
My Heroic and Lazy Stand Against IFTTT - firloop
https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/03/my_heroic_and_lazy_stand_against_ifttt/
======
msbarnett
> 11\. Compatibility. Each Licensee Channel must maintain 100% compatibility
> with the Developer Tool and the Service including changes provided to you by
> IFTTT, which shall be implemented in each Channel promptly thereafter.

> 17.This Agreement is personal to Licensee and may not be assigned or
> transferred for any reason [...]. IFTTT expressly reserves the right to
> assign this Agreement and to delegate any of its obligations hereunder.

Any developer signing this agreement is nuts.

~~~
hyperhopper
I'm surprised that a majority must have signed already, for them to actually
make the switch.

Hopefully this costs them a lot of buisiness and they have to revert.

~~~
fenomas
The author noted in the comments that nobody signs it, it's a passive "By
using our developer site you agree.." agreement.

~~~
jonny_eh
Are those even enforceable?

~~~
kybernetyk
Do you have the funds to defend yourself in such a lawsuit?

------
klenwell
_If you 've never heard of it, If-This-Then-That is a service that lets you
connect websites together, so that things that happen in one place
automatically trigger some regrettable action someplace else. For example, you
might write an IFTTT ‘recipe’ that tweets anything you post on Facebook,
because you are a monster._

I'd heard of it (I may have even signed up with it at some point), but this
has to be the best explanation of IFTTT I've come across.

~~~
hkmurakami
Maciej is a fabulous writer with a deft mix of wry, self-deprecating wit and
precise expressions.

If you aren't familiar with his writing, you'd likely enjoy "Dabblers and
Blowhards"
[http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm](http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm)

~~~
eru
Or my favourite:
[http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_t...](http://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm)

~~~
CPLX
WTF did I just read? I think it was genius but I'm not entirely sure.

~~~
readams
You are correct. It is genius. On the other hand...

------
lindentibbets
I am the CEO over at IFTTT. I apologize for any misunderstanding our
communications today have caused. I built the Pinboard Channel on IFTTT and
have maintained it for years. I am also a paying customer of Pinboard! I’ve
built for hundreds of platforms and any changes to those platforms by default
suck. At IFTTT, we've been on the receiving end of platform changes too many
times to count. I want to make sure we do it better. Pinboard is a beloved
service. Every service is, on IFTTT or not. We care about the people who use
them and build them. The changes we are asking for are indeed more work, but
we know they will lead to a better Pinboard Channel on IFTTT in the long term.
I'd love to see Pinboard stay on IFTTT and am willing to give them the time
they need and even come over to help myself!

~~~
swanson
My hobby: role-playing how I would respond as the CEO if my company was
getting skewered on HN. Here is my version!

\---

I am [not] the CEO over at IFTTT. We messed up. Big time.

Pinboard -- and other services developers love -- played an important role in
our success thus far and we dropped the ball with the roll-out of our new
platform. We have a shared incentive: to make channels work reliably for our
end-users. To both stabilize existing channels and to allow new services to
connect to IFTTT, we are publishing documention for a standard API that any
new channels will need to conform to.

Going forward, we will be allowing existing channels to run on the legacy
platform. Additionally, we will be reviewing our ToS to clarify out intent.
We're not keen on legalese, but it is part of the game when doing integrations
between third parties.

To maciej, I've reached out personally via email to apologize for the unclear
messaging to our users. If you would like to give us a chance to make things
right, we would be grateful and happy to help resolve any other outstanding
issues.

~~~
Asparagirl
I think your hobby could be a MVP for the first CAaaS -- CEO Apologies As A
Service.

(If you act fast, Theranos could be your first Enterprise customer.)

~~~
alanh
Funny! Now for a business name... "Palms Up, Inc."? Or maybe just "Public
Relations LLC."

~~~
mud_dauber
Sorry.co....

------
esperluette
I agree that this is dumb of IFTTT.

But I am all in favor of a 'recipe' that consists of "startup does dumb
stuff=>Maciej writes a hilarious takedown=>I LOL so hard people ask me what's
going on from two rooms away". Can someone implement the API for that, please?

~~~
dasil003
Comedy is one of the great things in life that just wasn't meant to scale.

~~~
SN76477
Deep man, deep...

