

Terms of Service; Didn't Read - vszakats
https://tosdr.org/
Motto:<p>&quot;I have read and agree to the Terms&quot; is the biggest lie on the web. We aim to fix that.
======
ifuck
As a non-technical person from a completely different industry, my take on TOS
is this: I don't care.

Why would anyone care? Is it a legal binding contract between me and the
comany? No. It might be taken into account if we go into court, but if they
have it in their TOS that I bought an elephant from them - it will not hold.

If they grant me any rights in their TOS - do I trust them? No. I would never
keep data in the cloud without backups. Or have the assumption that my data
will be held private.

It's all just occupational therapy for lawyers.

~~~
dctoedt
> _Is it a legal binding contract between me and the comany? No._

In the U.S., Web site terms of service / terms of use can indeed be a legal,
binding contract:

\+ If you click on "I agree" or something like it, then it's very likely to be
binding, as more than one user has discovered to his chagrin. [1]

\+ If you continue to use the Web site, and the site has a sufficiently-
prominent notice that terms apply, then those terms are likely to be binding.
[2]

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickwrap)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browse_wrap;](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browse_wrap;)
see also the Ninth Circuit's extensive discussion and citation of cases in
[http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/08/18/12...](http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/08/18/12-56628.pdf)

~~~
captainmuon
I wonder if you can click on "I agree", and _lie_. Then you wouldn't be bound
by the terms, because you didn't consent to them, but your wrongdoing would
have been to access the service without permission.

It's a bit like violating the GPL: If you modify a GPL program and distribute
it without source, you violate the license between you and the person you
obtained the program from. But one could also argue you "stole" the program in
the first place and used it without license. In both cases I wonder which
"crime" would have the lesser consequences.

~~~
dctoedt
> _I wonder if you can click on "I agree", and_ lie. _Then you wouldn 't be
> bound by the terms, because you didn't consent to them ...._

It doesn't work that way --- courts look to objective manifestations of
consent, not subjective intentions.

In kids' terms: Crossing your fingers behind your back doesn't get you off the
hook.

~~~
Retric
There is however a reasonable chance the person clicking I agree is not the
end user. Setup a Facebook account for your grandparents who never click
agree. Are they then bound by the TOS?

In the end TOS are generally weakly enforceable. If facebook adds a 10,000$
annual fee in the fine print and there unlikely to be able to collect.

~~~
dctoedt
> _Setup a Facebook account for your grandparents who never click agree. Are
> they then bound by the TOS?_

My guess is that a court would ask: Can you reasonably be said to be the
"agent" [1] for your grandparents --- that is, would a reasonable person,
taking an objective look at the facts, conclude that your grandparents had
authorized you to make binding agreements on their behalf --- _for the kinds
of transactions specified in the TOS?_

If that's the question, then:

\-- You probably _are_ your grandparents' agent when it comes to agreeing, on
their behalf, to the "customary" terms in TOS, such as (for example) a
statement that the Web site owner owns all content;

\-- You probably _are not_ your grandparents' agent for purposes of agreeing
to pay a $10K annual fee, and therefore they wouldn't be bound. ( _You_ might
be bound, though ....)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency)

~~~
cmdrfred
I'll use logmein or vnc on anyones machine and of my own accord click "I
agree" for them for a small fee.

~~~
yourad_io
And under what terms do _you_ provide that service? :)

------
rev_bird
One of my favorite ToS items is from LinkedIn: You aren't allowed to "deep-
link to our sites for any purpose, (i.e. creating or posting a link to a
LinkedIn web page other than LinkedIn’s home page)".[1] The act of _linking to
a publicly available website_ is against that website's terms.

[1][https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-
agreement](https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement)

~~~
snlacks
What if they find out that you just linked to a "deep-link?"

Seriously though, is it made unenforceable when the usage by both parties
(linkedin and users) actually encourage this? (Share this on facebook!) It
sounds like a "catch-all" "don't like you" clause.

~~~
Zikes
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/weevs-case-flawed-
begi...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/weevs-case-flawed-beginning-
end)

At least one person has been imprisoned for exactly that.

~~~
roghummal
But he was a hacker, not some commenter on hacke--er... hm.

