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TOS Agreements Require Giving Up First Born -- and Users Gladly Consent
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: A recent study concludes what everybody already knows: nobody reads the lengthy terms of service and privacy policies that bombard Internet users every day. Nobody understands them. They're too long, and they often don't make sense. A study out this month made the point all too clear. Most of the 543 university students involved in the analysis didn't bother to read the terms of service before signing up for a fake social networking site called "NameDrop" that the students believed was real. Those who did glossed over important clauses. The terms of service required them to give up their first born, and if they don't yet have one, they get until 2050 to do so. The privacy policy said that their data would be given to the NSA and employers. Of the few participants who read those clauses, they signed up for the service anyway. "This brings us to the biggest lie on the Internet, which anecdotally, is known as 'I agree to these terms and conditions,'" the study found. The paper is called "The biggest lie on the Internet: Ignoring the privacy policies and terms of service policies of social networking services".This reminds me of a similar thing F-Secure security firm did in 2014. It asked London residents to give them their first child in exchange of free Wi-Fi access. The company, for the record, didn't collect any children.
Users don't read ridiculous EULAs, either. I've seen some truly awful EULAs, but I'm sure people agree to them. None are worse than the GPL, which claims to promote free software, but in reality isn't free at all. If software released under the GPL were truly free, I could include the code in closed source software and distribute it commercially. The GPL isn't free at all, and it's remarkable that people agree to it. I think if people actually read the GPL, most would reject it.
I really liked the south park episode where they Apple tried to teach people not to do that by putting in permission for a human centipede.
The honest truth is those contracts are full of worthless lies intended to trick the unwary that are not aware that contracts can't make you give up certain rights.
We need to change the system to discourage/eliminate the TOS bullshit. I think that all TOS should be illegal unless they were fully negotiated by lawyers on BOTH sides - or approved by a federal agency as something that a citizen can understand and agree to without a lawyer.
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A contract requiring you to give you your first-born is not legally binding (in the United States), so that's no reason not to click "accept".
The problem is not with users being lazy or stupid as it is suggested in the article, but with TOS. For example Apple's TOS is 56 pages long and reading it won't you much good since without lawyer translating from legalese to English you are probably going to miss quite a lot of legal traps anyway. The 'fix' is to stop treating TOS as if it was a law - at best it is a list of company's wishes and hopes.
I was recently installing some software, and the actual, official documentation from the vendor had you skipping the EULA and typing Y to agree (Linux CLI install, so you could either space through it or "q" to skip it). My team and I wondered a bit at the legal implications of what would happen if a vendor telling you to skip their EULA ended up in court.
I'm a lawyer. I plow through these things regularly for clients to advise them whether certain objectionable things are present, or occasionally even to negotiate the fine details of the wording.
That being said, I don't read them at all when signing up for services for myself. Oh, I'll do better than most and actually read the closing documents for my house, or for the loan for my car, or an employment agreement, because there's real money involved there. But for "free" services, and even that $25/mo Netflix account, no, it's not worth the time or aggravation. You draw the line somewhere based upon how much you'd write off by saying "screw it, I'm out of here." Guess what -- to a surprising extent my business clients do the same thing.
The extreme example here is not relevant because there's no way on Earth that a court will permit them to collect. They're of course trying to highlight that people don't read even terms that can be enforced against them, like binding arbitration clauses. I applaud the effort in principle, but it's a losing cause because it ignores a more fundamental problem that people instinctually recognize:
For most individuals, the terms are essentially non-negotiable.
If you want to hire a programmer to do something for you, by all means, negotiate in detail and do it well. If you want to buy consumer software, take it or leave it. If you're signing up for some new cloud service, take it or leave it. Unless you are willing to put in a lot of effort, can generate enough outrage to create an ad-hoc negotiating group, or are confident that you can find an advocate within the business, reading the agreement changes nothing.
Also, very few ordinary people are deciding whether or not to enter into a contract based upon enforceable terms like an arbitration provision. That's a very high order effect in their personal utility function, if it would be considered at all.
Short summary: If the license says something that is enforceable in court, odds are super good that you can't get it removed with anything short of an activist campaign. If that's not your thing, you're still a decent human being for not caring. I understand that you have other priorities. If the license says something that is not enforceable in court, why should you care at the outset? Deal with it if the circumstance arises. Again, you have other priorities.
I call it pragmatism. I don't care whether you do or not.
It would be nice if there was one, two or maybe three standardized, generic and reasonable TOS that everybody can stomach.
That way the user has only to read one sentence and click OK if they agree.