------
JoshTriplett
I hadn't seen Botize before. In structure and capabilities, it looks a lot
more promising to me than either IFTTT or Zapier (for instance, it supports
maintaining lists and adding/selecting data from them), except that half the
site seems to be localized to Spanish and doesn't seem to have an option
anywhere to change the site language.

~~~
idlewords
I think it's just some fellow in Spain who's about to have a really busy week.

~~~
handelaar
If memory serves that's pretty much how pinboard.in got launched into the air
a few years back, so it'd certainly be poetic. Nice of you to pass it on :)

------
erichocean
It would be easier to support IFTTT on this if the proposed APIs to be
implemented were public. But making the APIs private and then being a dick
about it with all the legal threats isn't something that I can reasonably
support.

I doubt I'm alone in thinking this way.

~~~
lindentibbets
We fully intend to make the APIs public, but are working with existing
partners to implement. We are trying to be flexible and understanding, also
are not throwing legal threats :)

~~~
athenot
So you "intent" to eventually make the APIs public but hold your partners to
the gun and shut them off if they don't meet all your demands (ToS, new API
dev).

What I'm hearing is you want partners to trust your intents but you don't
trust any of theirs—as evidenced by the terms of service that is _required_
and binding. The "not throwing legal threats" part comes off very hollow in
that context.

If you did trust your partners, you'd make a new API _alongside_ the current
setup, and it would be so awesome that people would switch on their own. But
as others already pointed out, it seems the value in the new API is self-
serving and is inexistent for your partners.

I'm all for collaboration but I suspect you are trying to build a moat around
your business and make a ubiquitous platform. I sincerely hope this backfires.

------
astrostl
I love to support this guy. As great as the product is, his communication is
even better.

[https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/11/new_pricing_policy/](https://blog.pinboard.in/2014/11/new_pricing_policy/)
\- "Should I be worried? -> Only in the broadest, existential sense."

------
meesterdude
I was going to integrate my app with IFTTT, but after reading this post, as
well as the responses from the CEO in this thread, there is no way I will ever
in a million years integrate with IFTTT.

I think its an interesting train-wreck to take note of. And it is clearly a
reflection of the CEO, who has consistently misunderstood or ignored the true
complaints people have about this new direction, while half-apologizing for
terms and blaming "communication" on terms that place absurd expectations on
companies that IFTTT chose to integrate with, and now wants to reverse the
roles of.

Meanwhile, maciej is doing everything right. Communicating with his users
about what is actually going on (instead of lying to them as IFTTT has done),
and doing so in a thoughtful and playful piece of writing.

Time will tell how this plays out. But I think if IFTTT's moral compass is
willing to let this go public, if they think this is/was an actual good idea,
their days are numbered. The PR around this change alone was horribly
executed, in addition to the change itself being a big middle finger. Neither
speaks to an understanding of their users or sites they depend on to integrate
with.

IFTTT would be NOTHING without any other services to integrate with, and they
chose to throw them under the bus.

You had a chance, IFTTT. But you revealed your colors, and now you don't.

~~~
lindentibbets
Really sorry to hear it, but appreciate the feedback. We are working to
address concerns across the board regarding ToS and communication. I'd be more
than happy to hop on a call to address if you want shoot me an email, my first
name at ifttt.com

------
smelendez
> 4\. Confidentiality You agree not to disclose (or allow access to) the
> Developer Tool (or any information derived therefrom) to any third party and
> will limit access to the Developer Tool (and any derived information) to
> your employees who are developing your IFTTT channel. In support of this
> obligation, you will apply at least the same security that you use to
> protect your own most confidential information.

Did anyone seriously think this through? What about companies that have among
their "most confidential information" data, like passwords, crypto keys,
confidential memos, etc., that they'd never store on an Internet-connected
machine?

------
gergles
Thank you for the recommendations for replacement services. I emailed you
about this - and I'm glad you publicly responded, because I smelled something
weird in the way the IFTTT email was worded. Very disappointed to hear it was
what appears to be pretty shady on their part.

------
dmerrick
Depending on when the channel was introduced, the backend implementation of a
channel can vary wildly. Some were written in Node, others in Ruby, some where
written internally, others were written by the service owners.

When IFTTT released the developer platform, they were solving two needs: 1)
creating a consistent channel infrastructure, and 2) providing a tool for
developers to write channels so they don't have to.

It seems like they are shutting down some of their legacy services, which is
probably a good plan for a company with no revenue stream. Not a good plan,
however, to make it look like it is the developers' fault.

~~~
Etheryte
Shutting down legacy APIs may be a good idea, however the way they want to
make the new API happen is completely bonkers.

