways, when declining them is very problematic for you.
- Hnrobert42 6y ago
  What you are describing is a contact of adhesion. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_%28contract_of_adhesion%29 https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_%28contrac...
- II2II 6y ago
  I really don't know what would have happened. There was nothing worth objecting to, though it was certainly worth reading to understand the boundaries while accessing their system (i.e. it was for course use). Even if there was anything objectionable, the student may have to drop the course (rather than flunk it). Overall, I view blindly signing ToS as the foundation for the situation we see today: these agreements exist in cases where they probably should not or include terms that are increasingly detrimental to the recipient. There is a bit of a difference between outlining the rules for accessing a service and granting a service the right to sell your data or stripping away avenues for legal recourse.
  - ethbr0 6y ago
    In university, I was involved in a situation that still haunts me. We had a couple Linux servers allocated to our multi-year project design team. I ended up as de facto systems admin. One of the younger team members asked me if he could use one of the machines to compile homework for another course. Given that the machine wasn't critical, I said certainly! (Applauding his initiative) A week later, the department sys admin sends me an email, noting our server pegged cpu and men utilization briefly and asking if we required additional resources. I responded, laid out exactly what happened (omitting the student's name), thank him for the attention, and tell him we don't need anything. At which point he drops me from the email chain, writes to the professor in charge of our group (a guy doing some really interesting stuff in AUUVs, and only teaching undergrads out of the kindness of his heart), and launches into a tirade about students abusing system resources, unfair advantages, violations of the honor code, academic integrity cases, etc. After discussing it with my professor, I send the admin an email apologizing for the misunderstanding, will make sure it won't happen again, and would appreciate if he raised concerns with me first next time. To which professor receives another email about "not letting students contact him about faculty matters." My prof told me to stop emailing him, which I wisely listened to. The student's name was never shared, and no actions were taken. But my takeaway was that kid almost had his academic career (and potentially his future) trashed, because someone decided to get a bee in their bonnet over an interpretation of rules. ... As a happy ending, I happened to know the BOFH in social circles outside of academia (doubt he linked me to my school self) and subsequent to this interaction his marriage collapsed, he moved to his farm, and eventually left university and took up an in depth study of the copious and frequent application of alcohol. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy...

pitspotter 6y ago

I frequently get mails from banks and other service providers with subject lines like 'changes to our agreement'. I don't read those either. Mind you, it might be fun to send a few unilateral changes back their way, detailed in a suitably upbeat or condescending letter.

PaulKeeble 6y ago
A few contracts I have done in the past I got the terms through and had serious issues with so just ended up blacking out and initially it or adding in an appendix. I don't think I have ever seen a company say a thing about a unilateral change to the contract I just made without negotiation, they like most simply people sign it and accept it without reading it.
- eesmith 6y ago
  One one contract I asked for some changes. The company said that they've dealt with hundreds of companies who agreed with the contract and didn't see why it should change. I pointed out that the contract had several places where it referred to other documents I must agree to, referenced by URL, and the linked-to documents didn't exist.
  - PaulKeeble 6y ago
    I have seen contracts that made the work I was meant to do for them impossible, that type of work wasn't allowed under the contract. The classic example is a company wanting me to work on some open source software and potentially put in patches on it but having a clause in their contract that assigns all rights to the software I produce to them. They don't often read them themselves to see if they are sensible or correct before sending them. The entire situation is really dumb, no one anywhere in the process seems to read them.

cosmodisk 6y ago

I remember reading my bank's ToS at the time I was just out of the school. I read the whole piece, printed in font size 4 and the conclusion was like this: no matter what happens, it's my fault. It doesn't matter what the TOCs are if they are presented at a gun point: a lot of services don't have alternatives and as much as I wouldn't cry for losing access to Reddit or YouTube,for some that would be the case.

deleted 6y ago
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tomgs 6y ago

Sidenote: This is how you properly deal with massive load on your site: https://imgur.com/a/zKMh5zg https://imgur.com/a/zKMh5zg The "checkout our twitter" thing is especially cool.