------
kristiandupont
There is a lot of legal stuff that I don't understand but one thing in
particular stands out: "Terms may be changed any time at their discretion,
without notice to the user". Unless I am missing something, that basically
says "we got your signature once, and we can now put it on whatever we like".

~~~
jorgis
You could also read that as "just ignore this document. We didn't want it to
stand up in court anyway."

------
dethstar
Not really ToS but Ello
[https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy](https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy) privacy
page is kinda funny to read.

On the Information Sharing section it says: Ello does not have any affiliated
companies right now. But if we do in the future, we may share information with
them, too.

But I guess everyone on HN already knew it was nothing but publicity.

edit: wrote trello instead of ello

------
hugoroy
Hello, hugo from tosdr.org here!

Just wanted to point out that everything is on
[https://github.com/tosdr](https://github.com/tosdr) and there are easy stuff
to work on to help us: [https://github.com/tosdr/tosdr-
build/labels/LowHangingFruit](https://github.com/tosdr/tosdr-
build/labels/LowHangingFruit)

Everything we make is Free Software (and open data) and we’re a not-for-
profit.

We recently put online: [https://tosdr.org/submit-
point.html](https://tosdr.org/submit-point.html) which is supposed to help
increase contributions to the site so that we have more data and more relevant
information. Please help us test, debug and contribute :-)

One last thing, we’re also running
[https://tosback.org/](https://tosback.org/) \-- all of this is a lot of work,
and we definitely need more contributors :-) (opened another discussion about
Tosback:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8396361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8396361))

------
c0ur7n3y
The irony is that they have to say this:

"Nothing here should be considered legal advice. We express our opinion with
no guarantee and we do not endorse any service in any way. Please refer to a
qualified attorney for legal advice. Reading ToS;DR is in no way a replacement
for reading the full terms to which you are bound."

Even criticism of legalese requires legalese.

------
darkstar999
This inspired me to look for HN's ToS. As far as I can find, it is "When you
click on a link, our server will send you the corresponding page."

[http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/](http://www.ycombinator.com/legal/)

Really? That's it?

~~~
DanBC
What more do you want? Licensing for the content of the post? ToS for
webscraping? Privacy policy?

~~~
darkstar999
You are assuming that I find it unsatisfactory.

------
jhallenworld
The problem with click-on ToS is that they include heavy handed legalize
designed to protect the service provider but for a casual service which is low
cost or nearly free to you (they are monetizing you). You certainly would read
it (or pay a lawyer to review it) if you were paying someone $100K for
engineering work or something like that. It's not worth your time for
something which is free.

A rating service like this actually sounds like a very good idea- even one
worth paying a small amount for (they very well will need money to protect
themselves from lawsuits due to bad ratings). You pay the rating service about
what you pay the web service- almost nothing.

Anyway, how else can a class push back against ToS that are not worth reading?

------
privong
The browser add-on is nice – it adds an icon to the location bar with the
overall site rating and makes the info readily accessible by clicking on that
icon. It is nice to have a quick assessment of the site's TOS as soon right as
the page loads.

------
chuckcode
Up vote, this seems like a great idea to me. I'd love to see companies get
beat up publicly when terms of service are obviously bad. Would also love to
see some standardization of privacy/content/other sub polices.

If we're all supposed to push our data from an internet of things into the
cloud the community needs to hold companies accountable as nobody else is
going to. I shudder to think what facebook would be doing right now if it
hadn't been for public outcry over things like their "Beacon" program.

------
mikelat
I like this more for the fact that I get a better idea of what these companies
are willing to say publicly about utilizing the data they have on you. TOSes
are ultimately meaningless, but comparing sites with things like "your data
remains yours" and "your data becomes ours" speaks a lot towards company
policy.

------
teachingaway
Docracy had a great terms of service tracker - it diff'ed changes to TOS for a
thousand companies.

Looks like they shut it down last year though.
[https://www.docracy.com/tos/changes](https://www.docracy.com/tos/changes)

~~~
hugoroy
Yes but it’s not open source. Ours is:
[https://tosback.org](https://tosback.org) \--
[https://github.com/tosdr/tosback2](https://github.com/tosdr/tosback2) and
tosback3

------
corford
I'm about to launch and I hate ToSs that consist of dense nonsensical
boilerplate legalese.

Is there anything out there (template or affordable service) to help a website
owner construct a sane and simple ToS for their site/wepapp?

------
el_duderino
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/terms-of-
service-d...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/terms-of-service-
didn’t-r/hjdoplcnndgiblooccencgcggcoihigg/)

------
danielweber
I've heard proposals for standardized icons for TOSs. Kind of like the truth-
in-lending statements with credit card offers that spell out everything up
front.

------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5888393)

------
wnevets
Quite frankly most of the comments on that site are very subjective

~~~
hugoroy
If there’s something you think is wrong, you can discuss and _participate_.
Can you point specific examples which you think are "subjective"?

------
Koldark
This has been around for years already.

~~~
ia
cool. how about a comment on its usefulness? code quality? breadth of TOS it
has ratings for?

"it's been around for years" doesn't add much value.

~~~
jychang
Website's user design is bad- opening "more details" in a new tab, for
example, just redirects to the homepage. It's also not very filled out- major
services like DuckDuckGo and Instagram just have stub pages.

The problem with this website is that 99% of the users will never run into an
issue with the TOS, and the 1% that do, will need a lawyer, not a TL;DR
website. It's not very needed, nor does it do a good job at presenting the
info it should.

~~~
jnbiche
You missed the (fairly obvious) point of the website, which is to advocate for
better terms of service through public ratings and advocacy, not help people
with individual legal issues.

And the reason why opening "more details" isn't doing what you want it to is
that it's not another web page, it's a modal dialogue -- ie, part of the
current web page. You can argue (reasonably) that modals aren't good design,
but it's definitely doing what it's intended to do.

And what potential stub pages are you even talking about?