------
rememberlenny
I went through the IFTTT integration process a while back. I created a
platform for indexing street art and made a service that can return nearby
street art, when given a lat/lon point.

When I first got contacted about the IFTTT channel, I was excited. After
realizing how much of my application endpoint I was going to need to rewrite,
it became a task I kept putting on the back burner.

In my mind, the process of integration is being done well. It just requires a
lot of lift for individuals who are the only developer on a project that
already feels like it has a never ending list of tasks.

------
chris_wot
Isn't this similar to the shit Twitter pulled on developers?

It's funny - nowadays people don't go along with stupidity like this. They
just call the bluff of the business doing the strong arming and drop their
support for their platform.

Seriously, if IFTTT want to force people do craploads of work for no real
payoff, best of luck to them. I do hope most folks won't play along though.
And those license terms? Yeah, best of luck with that. I wouldn't use them
either!

------
makenova
I applied to IFTTT about a year ago (didn't get the job), part of the
interview process was to develop a channel on their developer platform. I
don't consider my self a fast developer but it wasn't difficult and it took me
about a weekend of casual work. Maciej is well within his rights to flip IFTTT
the bird, but I just wanted to provide some context about how much work is
involved.

~~~
idlewords
I agree that implementing a simple API endpoint is easy.

Running that endpoint is not easy. Once it's live, you're dealing with an
entangled system of API, user, network, database, server, full moon, voodoo
curse, and God knows what else. It's a giant flaming tumbleweed of pain.

Clearly IFTTT agrees, and that's why they're trying to make us do it for them.

~~~
makenova
You're absolutely right. I will not try to compare what I did to pinboard. I
still have the channel running on a DigitalOcean box and even though the
service is simple and stable, I still have to fiddle with it once in a while.
I only keep it running because it's valuable... to me.

------
snowwrestler
> The developer terms of service don't seem to be available by a public URL,
> so I will quote the bits that stung me. I invite IFTTT lawyers to send me a
> takedown notice, because that will be the funniest part of this fracas so
> far.

Fun fact: legal language is not protected by copyright and can be copied,
modified, republished, or reused.

~~~
SEMW
> Fun fact: legal language is not protected by copyright

With respect: are you a lawyer?

I'm not, but all the sources I can find written by actual lawyers put this
claim somewhere between 'wildly oversimplified' and 'false', depending on
jurisdiction and the kind of legal language (contracts vs legislation, etc.).

Eg for US law, [0] quotes Nimmer on Copyrights § 2.18[E] as stating that
‘There appear to be no valid grounds why legal forms such as contracts,
insurance policies, pleadings and other legal documents should not be
protected under the law of copyright.’

[0] [http://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-
NYLJ-8.23.0...](http://www.adamsdrafting.com/downloads/Copyright-
NYLJ-8.23.06.pdf)

~~~
snowwrestler
I am not, but I have been previously advised on this topic by lawyers who
specialize in IP.

Of course, your mileage may vary and my comments on the Internet should not be
construed as legal advice for your specific situation.

Edit to add: The advice I received was in the context of contracts, privacy
policies, and terms of service. I don't know about, and didn't mean to
include, legal language in legislation or court filings. Important
clarification--thanks.

------
voltagex_
I'd spend money on a Yahoo Pipes + IFTTT solution with some kind of guarantee
they're not going to vanish overnight. You know, like a Pinboard.in style
company. I think we need to clone Maciej.

~~~
AnkhMorporkian
What we need is a common interchange protocol, not a specific service.

~~~
voltagex_
I don't think you're going to get it. It's the same issue with instant
messaging now. There's a business incentive _not_ to allow interoperability.

Common interchange of what, though? IFTTT's utility came through connecting
disparate services - Reddit to Pinboard, Twitter to Facebook and so on.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> Common interchange of what, though?

Common interchange of schemeless data. Take data from here, put there.

Pushing JSON blobs around, essentially.

~~~
voltagex_
Isn't that what HTTP POST/PUT is for? GET for pull?

~~~
toomuchtodo
HTTP POST/PUT/GET are underlying primitives for these automation systems,
which are essentially polished messaging buses.

------
nickspacek
I have to admit I use IFTTT to take an RSS feed from our kid's elementary
school and post the entries to a Facebook Fan Page. The idea being to avoid
having to teach my wife to use an RSS reader, now she (and another hundred or
so people) get the school news without leaving Facebook.