Luff 6y ago

Here's a graph showing how long it would take to read the ToS of some prominent companies: https://i.redd.it/j6cd57dbrga61.png https://i.redd.it/j6cd57dbrga61.png

Uninen 6y ago

Are there any examples of minimal human-friendly Terms Of Service texts that one could use or adopt to their own projects?

lcall 6y ago
I tried to make some for onemodel.org (in github, there is the file LICENSE, and CONTRIBUTING). But I did not have them reviewed by an attorney yet. But my offering is not an online service (yet); I have other thoughts stored away on that. But I've also read that attorneys can always find holes in things written by non-attorneys, so there's that.

herodotus 6y ago

Yes, this is a big problem. In fact, in May 2019, I mad a semi-serious post about it (https://notdaily.com/blog/2019/05/05/you-are-a-liar-yes-you/ https://notdaily.com/blog/2019/05/05/you-are-a-liar-yes-you/) My major concern is the normalization of lying: the craziness of "I have read and accept..." makes liars out of all of us. So I applaud the tosdr effort, but I don't believe it is addressing the real problem.

novok 6y ago

I think the compromise to TOS type things is they can only be limited to a list of house rules that you can enforce with or without an agreement, kind of like booting off a rowdy customer off of the property of your retail store. Like, ‘here are the rules’ and that is about it.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago

Their scored system seems flawed. For example, both Facebook and Reddit have the same "E" score, while Facebook requires you to disclose your real identity and to link your phone, and Reddit doesn't. They are worlds away with regard to privacy.

curlyQueue 6y ago

Reputable source who goes over Instagrams latest, quick 10 min: https://youtu.be/VhSX7IzHkrE https://youtu.be/VhSX7IzHkrE

deleted 6y ago

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Daho0n 6y ago

>Yep, we use cookies as well and we have to show it to you as we are based in Germany, sorry folks! Following one law and breaking another by not having a No button (only a link to duckduckgo.com under "get my out of here"). Not sure I trust someone to explain me Terms if they don't understand it themselves.

JustinBack 6y ago
Sorry for the confusion, the cookie notice was a fast implementation. Now, cookies will only be stored once you click the accept button. "No" will hide it for the on the current page.

rkagerer 6y ago

Educational settings are one of the worst places where insidious terms crop up. You often simply don't have a choice. I'm a volunteer firefighter and was registered by my department to take a course with a government-run institution to upgrade my certification. A while back that institution began using Blackboard - a Netherlands company - for all learning materials, whose ToS [1] includes a clause where I must agree to defend and indemnify Blackboard from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees) arising from my use of and access to their product, as well as any other party's access and use of the product with my username or password (which I contemplate could occur if Blackboard or the institution were to suffer a data breach). To read the textbook (only available online) there was a similar ToS from yet another third party. You can't access any of the material without explicitly agreeing to both contracts. I was uncomfortable with the clause. For one, I didn't understand why my interaction with my local government institution required me to indemnify two foreign companies with whom I have zero relation (and didn't want any). Before "cloud services", the institution would have contracted with the vendors themselves to buy the platform, then presented their own contract to me (which is the right way to do this, and which I'd be fine with). I deferred accepting, and reached out to the institution to find out if there was some alternative way to obtain the materials (e.g. in hardcopy). I spent months trying to find alternative arrangements, but the bottom line was nobody cared. I showed it to a commercial lawyer in the department who agreed the clause is nonsensical and he expressed some choice words for the institution foisting this upon its students. I give of my own time and volition do firefighting and rescue (and love doing so!). Nobody was paying me to take this course. In the end I wound up hitting the Accept button, with a deep feeling of having effectively been bullied into it. Compared to some of the other ToS's I've seen out there this one was comparatively mild. I can only imagine how parents must feel when such garbage finds its way into their kids' learning environments. [1] https://help.blackboard.com/Terms_of_Use https://help.blackboard.com/Terms_of_Use and https://tosdr.org/en/service/2230 https://tosdr.org/en/service/2230