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EFF Launches TOS Tracker
stoolpigeon writes with this quote from the EFF:
"'Terms of Service' policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information. But most web users don't read these policies — or understand that the terms are constantly changing. To track these ever-evolving documents, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is launching TOSBack: a 'terms of service' tracker for Facebook, Google, eBay, and other major websites. ... The issue of terms-of-service changes — and how and why they are made — was highlighted earlier this year when Facebook modified its terms of use. Facebook users worried that the change gave the company the right to use members' content indefinitely. After a user revolt, Facebook announced that it would restore the former terms while it worked through the concerns users had raised."
A wiki-style diff/versioning would be nice.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
IANAL, but as far as I understand, if you need a special add-on to ensure that you see their updates, their updates mean nothing. If you must see and click through a TOS to use the service, it is binding. If you need to take action to see the TOS, it is not. So don't install this, don't view their updates, and save a copy of the TOS that does apply to you.
TOSBackTOS.org which tracks the TOS of TOSBack.
ToS and the control they provide to the likes of Flickr are a symptom of the provider-consumer split. In the early days of the internet, people understood that you don't need a central service to host your web page, that you do not need to give a third party rights to your photos if you just want to share them with your friends. New users don't know that anymore. When they want to do something with the web, they look around for some service which does it for them, in exchange for their content. It's so easy, who cares that you have to sign away your rights?
Which one of you PERL jockeys went and changed a good thing? Damn dudes, I know you have to do something all day, but seriously...going back to the 2001 Slashdot design would be a good thing. Screw all this Web 2.0 horseshit!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Combine that with some sort of aggregating data feed from EFF and other trusted sites.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
One of the best features of wiki pages is that you can see who did what changes and when. Maybe using that technology could be made a generic "important" files changes tracker?
TOS = The Original Series; ToS = Terms of Service. Thank you for your time.
Well, I guess it's great that they're tracking Google and Facebook and YouTube.
But how about they track the terms of service on some major credit card companies, as well?
Or health insurance companies?
Or car insurance.
You know... something fucking useful?
They are completely worthless, a dime a dozen. Anytime facebook has done anything at all there have been revolts against it. When FB changed it up some, they revolted. When FB let non-college people join, they revolted. When FB changed it up *again*, they revolted. ect...
But oh man, can you imagine the poop that would hit the fan if they went and changed it all back to how it was originally? ah that would be epic.
Facebook revolts are all fail, just like facebook.
-this from a 4+ year FB user, i even remember when facebook had the "the" lol
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
+----------+ .\|.||/..
| FIX YOUR |
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> IANAL, but as far as I understand, if you need a special add-on to ensure that you see their updates, their updates mean nothing.
Actually, I think that a judge is more likely to rule that the changes are binding if you clearly had notice of them.
So if you install this, use it, and continue to use the service after some negative change to their policy, you're more likely to be found to have agreed to it, no matter how unreasonable that change was.
In short, I won't be using this thing. IANAL, but I'd rather have mine be able to argue that I hadn't been given proper notice of that change than to install some extension that makes it clear that I knew or should have known about all the crazy changes they make to their terms of service.
IANAL but I thought there was a big to do (in the courts) years ago about how TOS only applied if you had to navigate through (like iTunes) it not lust click a box agreeing that you read it (Facebook). Anyone have info on dat?
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
AT&T changed their terms of service to ban streaming to their cell phones, then claimed it was a mistake when iPhone users threw a fit. Now, they quietly changed it again to block "streaming from television" in an effort to block the slingplayer.
"TV-Web?" TV was much *better* before the web! Why, in my youth, there was no Internet! We didn't even have computers! We only saw them on Star Trek! The *Original Series*! And you know what? We *liked it*!
(TOS was Usenet shorthand for The Original Series of Star Trek.)
like minded strangers who could become friends if only they knew you existed.
I don't know why, but for some reason that phrasing creeps the hell out of me. All fixed smiles and unblinking stares.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
That list sorta looks like The Point this article should really be all about. (Although I remain deeply suspicious of Facebook, et al.)
What about a GPL-like (copyright-ish) structure of legally binding documents, where one could refer to, say, Privacy1.0 with NoDisclosure, DonateToScience, PleaseRapeMeGently or other such defining tendencies, as well as for the Service Terms and Levels?
Might even make it easier if you could then opt-in and/or opt-out of these different parts through the provider's own site, thus enabling a common vocabulary, better legal protections (for all) and de-mystifying an otherwise (currently) murky and manual process mostly only feasibly available to the advised.
Most of the TOS's I've read boil down to.
"You agree to waive any and all rights you have in regards to this service. You also agree to waive your right to a trial if you disagree with our TOS"
I mean seriously, that's what they all say.
Just require that EULAs never be removed from the site, and they must be easily accessible from the current EULA. Let users make their own comparisons, e.g. with this new tool. This puts the minimum burden on publishers while still providing the necessary information to consumers. Settling on a diff format will be impossible :(
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Someday somebody's going to write a TOS that lays claim to your eternal soul, and promises that the product will cause the apocalypse, and that anything short of that you should be thankful for, and if you sue them, they keep everything you win, etc.
Hey, if idiots win frivolous suits because of shit you didn't warn them about, why not warn them?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.