I feel conflicted in some ways but pragmatism wins. Anyone know a non-IFTTT
way to set this up?

~~~
timv
Zapier has a published _zap_ (I hate that name...) that supposedly does just
that:

[https://zapier.com/zapbook/zaps/39/share-new-blog-posts-
to-y...](https://zapier.com/zapbook/zaps/39/share-new-blog-posts-to-your-
facebook-page/)

I offer no personal endorsement, and have no idea whether it would work for
you.

------
ksenzee
IFTTT has acted throughout as if they were doing Maciej a favor by letting him
implement their API, which makes no sense at all. But! According to
zacwest[1], the access they're offering him to their "platform" costs $3000 if
you walk in off the street.

So not only are they trying to get people to do IFTTT's work for them, they're
trying to get people to pay for the privilege of doing IFTTT's work for them.
I'm, er, impressed.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/zacwest/status/714861944465809408](https://twitter.com/zacwest/status/714861944465809408)

------
fiatjaf
Couldn't IFTTT just use the public APIs already offered by the sites?

~~~
frakkingcylons
That's what they're doing at the moment. I'm guessing IFTTT believe that they
have become important enough to get the sites to integrate with IFTTT.

------
jdcarter
I want to make a correction about the patent bit. Maciej says:

> And they assert the right to patent any clever ideas I have while doing that
> free work for them, even though I hate software patents:

The relevant bit of the IFTTT TOS:

> 12\. Patent License. Licensee hereby grants IFTTT a nonexclusive,
> sublicensable, perpetual, fully-paid, worldwide license to fully exercise
> and exploit all patent rights with respect to improvements or extensions
> created by or for Licensee to the API

They're not trying to _patent_ your work, they're saying that you grant them a
_license_ to any patents you might get that relate to your IFTTT integration.
In other words, a developer cannot create an integration for IFTTT, patent
something in there, then turn around and sue IFTTT for patent infringement.
This is pretty standard language in software licenses/contracts/terms of
service.

------
seanalltogether
Can someone elaborate more on the "Working for Free" section? I'm not well
versed in IFTTT, but shouldn't I as the owner of a website that wants to offer
a recipe be responsible for the details that recipe? This is all very unclear
without specific examples.

~~~
msbarnett
The site doesn't provide recipes, it provides endpoints (API calls) that users
can write recipes to use.

How it worked until now:

1) IFTTT wrote glue code to interface with a site's published API, and IFTTT
could then write recipes to use the site. IFTTT thus stitched together other
sites published APIs as a service.

How IFTTT has decided it will work from now on:

1) IFTTT comes to you and orders you to write private endpoint(s) that do X,
Y, and Z. They reserve the right to ask for additional endpoints, different
call results, or anything else they dream up down the road. You sign a legal
agreement promising to ask "how high?" any time they say "jump". You will not
be compensated for this privilege.

~~~
dave2000
Wouldn't you be performing this work because you believe it will facilitate
the transfer of traffic to your site? Aren't you comitting to make changes as
and when ifttt change their API so that you can continue to receive their
calls? Sites/services can just walk away if they don't want the traffic. No
one's obliged to pay or do anything they don't want to.

~~~
tptacek
I think the subtlety that's not evident from these comments is that Maciej
didn't solicit IFTTT integration to begin with. In fact, as I recall it, IFTTT
did a hacky integration that misused Pinboard's authentication, and Maciej had
to help them correct that.

Later, after putting a bizarre legal agreement in front of him to sign, IFTTT
announced that Pinboard would stop working on their service in a manner that
made it sound an awful lot like Maciej had just decided to stop supporting
IFTTT. In reality, all the agency in this relationship belonged to IFTTT.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If they actually succeed at that, it's gonna be a laughing season. Every time
a company does something and becomes widely successful, their methods are then
recommended on business trainings, startup conferences, etc. So if IFTTT
actually manages to subdue many services this way, you can expect other
startups to think they can build business out of a) hooking up to your service
without your knowledge, and b) telling you you're supposed to become their
customer now.

~~~
r00fus
Isn't that the Yelp business model? They're notorious for calling up
businesses (mainly restaurants) and then offering the business a way to pay to
remove negative comments on Yelp (there was a case where some were entered by
a Yelp employee!)

