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The 5 Most Laughable Terms of Service On the Net
nicholas.m.carlson writes "According to these five terms of service and EULA, Google owns any content you create using its Chrome browser and can filter your Gmail messages if it likes. Facebook says it can sell its users' uploaded images as stock photography. YouTube can keep footage of your kids forever, even after you've deleted it from the site. And AOL can ban you for using vulgar language on AIM. Funny, right? That's why Valleywag calls them 'The 5 most laughable terms of service on the Net.'"
Reader dlaudel writes, regarding the previously-mentioned Google EULA for Chrome, "According to Ars Technica, Google's EULA for Chrome was just copy-and-pasted from its EULA for other services, a practice that is apparently common at Google."
Not really. The google one's funny, although wikis which were made with a predominantly chrome-using user base might have a problem with it. The facebook one is blatantly taking a right that it doesn't have a legitimate reason to take.
AIM probably has that in case someone goes crazy swearing at some kids and a bunch of soccer moms get angry, and the youtube one is probably some CYA, since services like that can often store copies that are hard if not impossible to find.
Overall, the terms of service (like most ToS's) are overkill and not something that people would agree to if they actually read it. The problem is that they put them in legalese, which might as well be japanese for most people.
These days, laws force people that store data to keep a copy of that data for 'forensic puropses'.
OTOH, when posting anything to The Internets, don't be surprised if it shows up in some odd places (like a google search by your boss).
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
the DMCA is laughable too, and we're not laughing
It loses in court and EULAs die and the world becomes a happier place.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
...is scary the next.
Granted, most people ignore the EULAs. But, what happens if the EULAs can actually be enforced?
The question should be: when was the last time YouTube said they wouldn't keep your home movies forever?
If you just make pessimistic assumptions until you are proven wrong by a legal document (ignoring the possible invalidity of many EULA clauses) then you don't have to worry about this stuff.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
EULA's are really more for protecting them from liability than they are for trying to steal our junk.
I mean, vis a vis the Facebook thing, there are vast quantities of precedent regarding copyright and liability which make it a bit unlikely that they could actually follow through on some mass appropriation of content...Just as an example, say I'm a professional photographer and someone else puts one of my images on Facebook...does that mean that they own all the rights to my photo? Seriously unlikely; those laws have wicked teeth, and there are very specific things that have to occur for you to transfer rights to your own copyrights to a third party.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Most people don't actually read all of the Terms of Service, including myself. The problem is we don't feel that large companies (such as the ones expressed in the article) would take advantage of us in their EULA and just agree to anything. But if we did read and find it (such as now) are we going to stop using these services? Probably not.
Anything and Everything about the Net
I think that these kind of clauses in the TOS (particularly the YouTube one listed) have to do with the fact that they aren't going to go through all their data backups and guarantee they delete your video submissions, even if you delete it from the site. When you think of it in that context, it makes a lot of sense for them to cover their asses.
not so much funny "ha ha" as funny "holy crap these companies are all run by people with God complexes."
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They're a search company and obviously used the first EULA their search engine found.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I definitely agree. Considering where your data is going and what might happen to it will almost always prevent these problems.
I think my main point is about the people on Youtube who don't read Boing Boing and /. Mostly, all of the videos on Youtube are crap that no one has to worry about. But there have to be some cases where someone makes a mistake. One may forget to edit something embarassing out, or leave something personal visible in the edge of a scene. Some YouTube users will assume that the delete switch can fix this. They probably have no idea that this information is going to stay in storage somewhere practically indefinitely.
Now, before I get caught up in the uber paranoid every-large-corporation-is-evil groupthink, it's probably safe to say that YouTube isn't going to do anything with this embarassing/personal information that the user thought was deleted. But the possibility is there and it's something to consider.
This looks like a bashing that went wrong. Complain about Googles bad EULA and they turn around on a dime and change it to the better the very next day. It must be very very hard to run a smear campaign against a company like that. Sucks to be Microsofts astroturfers nowadays.
HTTP/1.1 400
No designer in their right mind would use even an nth of the shit uploaded on Facebook everyday.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
When I was preparing to market some software, my own lawyer and I talked about it. This was several years ago but oddly enough I don't think the situation has changed much since.
The subject was "Click Through Agreements" be they on the web or on software installation programs. According to her (and she's the lead partner for IP in a fairly prestigious firm) the funny thing about click-through agreements is that they're entirely untested.
While everyone in the IP industry sort of goes along assuming they'll hold up, there remains this possibility that if someone ever did go to court the entire practice could get thrown out as invalid. We all declare that these agreements have meaning, and as long as we all pretend to admire his outfit, the emperor is treated as if fully clothed.
Any misunderstanding of my interpretation of this is down to me, not the lawyer who is quite good at her job.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Before software, the idea of agreeing to any terms before you even saw the product was ludicrous. Anything that might begin "Upon the opening of this package..." would have been called a "grift."
You should do what Playboy is said to do with their photos. You should invisibly mark the photo by your credentials.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking
It is said to have no effect on the image and if done right, it is impossible to destroy it. A webmaster friend who got seriously sick of their (expensively paid) graphics stolen by other sites implemented it to everything. I mean it is not some huge stamp or something :)
The article summary (and orginal Valleywag article) are misleading. They both fail to note that the Facebook EULA allows you to revoke the license by removing your content: "If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire..." Facebook could never create a stock photography site -- it's customers can cause the license to the content to expire at any time. Frankly, the Facebook EULA is quite reasonable. Facebook needs rights to the content that it has on the site, and that is what it asks for.
I skimmed the terms of use when I started my Verizon DSL account several years ago, and I'm quite certain it said something about downloading pornography being prohibited. Um, yeah, sure -- click "agree" to continue...
They'd never enforce something like that - they'd lose 40% of their subscribers overnight.
Correct you are. The law as it is now is completely inadequate for the information age. We need laws that do prevent Verizon from telling you what you can and cannot download. Data is Data and they need to get out of the business of telling you which kind of data or from where you can download it.