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Consumer Campaigners Read T&C Of Their Mobile Phone Apps To Prove a Point (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the absurdly-long-t&c dept.

From a BBC report: Norwegians have spent more than 30 hours reading out terms and conditions from smartphone apps in a campaign by the country's consumer agency. The average Norwegian has 33 apps, the Norwegian Consumer Council says, whose terms and conditions together run longer than the New Testament. To prove the "absurd" length, the council got Norwegians to read each of them out in real time on their website. The reading finished on Wednesday, clocking in at 31:49:11. Some of the world's most popular apps were chosen, including Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, Skype, Instagram and Angry Birds. Finn Myrstad from the Norwegian Consumer Council, said: "The current state of terms and conditions for digital services is bordering on the absurd."

6 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Terms and conditions are generally obnoxious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has anyone read Slashdot's T&C? There are some onerous things in there, too. It's not exactly short or easy to understand. This is pretty common, unfortunately. And Slashdot is no better.

  2. Re:Who is to blame? by Piata · · Score: 4, Funny

    A good start.

  3. Re:Who is to blame? by mwvdlee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This has nothing to do with a litigious society.
    T&C's are this way because nobody in their right mind would accept them if they weren't obfuscated beyond comprehension.

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  4. Re:Yes, they are stupid by Calydor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You are missing the point.

    These are the average 33 apps the average citizen has installed. You need to know ALL OF THEM as they are not perfectly identical, and you need to somehow remember which T&C is connected to which app.

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  5. Trust by captaindomon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what is interesting is that 100 years ago, most business was transacted on trust. Shaking someone's hand and trusting them to be honest. Then we got into a lot of legalese. But now we've gone back - there is *so much* legalese around *everything* that we are back to doing business based on trust again. We buy apps from companies that we generally trust. We do business online based on reputations of companies. So the legalese has peaked and now we don't even pay attention to it anymore. It's interesting how we have gone full circle.

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  6. We need standard TOS by gurps_npc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A government agency should right up a generic TOS, with appropriate safeguards for consumer rights as well as for the corporation. Even include a reasonable requirement for arbitration (one that works both ways - they can't sue you if you can't sue them).

    Then we could say that you can only get consent by click if the TOS was approved by the agency. Otherwise, you would need a real, actual ink on paper signature to get consent for TOS.

    Nice compromise - corps can still create bullshit TOS, but they need to get you to sign paper to use that.

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