It's essentially the "protection/promotion" model.

~~~
steveax
That's a nice restaurant you have there... it'd be a shame if something
happened to it.

------
voltagex_
Thanks Maciej.

------
Jgrubb
> I am all for glue services, big and small. But it's better for the web that
> they connect to stable, documented, public APIs, rather than custom private
> ones.

This is the clincher for me. I spent about 15 minutes looking around IFTTT
before figuring out that there _were_ no developer docs because this is a
service for enterprise customers, not for us.

------
ksk
It seems like more and more companies' business model simply involves setting
up a "toll booth" on the internet.

~~~
vijayr
Big companies might get away with toll booths - how about small ones like
IFTTT? There are alternatives, these services are not _absolutely necessary_
(like payment processing or hosting) etc etc. It is in their own interest not
to screw people over. There will always be someone else to take their place.

------
OliverJones
How many times, dear colleagues, do we have to be reminded of this truth?

If you don't pay for the product, you are the product.

~~~
icebraining
How much did you pay to post your message?

------
applecore
Is there an open API standard for exposing a web service to IFTTT, Zapier, or
other app connectors?

------
williamscales
Something is wrong with your cert

~~~
idlewords
Some other people are saying they've seen Chrome complain, but I can't
reproduce it. Please send email (support@pinboard.in) if you can figure out
what's up.

~~~
yuhong
Incorrect certificate chain. When you moved to SHA2 certs, you failed to
change the intermediates to the "Gandi Standard SSL CA 2" ones.

~~~
pbarnes_1
1 s:/C=FR/ST=Paris/L=Paris/O=Gandi/CN=Gandi Standard SSL CA 2 i:/C=US/ST=New
Jersey/L=Jersey City/O=The USERTRUST Network/CN=USERTrust RSA Certification
Authority

Nope...?

~~~
yuhong
Yes, this is the correct intermediate.

~~~
pbarnes_1
Ah, his blog.pinboard.in and pinboard.in configs are different.

@idlewords:
[http://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/gandi_sha2_intermediate_cer...](http://charlieharvey.org.uk/page/gandi_sha2_intermediate_cert_ssl_tls)

Are you putting the chain certs in the SSLCertificateChainFile file, and not
concating them to the SSLCertificateFile?

------
jwise0
HN meta: I'm sort of disappointed that this has been getting downvoted.

Obviously, what Linden is saying in this case is probably not helping his
business case. It's clear to me that he either does not understand why Maciej
doesn't want to implement a private API, or does not wish to understand it.

On the other hand, neither of those things are grounds for a downvote, I
think. A downvote says "this content shouldn't be on HN" \-- that there's
something about a comment that detracts from how the community operates.
Linden has been completely respectful in what he says and how he says it.
Maybe that's not the case in what he's asking his users to do, but we may as
well let him ask.

~~~
icebraining
_A downvote says "this content shouldn't be on HN"_

Ehh, I'm not sure that's generally accepted. A few years back pg himself did
say downvotes could be used for showing simple disagreement, and many people
seem to agree even today.

~~~
sam_goody
If people use downvotes to show disagreement, than HN is sunk. No-one likes
downvotes, and it will create a community where people only post those
comments that they think everyone will agree with. Instead, downvotes should
only be sed to highlight comments that should never have been made.

~~~
toyg
Dude, that ship sailed some time ago. And I say this as someone who agrees
with the HN "mob" on most things. The hardcore libertarian-randist opinions
you'd see relatively often around here have all but disappeared.

------
draw_down
Well, that's stupid of them.

------
juancampa
Ridiculous!

------
ajarmst
We really do need some standard unicode glyphs for 'mic drop' and 'awed
silence'.

------
disposeofnick9
A startup becomes uncool when it starts driving code churn as a _value
reducer_ ostensibly as "new value," but instead alienates their vendors and
customers alike. IFTTT reminds me of the audicity of Hillary Clinton assuming
she's already the next president while avoiding releasing those damaging
Goldman Sachs transcripts (where her boilerplate contracts require a
stenographer, and an attendee describes the tone of one speeches as that of
her acting like a managing director cheerleading the troops). Or maybe the
Drumpf's endless list of bankrupt companies and bringing meat from the grocery
store to prove nothing. Oops. Edit: Anyhow, I'll move my weather warning texts
over to a service that doesn't molest its developer partners without their
consent. Thanks IFTTT, here's your mixtapes back.

------
gexla
Isn't much of the legal stuff just a way to cover their tails?

For example, the bit about owning content. Do they really want your content?
Is content on the internet worth anything these days? If your content is worth
something, it's likely the Google ranking which gives it value rather than the
content itself.

I imagine that's just an attempt to keep people from suing over reproducing
content to go over the pipes.

PEDRAGOSA V. GOOGLE SPAIN, S.L. - Google got sued for reproducing content in
various ways in search results. The case went in Google's favor but the legal
costs for this sort of thing is probably a killer for services which don't
have that GOOG ticker symbol.

The "no competition" bit seems like it's meant to keep people from using IFTTT
developer tools as part of their own competing service.

Why bother reading the legal stuff? It likely won't ever come up to affect
you. There is some risk, but the opportunity cost of taking the time to go
through it is probably greater. I imagine most of the world population doesn't
have the comprehension ability to understand what they are reading anyways.
You might as well just stop using the internet rather than trying to make
sense of the legal stuff.

~~~
timv
> _Isn 't much of the legal stuff just a way to cover their tails?_

Sure, but most of it puts your tail on the line instead. They've decided that
they somehow have enough power to make you do their job, and make sure you do
it in a way that protects their legal interests over yours. You'd be a fool to
agree to it.

> _Do they really want your content?_

Yes. Their lawyer told them that it was a good idea to make sure their license
agreement gave them (and I quote) _all right, title, and interest_ (section 3)
to _any materials displayed or performed on the Service_ (definition of
"Content" in section 1). They thought it was a good idea to follow said
lawyers advice, because it was easier for them if they could just do whatever
they wanted with your content. So, yes, they want it. That's probably not
because they want to run off with it, but because it's easier (for them) that
way and they don't care about you. It's much easier for a business to evolve
and grow when they know that they can just do whatever they feel like and
don't have to stick within the narrow terms of an existing agreement. Open
"give me all your stuff" agreements are much simpler to use.

> _Why bother reading the legal stuff?_

Because they could be bothered _writing_ it, so they obviously think it's
important. And it gives them all the rights that they could possibly want for
nothing in return.

If it's not important, then it didn't need to exist in the first place. If it
needs to exist, then it's worth reading.

We're not talking about a simple end-user here, this is Maciej's company and
full time job, and IFTTT seems to want to use this license for B2B
integrations. _Crazy!_

~~~
gexla
I feel like there are two sides you can take on this. There is the "ideal"
side where we read all the fine print and stay away from services which
violate X elements which we individually consider as going over the line. Then
there is the boots on the ground reality which is what really happens vs. what
could happen.

I don't think either side is right or wrong. I see people like RMS as being on
the extreme end of the ideal side. He may be right. His tech usage habits from
his beliefs may work for him. But I'm not willing to go that far.

I think leverage may be a silent force in this case. If X service has terms I
hate but I feel like I really need the traffic I can generate from that
service (so that I can eat) then I'm probably going to jump on it. If I feel
like I don't need the service, then I may not bother. I may complain about the
terms, but being unwilling to put in the effort for something I feel I don't
need might be the greatest force.

In the Philippines, all businesses are on Facebook because Facebook is the
internet. Facebook plays similar games with their terms (as does a long list
of services). But if you want to advertise to locals, you don't have much
choice but to give in.

I would like to see someone who is expert in this area weigh in on why these
services come up with these terms. IFTTT isn't going to be selling or using
user generated content. I don't see that Pinboard has any content to lose of
their own (all of their content is user generated?)

I'm sure I'm wrong, but the only reason I can come up with is to cover your
ass if someone sues you for content which goes through your wires and
potentially gets displayed on your site. Covering your ass isn't evil.
Attempting to remove the right for one side to sue in the normal operation of
the service is attempting to create a lopsided relationship (one side gains
powers while the other side loses powers.) But they may be necessary for a
service which has received funding and could be a target for court battles.

I don't agree with much of your logic.

> If it's not important, then it didn't need to exist in the first place. If
> it needs to exist, then it's worth reading.

I have a spam folder in my email which I would submit as evidence to refute
this point. I could also submit my Facebook feed, Twitter feed and a whole
bunch of other sources.

~~~
adekok
> I would like to see someone who is expert in this area weigh in on why these
> services come up with these terms

Obligatory IANAL. But I don't need to be.

IFTTT came up with these terms because they believe the terms to be beneficial
to them. It's that simple.

They _could_ have put terms in which said "integration with IFTTT means you're
giving us permission to connect to your service, and to copy and redistribute
the data without limit". After all, that's what they do, technically.

Instead, they're claiming _ownership_ over the data. Your data.

That's something very different.

